One state agency fined another last week for having an unreported underground storage tank, but where will those funds go?
Last Friday, the Hawai‘i Department of Health announced that the Hawai‘i Emergency Management Agency had failed to report a 6,000-gallon underground diesel fuel storage tank since its installation in 1997.
DOH only became aware of the tank in 2023, when HI-EMA finally reported its existence.
Because of that failure — as well as HI-EMA failing to conduct monthly inspections and annual leak detection equipment tests during the intervening 28 years — DOH fined HI-EMA $98,500.
DOH told Aloha State Daily that money, once collected, will go into the “Leaking Underground Storage Tank Revolving Fund,” which is used to respond to fuel leaks from other underground storage tank systems.
HI-EMA’s tank is not believed to be leaky, however. DOH told Aloha State Daily that there have not been any reported leaks or releases from the tank since its installation. Since its reporting, the tank system was subjected to tests by a third-party contractor, which indicated that the tank remains in good operating system.
The tank is located beneath HI-EMA’s Battery Birkhimer facility within Diamond Head Crater.
