Page 14 - MidWeek - April 26, 2023

14 MIDWEEK APRIL 26, 2023
Lance Okamura has dedicated
his life to completing assignments in the service of others. His latest task? Rebuild trust with the public in the wake of the Red Hill disaster.
Communication break- downs happen every- where in life, even in
“I asked, ‘Is this really go- ing to happen?’ They said, ‘Hmm ... well, yeah. If the secretary of defense said it, then we’ ll have to make it happen,’ ” recalls Okamura, chuckling at the memory of the conversation.
Interestingly enough, his chief responsibility with JTF-Red Hill is to ensure open lines of communication as he attempts to rebuild trust with the public.
That’s not happening, reas- sures Okamura.
the usually orderly world of the military.
even bothered to give him the news — this despite U.S. De- fense Secretary Lloyd Aus- tin’s announcement 24 hours earlier at a press conference.
“So literally in a matter of weeks, I was packing up my stuff and coming here.”
“I’ m required to engage with members of the com- munity, from the local and state level all the way up to the federal and congressional level, to ensure that they un- derstand that we are doing the right thing for the right rea- son, that we’ re being open, communicative and trans- parent, that we’ re consistent in our messaging, and most importantly, that we’re fully committed to protecting the environment and the people of Hawai‘i,” he says.
“The repair work that we’re doing is so we can safely get rid of the fuel,” he explains, adding there are other estab- lished facilities throughout the Pacific that eliminate the need to ever store fuel at Red Hill again.
Brig. Gen. Lance Okamu- ra knows this first-hand. On the morning of Oct. 1, 2022, he awoke at Guantanamo Bay to a barrage of person- al emails congratulating him on his upcoming trip home to Hawai‘i, where he was to be installed as director of strate- gic engagement of Joint Task Force-Red Hill. Problem was, no one from the military had
“Normally when you get your assignment, there’s an actual person who calls and prepares you,” explains Okamura. “But there was no preparation whatsoever.”
Now several months into his latest assignment, a mis- sion that requires navigating through what he calls “the complexities of Red Hill” — specifically, the safe removal of 104 million gallons of fuel while staying on course to hit the facility’s targeted defuel- ing completion date of June 2024 — Okamura remains pleased to be back in familiar terrain, a son of the ‘āina who
“I can’t say we’re ahead of schedule,” says the man who’s received such honors as the Defense Superior Service medal, the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star Medal over the course of his distin- guished military career, “but we’re definitely on schedule.”
“We don’t want another fuel leak or fuel spillage, but we have to do these repairs to make sure the integrity of the facility and the pipes are at 100% so that we can suc- cessfully defuel.”
Even the human resources agency for the U.S. Army’s general officer corps was unaware of the new assign- ment. Okamura immediately forwarded a copy of the press
True to form, the decorated
He also hopes to clean up
While Okamura has com- plete trust in the team at SEE PAGE 15
release to the department and requested confirmation.
stands at the ready to “serve my community ... serve the people of Hawai‘i.”
Okamura welcomes his latest challenge of helping to clean up the environmental disas- ter at Red Hill — a crisis that began in 2021 when fuel leaked from an underground fuel storage facility into a freshwater aquifer and con- taminated sources that pro- vided drinking water to area residents. He points out that of the 253 repairs and mod- ifications identified as prob- lematic at the facility, nearly 70% of them (174) have been completed.
misperceptions surrounding Red Hill in his engagements with the community, includ- ing the belief among some that the facility will be reused for fuel in the future.