CBS News
The Justice Department admitted a Navy jet fuel leak in Hawaii caused thousands to suffer injuries. Now, victims are suing the government.
The U.S. government, in what an attorney says is a “monumental admission,” said last year that it caused injury to thousands of people on the Hawaiian island of Oahu when jet fuel from its storage facility leaked into the drinking water system. On Monday, thousands of military family members and locals are headed to trial seeking financial compensation.
Kristina Baehr, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the case, said her firm has 7,500 clients suing over the leak. Monday’s proceedings kick off a bellwether trial, meaning it’s a smaller consolidation of lawsuits taken from a larger group.
The case dates back to the week of Thanksgiving in 2021, when nearly 20,000 gallons of jet fuel leaked out of the World War II-era Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility and into the water system that serves about 93,000 people near Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on Oahu. Military officials for days denied there was anything wrong with the water, as seen in recorded testimony and memos sent from that time.
By the time the military acknowledged there was petroleum in the water, people had already begun feeling the health impacts, many of which are still being experienced today — more than 2 1/2 years later.
In May 2023, the government made what Baehr says were “monumental admissions” about the crisis. Along with admitting liability for negligence at the storage facility, she said the government also “admitted that residents on the water line in November 2021 suffered injury.”
In a court-filed joint stipulation dated May 10, 2023, attorneys for the Department of Justice said “the United States does not dispute” that the 2021 spill “caused a nuisance for those Plaintiffs who owned or leased residences” that were eventually subject to a state Department of Health advisory.
The DOJ also says in the document that it “does not dispute that…the United States breached its duty of care to the Resident Plaintiffs to exercise ordinary care in the operation of Red Hill” and that, as a result of the “nuisance,” plaintiffs “suffered injuries compensable under the Federal Tort Claims Act.”
What the Justice Department hasn’t admitted, Baehr said, is the extent of the harm or that the government failed to warn residents.
Baehr told CBS News that many of her thousands of clients experienced the same symptoms at the beginning of the leak: dizziness, brain fog, disorientation, rashes, nausea, vomiting and burning in the esophagus.
Years later, many have spent countless hours in hospitals and are still suffering from the impacts.
Caleb Jones / AP
Victims of jet fuel exposure say their lives have “forever been drastically changed”
Jamie Simic, whose then-husband was a senior chief petty officer in the Navy when the leak occurred, is one of the three individuals specifically named as plaintiffs in the case. Before it was confirmed the water was contaminated, she said her children refused to brush their teeth.
“My daughter’s teeth were crumbling out of her head. They were saying we couldn’t taste toothpaste anymore… that they were tasting something foul,” she said, adding that the day military officials confirmed there was something wrong with the water, she was “throwing up while cooking dinner” from the fumes and wear.
“I went to the fridge to grab out some ice from my freezer and my ice was pure yellow and it had an oily film,” she said. “I put it up to my nose and I could smell fuel.”
The smell of fuel was on everything that came into contact with water, from dishes to laundry, Simic said. At the direction of the military, she and her family went to Tripler Army Medical Center, but she said that while there, they at first were given only “a piece of paper to write down your symptoms.”
“There was no form. There was no doctor. There was no blood pressure taken. There was nothing,” she said.
Meanwhile, she says she and her kids, now 11 and 10, have experienced issues with their teeth, incontinence and throat problems, while she has also dealt with reproductive issues. In an amended complaint filed in December 2022, attorneys said her family had to make more than 20 visits to doctors and undergo two biopsies and three surgeries. Some procedures her son needed that year “were thwarted because their son was too traumatized to cooperate,” the complaint says.
When CBS News spoke with Simic on Wednesday, she said the number of procedures and visits are now, “well over 300 to 400.” In many of these visits, she said doctors stated the problems she and her family are experiencing are related to the jet fuel exposure.
“We have been diagnosed with chronic hydrocarbon toxicity exposure more than once,” she said. “My daughter’s issues were just recently linked to it with her bowels. ‘To environmental exposure in Hawaii’ is what her records say.”
And the toll isn’t just physical, it’s an immense financial burden. Simic’s grandmother has given the family almost $40,000 to help with related expenses, she said.
“Just tomorrow alone, probably going to be spending $250 to $300 on travel with one specialty appointment, the copay, and then both of my children’s primary care manager appointments.”
Sgt. 1st Class Richard Lower/DVIDS
Mai Hall, who is Native Hawaiian and a military spouse, lived in military-provided housing with her husband and two kids at the time of the jet fuel leak. Speaking to CBS News in March 2023, she said her family started experiencing symptoms quickly.
“The next day it became apparent with the headaches, the nausea, bloody stools. … The cats were vomiting. I was like, ‘Oh my God, we’re gonna die,'” she told CBS News. “…We knew something was wrong. It was kind of like post-apocalyptic.”
When families first started notifying military officials their water had developed a strange taste and smell, their “concerns were not being heard,” Hall said.
“It must have been a week, six to seven days, before they said, ‘Oh yeah, by the way, there may have been fuel that leaked into the water,'” she told CBS News. “…And it was just an email. It wasn’t even a phone call. It wasn’t a knock on the door.”
Records show that Navy drinking water supervisor Joe Nehl said on Nov. 28, 2021, he received confirmation there was fuel in the water system and said he “called for help” and agreed it was obvious people needed to know of the situation.
However, it wasn’t until a town hall on December 5 that officials first stated publicly there was fuel from the leak in the water. Prior, they had issued statements saying there was “no indication water is not safe.”
Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam/Facebook
A November 30 communication plan from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam CBS News obtained shows officials were told to say, “There do not appear to be any indications that the water is unsafe” and, “We have not heard of any injuries.”
“I just have to trust the system,” Hall told CBS News. “And do I trust the system? No, I don’t.”
Baehr and Simic say this ordeal, as detrimental as it has been to those impacted, is also a story of resilience and hope.
“All we can get from the case is financial compensation. But financial compensation is what brings accountability,” Baehr told CBS News. “…These families took on the United States of America and won. And now it’s a question of damages.”
“Our lives have already forever been drastically changed,” Simic said. “…We’re already victorious in the Navy admitting the harm. We just need to be victorious in them admitting the long-term harm so families such as mine can continue to heal and get better and have the quality of life that was taken from us.”
CBS News
California Gov. Newsom defers clemency decision as incoming LA County district attorney reviews Menendez brothers case
California Gov. Gavin Newsom will defer his decision on the Menendez brothers’ clemency petition to allow for incoming Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman to review the case, his office announced Monday.
“The Governor respects the role of the District Attorney in ensuring justice is served and recognizes that voters have entrusted District Attorney-elect Hochman to carry out this responsibility,” Newsom’s office said in a statement. “The Governor will defer to the DA-elect’s review and analysis of the Menendez case prior to making any clemency decisions.”
Lyle and Erik Menendez have spent roughly 35 years in state prison after they were convicted in their parents’ 1989 murder. Outgoing District Attorney George Gascón sent letters in support of the brothers’ clemency to Newsom after a Netflix show and documentary revived interest in the brothers’ case.
“I strongly support clemency for Erik and Lyle Menendez, who are currently serving sentences of life without possibility of parole. They have respectively served 34 years and have continued their educations and worked to create new programs to support the rehabilitation of fellow inmates,” Gascón said in a statement before losing his re-election bid.
In an interview, Hochman said if the case is not resolved by a Nov. 25 habeas petition hearing — when a judge will hear a motion requesting to vacate the first-degree murder convictions — he will review the case to determine whether or not to recommend resentencing.
Hochman, who will be sworn in on Dec. 2, indicated that he would petition the court for additional time to review the cast ahead of the resentencing hearing scheduled for Dec. 11.
“I wouldn’t engage in delay for delay’s sake because this case is too important to the Menendez brothers,” Hochman said in an interview earlier in November. “It’s too important to the victims’ family members. It’s too important to the public to delay more than necessary to do the review that people should expect from a district attorney.”
Such an analysis of the case would involve reviewing thousands of pages of prison files and transcripts of the months-long trials as well as speaking with law enforcement, prosecutors, defense counsel and victims’ family members, he added.
“Whatever position I ultimately end up taking, people should expect that I spent a long time thinking about it, analyzing the evidence,” Hochman said. “But my 34 years of criminal justice experience — involving hundreds of cases as a prosecutor and a defense attorney — allow me to work quickly and expeditiously in conducting this type of thorough review because I’ve done it in many, many cases before.”
After being arrested for their parents’ deaths in 1990, the Menendez brothers went through two trials where prosecutors argued that they murdered their parents because of greed. However, the siblings testified that they killed their parents in self-defense. The brothers told the jury about the alleged sexual abuse they said they experienced at the hands of their father during an emotional, highly publicized first trial.
Following closing arguments, the jurors spent roughly four days deliberating but failed to come to a unanimous decision. The judge declared a mistrial after the jury was unable to deliver a decision.
In the next and final trial, the presiding judge did not allow the defense to submit some evidence connected to the sexual abuse allegations. Prosecutors argued the brothers were lying about the allegations.
The second jury convicted Erik and Lyle Menendez of first-degree murder in 1995 and sentenced them to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A state judge on Monday struck down Wyoming’s overall ban on abortion and its first-in-the-nation explicit prohibition on the use of medication to end pregnancy in line with voters in yet more states voicing support for abortion rights.
Since 2022, Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens has ruled consistently three times to block the laws while they were disputed in court.
The decision marks another victory for abortion rights advocates after voters in seven states passed measures in support of access.
One Wyoming law that Owens said violated women’s rights under the state constitution bans abortion except to protect a pregnant woman’s life or in cases involving rape and incest. The other made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, though other states have instituted de facto bans on the medication by broadly prohibiting abortion.
The laws were challenged by four women, including two obstetricians, and two nonprofit organizations. One of the groups, Wellspring Health Access, opened as the state’s first full-service abortion clinic in years in April 2023 following an arson attack in 2022.
“This is a wonderful day for the citizens of Wyoming — and women everywhere who should have control over their own bodies,” Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said in a statement.
NATALIE BEHRING / Getty Images
The recent elections saw voters in Missouri clear the way to undo one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion bans in a series of victories for abortion rights advocates. Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota, meanwhile, defeated similar constitutional amendments, leaving bans in place.
Abortion rights amendments also passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland and Montana. Nevada voters also approved an amendment in support of abortion rights, but they’ll need to pass it again it 2026 for it to take effect. Another that bans discrimination on the basis of “pregnancy outcomes” prevailed in New York.
The abortion landscape underwent a seismic shift in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a ruling that ended a nationwide right to abortion and cleared the way for bans to take effect in most Republican-controlled states.
Currently, 13 states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, and four have bans that kick in at or about six weeks into pregnancy — often before women realize they’re pregnant.
Nearly every ban has been challenged with a lawsuit. Courts have blocked enforcement of some restrictions, including bans throughout pregnancy in Utah and Wyoming. Judges struck down bans in Georgia and North Dakota in September 2024. Georgia’s Supreme Court ruled the next month that the ban there can be enforced while it considers the case.
In the Wyoming case, the women and nonprofits who challenged the laws argued that the bans stood to harm their health, well-being and livelihoods, claims disputed by attorneys for the state. They also argued the bans violated a 2012 state constitutional amendment saying competent Wyoming residents have a right to make their own health care decisions.
As she had done with previous rulings, Owens found merit in both arguments. The abortion bans “will undermine the integrity of the medical profession by hamstringing the ability of physicians to provide evidence-based medicine to their patients,” Owens ruled.
The abortion laws impede the fundamental right of women to make health care decisions for an entire class of people — those who are pregnant — in violation of the constitutional amendment, Owens ruled.
Wyoming voters approved the amendment amid fears of government overreach following approval of the federal Affordable Care Act and its initial requirements for people to have health insurance.
Attorneys for the state argued that health care, under the amendment, didn’t include abortion. Republican Gov. Mark Gordon, whose administration has defended the laws passed in 2022 and 2023, did not immediately return an email message Monday seeking comment.
Both sides wanted Owens to rule on the lawsuit challenging the abortion bans rather than allow it to go to trial in the spring. A three-day bench trial before Owens was previously set, but won’t be necessary with this ruling.
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California Gov. Newsom defers clemency decision as incoming LA County district attorney reviews Menendez brothers case
Oklahoma investigation involves man behind proposed Lino Lakes Muslim-centric development
Wyoming abortion laws, including ban on pills to end pregnancy, struck down by state judge
California Gov. Newsom defers clemency decision as incoming LA County district attorney reviews Menendez brothers case
Oklahoma investigation involves man behind proposed Lino Lakes Muslim-centric development