Navy: Double-wall fix to fuel tanks could cost billions
HONOLULU — The U.S. Navy estimates the least expensive method of double-walling its fuel tanks that in 2014 spilled 27,000 gallons of fuel could cost between $500 million and $2 billion.
The costs are part of an agreement to upgrade the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility on Oahu.
The facility, with 20 giant underground tanks that cumulatively hold 250 million gallons of fuel, is deemed by the military to be an essential facility for operations.
The most expensive tank-within-a-tank option, with carbon steel and full interior and exterior coating, is estimated at between $2 billion and $5 billion.
The cheapest single-wall option is projected by the Navy to cost between $180 million and $450 million.
The Navy last month completed a Red Hill study that looks at 12 potential relocation sites for what it said would be an “extraordinary project” to duplicate in 40 tanks the same 250 million gallon capacity that exists now.
The replacement facility would need to be hardened to the same level as Red Hill — which is buried 100 feet underground — to withstand missile or electronic attack, the Navy report said.
That would mean similarly burying the new tanks 100 feet below ground or installing them at a shallower depth and covering them with the equivalent thickness of concrete.
Police arrest man in connection with fatal Maui stabbing
WAILUKU, Maui — Police say a man is in custody following a fatal stabbing at a Maui mall.
Police on Sunday afternoon went to the Kahului shopping center in response to reports of a male victim who was stabbed. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene and his name has not yet been released.
Maui police spokesman Lt. Gregg Okamoto said officers took a male suspect into custody later that afternoon.
The man was arrested but has not been charged. He matched the description witnesses gave of a man who fled the scene.
Okamoto said the investigation is still in its preliminary stages.
Judge: Guilty plea stands in scam case
HONOLULU — A North Carolina man will not be allowed to take back his guilty plea to scamming the University of Hawaii out of $200,000 for a Stevie Wonder concert that never happened, a judge ruled Monday.
Marc Hubbard requested to withdraw a guilty plea he made in 2016 to wire fraud, when he said he lied about being able to bring Wonder to Hawaii for a concert.
In 2012, the university paid a $200,000 deposit, began selling tickets and then learned neither Wonder nor his representatives authorized a show.
In court documents Hubbard said he is innocent and was coerced into pleading guilty because he feared prosecutors would reveal he cooperated against East Coast mobsters. Prosecutors denied any coercion and said while he did offer to cooperate against purported organized crime figures his help was of no use.
Hubbard doesn’t meet any of the exemptions in law for withdrawing a guilty plea, said U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi in her ruling.
Hubbard is already serving more than six years in prison for a concert investment scam in Pennsylvania.
Kobayashi scheduled his sentencing in the Hawaii case for next week.
