1 From:
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2015 3:11 PM

To: RedHill Subject: Red Hill fuel facilities operation: looki ng at less-tangible human and management factors?

Follow Up Flag: Follow up Flag Status: Flagged

I've been intermittently involved with projects thr oughout Red Hill, as well as th e fuel distribution piping system since the late 1990s. Having just received BWS' notice of public meeting and invitation for comment, I spent some time going through the online documents provided for reference.

While I am impressed at the breadth of coverage in technical terms, conspi cuously absent - es pecially to anyone familiar with the management style and 'policies' of th e Pearl Harbor Fuels' uppermost personnel in recent years - was a plan to review FISC Pearl Harbor Fuels' command/control in hum an-resources terms, looking at loss of employees, level of satisfaction with treatment and policies, and other aspect s that clearly can negatively affect the operation of the facility - and materially contribute to incidents and accidents.

At my last count, valuable long-term personnel were in a protracted exodus from the fuels department, owing to barely-tolerable, extreme top-down management practi ces. Personal "investment" in facility projects was effectively and actively discouraged, as decision-making was taken out of th e hands of those who had formerly exercised a great deal of autonomy, as if to actively discourag e dedication by those pers onnel. Contractors, long aware of the inherent difficulties that traditionally co me with any work in Red Hill or associated pipeline facilities, certainly also felt this shift towards a hostil e work environment, and consequently either turned down opportunities to bid, or added to their prices to accommodate dealing with this new consolidation of control. The negative impact on morale, for those who continue to work within the complex, cannot be quantified, but is clearly considerable.

It wasn't always this way. Under direction of , who retired after many years with Fuels ISC fuels was managed with a positive, team-spir ited approach that actively supported contractors and empowered fuels personnel to implement better practices and procedures when warranted. The contrast between then and now in mood, contentment, stress amongst facil ity personnel, and certainly job performance, could not

be more stark.

was forced to resign after a similar fuel spill in 2001/2002, whether rightly or wrongly. Many did not think this fair, but it happened anyway. This event almost certainly informed subsequent management mindset: "don't let this ha ppen to you." Clearly the more rece nt trend towards tight controls by management has gutted morale. It is ev ident that, if the intent of such re strictive and contro lling oversight was

to ensure that accidents such as this most recent spill would not occur, this policy has failed dismally.

One aspect of this that begs the question of who s hould/could have known about th is: considering that the facility has enjoyed state-of-the-art electronic fuels-management technology for some years, does it not concern investigators that the leak was active from 9 Decemb er 2013 until 13 January 2014, over a period of almost five weeks? (this per par. q, p. 5, AOC) As a newly-reco mmissioned tank, one would expect closer-than-normal scrutiny during filling and putting back into serv ice, yet clearly this was not the case.

Has there been any attempt to gather opinions on these issues, perhaps by su rveying those on th e front lines? If not, might this not be worth review, hopefully resulting in adjustments to management structure, policy, and personnel?2 Sincerely,