A demolition contractor was hired to cave in the roof and collapse the top ten feet of the tank walls. To drain the tank, he was told to drill holes in the tank floor and what remained of its walls. Following that, the site was filled to grade. Harding Lawson Associates was hired by the Navy to conduct more detailed studies of this site. The task was more difficult than anticipated.
Contaminants found include benzene, toluene, arsenic, barium, selenium, and silver.
In 1938, the Navy began building a fuel depot at Red Hill, which lies between Moanalua and Halawa valleys. Starting in 1943, sludges and waste oil from the cleaning of these tanks were piped to an unlined waste pit 800 feet north of Moanalua Highway. When wastes were routed to the old pit, recoverable oil was skimmed off the fluid surface and collected in the two aboveground 8,000-gallon storage tanks located to the northeast of the old pit. Fluid could be drained from the old pit via the 'look box' into the bypass piping which led to South Halawa Stream. Between 1943 and 1945, approximately 1.3 million gallons of fuel spilled at the Red Hill fuel depot, the result of improper valve operation.