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 one lawyer calls a “monumental admission,” said last year that it injured thousands of people on the Hawaiian island of Oahu when jet fuel leaked from its storage facilities spilled into the drinking water system. On Monday, thousands of military family members and local residents will go on trial for financial compensation.

Kristina Baehr, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the case, said her firm had 7,500 customers continue to flee. Monday’s proceedings kick off a flagship trial, meaning it is a smaller consolidation of lawsuits brought by a larger group.

The case dates back to Thanksgiving week in 2021, when nearly 20,000 gallons of jet fuel leaked from the World War II-era Red Hill bulk fuel storage facility and into the fuel system. water which serves approximately 93,000 people near Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on Oahu. Military officials denied for days that there was a problem with the water, recorded testimony and memos sent from that time show.

By the time the military recognized the presence of oil in the water, people were already beginning to feel the health effects, many of which are still being felt today. more than 2 and a half years later.

In May 2023, the government made what Baehr considers a “monumental confession” about the crisis. In addition to admitting liability for negligence at the storage facility, she said the government “also admitted that residents on the water line in November 2021 suffered injuries.”

In a joint stipulation filed by the court and dated May 10, 2023, Justice Department lawyers said “the United States does not dispute” that the 2021 spill “caused a nuisance to plaintiffs who owned or leased residences” which were ultimately subject to sanctions. an advisory from the state Department of Health.

The DOJ also states in the document that it “does not dispute that…the United States breached its duty of care to the resident plaintiffs by exercising ordinary care in the operation of red hill” and that as a result of the “nuisance,” plaintiffs “suffered compensable injuries under the Federal Tort Claims Act.”

What the Justice Department hasn’t admitted, Baehr said, is the extent of the harm or the government’s failure to warn residents.

Baehr told CBS News that many of his thousands of customers experienced the same symptoms when the leak began: dizziness, brain fog, disorientation, rashes, nausea, vomiting and burning in the esophagus.

Years later, many have spent countless hours in the hospital and still suffer from it.

Victims of jet fuel exposure say their lives were ‘forever radically changed’

Jamie Simic, whose then-husband was a Navy chief petty officer at the time of the leak, is one of three people specifically named as plaintiffs in the case. Before the water was confirmed to be contaminated, she said her children refused to brush their teeth.

“My daughter’s teeth were falling apart. They said we couldn’t taste the toothpaste anymore… that they tasted foul,” she said, adding that on the day military officials confirmed that t there was a problem with the water, she was “vomiting while making dinner” because of the fumes and wear.

“I went to the refrigerator to get some ice cream out of my freezer and my ice cream was pure yellow and had an oily coating,” she said. “I raised it to my nose and I could smell fuel.”

The smell of fuel was on everything that came into contact with the water, from dishes to laundry, Simic said. At the direction of the military, she and her family went to Tripler Military Medical Center, but she said that during their stay they were first given only “a piece of paper to write down your symptoms” .

“There was no form. There was no doctor. No blood pressure was taken. There was nothing,” she said.

During this time, she says she and her children, now aged 11 and 10, have had teeth, incontinence and throat problems, while she has also had reproductive problems. In an amended complaint filed in December 2022, attorneys said his family had to make more than 20 doctor visits 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 states.

When CBS News spoke with Simic on Wednesday, she said the number of procedures and visits is now “well over 300 to 400.” During several of those visits, she said doctors said the problems she and her family were experiencing were related to jet fuel exposure.

“We have been diagnosed with chronic exposure to hydrocarbon toxicity more than once,” she said. “My daughter’s problems have recently been linked to her intestines. ‘At environmental exposure in Hawaii,’ that’s what her records say.”

And the toll is not only physical, it is an immense financial burden. Simic’s grandmother gave the family nearly $40,000 to help with related expenses, she said.

“Tomorrow alone, I’m probably going to spend $250 to $300 on travel with a specialist appointment, the co-pay, and then the two appointments with my children’s primary care provider.”

Mai Hall, a Hawaii native and military wife, was living in military-provided housing with her husband and two children at the time of the jet fuel leak. Speaking to CBS News in March 2023, she said her family began experiencing symptoms quickly.

“The next day it became obvious with headaches, nausea, bloody stools… The cats were vomiting. I was like, ‘Oh my God, we’re going to die,'” she told CBS News. “…We knew something was wrong. It was a bit post-apocalyptic.”

When families began informing military officials that their water had developed a strange taste and odor, their “concerns were going unheard,” Hall said.

“It must have taken a week, six to seven days, before they said, ‘Oh yeah, by the way, there might have been a fuel leak into the water,'” he said. -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, that he received confirmation that there was fuel in the water system and said he “called help” and agreed that it was obvious that people needed to be informed of the situation.

However, it wasn’t until a town hall on Dec. 5 that officials first publicly said there was fuel from the leak in the water. Previously, they released statements saying “there was no indication that the water was unsafe.”

A Nov. 30 communications plan from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam obtained by CBS News shows officials were asked to say, “There appears to be no indication that the water is unsafe” and “We have no heard of no 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 damaging as it has been for those affected, is also a story of resilience and hope.

“All we can get from this 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 been radically changed,” Simic said. “…We are already victorious in the Navy in admitting harm. We simply must be victorious in admitting long-term harm so that families like mine can continue to heal, improve and have the quality of life that was theirs has been taken away from us.