Releases and regulations: Analyzing military discourse in and around disaster

• In Event: 40414 - Disaster and Inequality

Abstract

Man-made disasters (Turner 1978) are often studied as outcomes (Beamish 2000; Vaughn 1996). In this paper, I analyze man-made disasters as an independent variable by asking how organizations navigate their aftermath. Using non-causal process tracing, I compare changes in government agencies’ regulatory processes following two major fuel leaks, one that did not constitute a disaster and one that did. The Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, or “Red Hill” as it is known colloquially, is a U.S. Navy-owned and operated facility capable of storing approximately 250 million gallons in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. In 2014 the U.S. Navy reported a significant leak with no environmental or public impact at Red Hill which led to an initial consent order between the Navy, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Hawai‘i State Department of Health (HDOH). In 2021 there were two more massive leaks from Red Hill. Following these leaks tens of thousands of military families’ drinking water was compromised, over a hundred military families sued the federal government for consuming jet fuel, “forever chemicals” were found in nearby groundwater, and the secretary of defense ordered the facility’s defueling and closure. Coincidentally, a new wave of regulatory interventions went into effect. I draw on over 200 public documents including press releases, legal texts, planning documents, and communications between agencies. Based on Mills’ method of difference, I argue that the 2021 leaks constituted a disaster because of the impact on military families. I then examine how intergovernmental regulatory interventions, their enforcement, and their execution varied across agencies to understand organizational reactions to a risky leak (2014) and a disastrous set of leaks (2021). These findings are significant in theorizing interagency regulation in relationship to state-making processes during man-made disasters.

Author

• Nalani Saito, Northwestern University