Kash Patel’s Pearl Harbor snorkel raises ethics—and contamination—concerns
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It’s like having a bachelor party at a church. It's hallowed ground. It needs to be treated with the solemnity it deserves.
—Hack Albertson, Marine veteran
When FBI Director Kash Patel’s Hawaii trip made headlines, the first reaction was understandable: Pearl Harbor is hallowed ground.
Government emails show that Patel participated in what officials called a “VIP snorkel” around the USS Arizona Memorial, where more than 900 sailors and Marines remain entombed. [] Snorkeling and diving there are generally off-limits, with limited exceptions for National Park Service surveys, marine archaeology, internments, or select official visits. []
That alone raises an ethical question: Who gets access to a military cemetery, under what rules, and why was the outing not disclosed when the FBI publicly framed the Hawaii stop as official business?
But for physicians—particularly those attuned to the long tail of environmental exposure crises in Flint, Michigan; Camp Lejeune, the Marine Corps base in North Carolina; and Red Hill, the fuel storage facility in Hawaii—the image raises a more clinically urgent question: What are the public health implications of placing a VIP in the water at an active military installation with a highly publicized history of contamination?
The environmental-health question
The USS Arizona Memorial is not a recreational dive site. It’s a grave. [] The site commemorates the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. [] Access to the water around the memorial is highly restricted, both to preserve the site and to maintain its solemnity. []
“It’s like having a bachelor party at a church. It’s hallowed ground. It needs to be treated with the solemnity it deserves,” Marine veteran Hack Albertson told AP News. []
At the same time, Pearl Harbor remains part of an active military environment, with fuel infrastructure, shipyards, and wastewater systems.[]
In late 2021, jet fuel from the Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility contaminated the Red Hill drinking-water well, affecting approximately 93,000 users of the Navy water system, according to the US EPA. [] Families reported petroleum odors in tap water and health symptoms. The leak flowed into the aquifer that supplies the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam water distribution system, which serves thousands of households, along with schools and workplaces. Sampling later found high levels of petroleum hydrocarbon contamination. []
The interagency response restored the drinking-water system in March 2022, and more recent EPA assessments have reported no evidence of residual fuel or fuel-related contaminants remaining in the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and Aliamanu Military Reservation public water systems after the 2021 release. [][]
Related: The 3 most toxic chemicals found in our food and waterThat distinction is important. Current drinking-water findings should not be blurred into unsupported claims about Patel’s individual exposure, or about the harbor water itself.
But the broader context has not disappeared. The EPA has continued to track groundwater contamination around the Red Hill tank area, and additional monitoring has been planned to better understand the extent and movement of contamination. []
Exposure stories do not end when the advisory is lifted
For doctors, the Red Hill episode remains medically relevant because exposure narratives rarely end when an official water advisory is lifted.
Officials conducted health surveys after the petroleum contamination. [] The Department of Defense’s Defense Health Agency has noted that many exposed people reported initial symptoms such as rash, nausea, vomiting, headache, stomach pain, and eye irritation, with some people continuing to report health problems after the release. []
Clinicians know the challenge of these cases. Symptoms may be nonspecific. Documentation may be incomplete. Exposure pathways may be contested. Patients may come in with frustration and distrust, especially if they feel official communication minimized their experience.
That is why transparency matters. In environmental health crises, credibility is built through clear timelines, careful documentation, and a willingness to distinguish what is known from what remains uncertain.
Related: The most striking passages from The Lancet's scathing review of RFK Jr.’s first 'year of failure'Pearl Harbor is still an industrial system
That does not mean the snorkel created a proven health risk. But it does reinforce the larger point: Active military bases are complex industrial environments. They contain aging infrastructure, fuel systems, stormwater pathways, wastewater lines, and operational hazards.
The controversy surrounding Patel’s reported snorkel is therefore not only about personal judgment. It is about institutional standards.
If a senior official receives unusual access to a protected war grave, the public can reasonably ask who approved it and why. If that access occurs in water connected to an active military installation with a recent history of contamination, the public can also ask whether safety and environmental health considerations were reviewed.
Those questions do not require assuming harm. They require taking the setting seriously.
For physicians, that distinction is familiar. Good environmental medicine does not begin with certainty. It begins with exposure history, plausible pathways, careful documentation, and humility about what has not yet been established.
Related: Environmental factors that contribute to higher heart disease rates