Pentagon to close Hawaii fuel facility that contaminated drinking water

What they're saying: "Red Hill has served our armed forces well for many decades. But it makes a lot less sense now," Austin said in a statement.

• "We will continue our work with the Hawaii Department of Health, national and local elected officials, and other community leaders, to clean up the water at the Red Hill well. And we will develop an environmental mitigation plan to address any future contamination concerns," he added.
• "This is great news for the people of Hawai'i," Gov. David Ige said in a tweet. "Our national defense begins with the health and safety of our people, and there are better solutions for strategic fueling today than there were when the Red Hill storage facility was built."

The big picture: The secretary of the Navy and the Defense Logistics Agency will submit a plan to de-fuel the facility by the end of May, a process that the Pentagon believes will take around a year.

• The Defense Department said it "will also restore safe drinking water to all affected residents and provide best-in-class sampling and testing to ensure the continued safety of drinking water."

Go deeper: The Pentagon's multibillion-dollar "forever chemicals" problem