The firm-fixed-price contract calls for construction of the P-716 Red Hill Water Treatment Facility, with completion expected in August 2029. The Navy is obligating $109.3 million in fiscal 2026 military construction funds at award, with the balance to be funded incrementally in future fiscal years.

“This contract marks an important milestone in our commitment to protecting the health and safety of our Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam community and restoring confidence in our water infrastructure,” Capt. Andrew Hunt, NAVFAC Hawaii executive officer, said Aug. 12.

The design-bid-build project includes granular activated carbon pressure vessels, modifications to the Red Hill Pump Station and water shaft, transmission piping, electrical distribution, fire-protection facilities and associated structures. NAVFAC describes the plant as having a 10-million-gallon-per-day treatment capacity, although the Navy’s May 2026 final environmental assessment says operations would be limited to an annualized average of about 5 million gallons per day under the current water-use permit.

Since January 2022, water pumped from the Red Hill Shaft has been treated through an onsite GAC system and discharged to Halawa Stream. An interim modified GAC system under construction is intended to bridge operations until the permanent plant is ready and, after Hawaii Dept. of Health approval, would be connected to the drinking-water network. The permanent plant would ultimately allow treated shaft water to reenter the system rather than be discharged.

Hensel Phelps Regional Vice President Jonathan Tseu told ENR in an email that planning and coordination are already underway, while acknowledging that the company is limited in what it can disclose due to contract-controlled information per the Navy.

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“We are committed to building a top-quality facility utilizing cutting-edge techniques and materials that will make it safe, resilient and reliable for the people being served,” Tseu said.

The roughly 25.6-acre improvement area requires substantial grading on sloping terrain, including mechanically stabilized earth retaining walls up to 33-ft high, concrete retaining walls and rockfall mitigation such as scaling cut surfaces and installing anchored wire mesh. Construction staging is planned on Hawaii Dept. of Transportation right-of-way, with one access route crossing Halawa Stream on an existing highway-rated culvert bridge.

NAVFAC’s contractor experience requirements called for previous work involving rock excavation and boulder removal, steep-slope scaling, drilled shafts or well bores, retaining and mechanically stabilized earth walls taller than 10 ft and settlement monitoring. Separate experience requirements covered vertical-turbine water-well pumping systems and packaged GAC systems involving controls integration, testing and commissioning.

Supporting construction includes about 26,300 sq ft of new facilities, among them the GAC vessel canopy, chemical-feed and neutralization buildings, generator and switchgear buildings and a 250,000-gallon aboveground concrete fire-protection water tank. New underground electrical service and distribution, raw- and finished-water transmission lines, and wastewater pumping and force-main systems are also planned.

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The award comes below an early NAVFAC planning range. A January 2026 workload projection listed P-716 at a potential $500 million to $600 million, while warning that the figures reflected government intentions subject to change. By the presolicitation stage, NAVFAC listed the anticipated contract magnitude at $250 million to $500 million.

ENR reported in 2023 that Defense Dept. officials had awarded HDR Engineering Inc. architecture-engineering work for the Red Hill Water Treatment Facility and Vectrus System Corp. operation of a 5-million-gallon-per-day GAC filtration system as the Navy worked to recover the contaminated shaft and defuel the underground fuel complex.