The Hawaii Sierra Club is ramping up pressure on state officials to require massive underground fuel storage tanks operated by the Navy be upgraded faster to protect a critical source of drinking water for Oahu residents.

In a petition submitted to the state Department of Health on Wednesday, the environmental group argues that the department’s current underground storage tank regulations violate a 1992 state law that required storage tanks be replaced or upgraded no later than Dec. 22, 1998 to prevent spills.

The petition asks the Health Department to revise its rules to reflect this requirement. The department has 30 days to either accept or deny the petition.

The environmental group may consider suing the state if it doesn’t grant the petition, said Sierra Club Director Marti Townsend.

In January 2014, about 27,000 gallons of fuel leaked from one of 18 active underground tanks at Red Hill. Subsequent media reports revealed there had been dozens of leaks at the aging, World War II-era facility, possibly resulting in as much as 1.2 million gallons of leaked fuel.

In recent years, the condition of the facility has alarmed officials with the Honolulu Board of Water Supply, in particular, which is in charge of safeguarding the safety of drinking water supplies. The fuel tanks, each big enough to envelop Honolulu’s Aloha Tower, sit just 100 feet above an aquifer that supplies 25 percent of urban Honolulu’s drinking water.

“Storing millions of gallons of fuel in rusty, old tanks just one hundred feet over our aquifer is foolish,” said Sierra Club member and volunteer Erynn Fernandez, in a press release announcing the petition. “My family and I, like thousands of others, drink this water everyday. These tanks need to be immediately and completely upgraded or relocated because our groundwater is too important to be put at risk like this.”

In October 2015, the Navy entered into an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Health Department that lays out a series of studies and requirements for upgrading the tanks over the course of 20 years. But the Sierra Club says that’s too long to wait, particularly with looming EPA budget cuts under the Trump administration.

“Given the proposal to cut the EPA’s budget by 31 percent, we cannot rely solely on the federal government to protect our environment or the public’s health anymore,” said Townsend, in the press release. “Updating Health Department rules to fully implement long-standing state law ensures Hawaiʻi has all the authority it needs to protect our environment and the health of our people. Upwards of 225 million gallons of jet fuel is being stored in antiquated, leaky tanks 100 feet above Oʻahu’s most significant drinking water resource. This is unacceptable.”