Wai’anae ‘Ordnance Reef’
Background:
In Hawai’i, the U.S. military routinely disposed of old munitions by dumping them into the sea. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of chemical munitions were dumped in the sea off the Wai’anae coast and off the south shore of O’ahu. In addition conventional munitions were dumped off of Wai’anae, much of it in shallow waters that the divers and fishing people have dubbed ‘ordnance reef’.
William Aila, the harbor master for the Wai’anae Small Boat Harbor, a Kanaka Maoli cultural practitioner and a leader in the movement to protect Makua valley from military activity, speaks with another Wai’anae fisherman about the ordnance problem off the Wai’anae coast.