This email includes:
1. Update on the Marine Corps Restoration Advisory Board for cleanup of unexploded munitions in Waikane Impact Area, including a call to submit comments on the proposed Feasibility Study for cleanup of unexploded munitions in Waikane Impact Area.
2. Invitation to submit application to join a Restoration Advisory Board for the Army Corps of Engineers’ cleanup project in the neighboring parcel of the Waikane Training Area.
1. Marine Corps’ Waikane Impact Area RAB and call for public comments:
Last night, December 1, 2010, the Marines held a Waikane Valley Impact Area Restoration Advisory Board meeting. They reported on findings and recommendations of the Draft Remedial Investigation (RI) and discussed plans for commencing a Feasibility Study (FS) for the clean up response at the site. The Draft RI characterized the unexploded ordnance hazard for various sections of the parcel. It also found contaminants such as copper, antimony, and TNT in several locations, but determined that the levels did not pose a risk to human health or the environment. The FS looks at different cleanup scenarios and determines the cost, feasibility and makes recommendations for action.
The Feasibility Study and the proposed cleanup methods and standards are driven by the anticipated future land use. The community has maintained that the land should be restored to its original condition that is safe for agriculture, religious and cultural practices and dwellings. The other factor is cost. Funding is often a limiting factor in military cleanup operations. It is important that U.S. Representative Hirono and Senators Inouye and Akaka hear from the community that we want the military to clean up these lands to the highest and safest level possible. They can ensure that there is ample funding for the cleanup programs in Hawai’i.
At this phase of the cleanup process, the Marines are considering several remedial options including No Action (leave the munitions in place), Land Use Controls (LUC; signs and fences), surface clearance and subsurface clearance.
Subsurface clearance is necessary for the land to be deemed safe enough to build structures and conduct unrestricted farming and other activities. However, the Marines have said that in order to do subsurface clearance, the entire land would have to be graded, including destroying cultural sites. Or the sites could be preserved but access would be forever restricted. We believe that these are false choices. It is possible to work with knowledgeable cultural practitioners to detect and remove munitions found within cultural sites without destroying cultural sites. This type of work is already happening in Makua.
The Marine Corps’ Draft Remedial Investigation Report can be downloaded here. Comments on the Draft are due January 1, 2011.
Fact sheets on the Marine Corps’ Waikane RAB can be found here, including fact sheets about the Draft Remedial Investigation Report and the proposed Feasibility Study.
Additional handouts on the Remedial Investigation report and the Feasibility Study can be found here.
We are advocating for 100% subsurface clearance to the greatest extent possible, and working closely with qualified and knowledgeable cultural practitioners and family members with ancestral ties those lands to determine how to remove munitions from sensitive cultural areas. The desired future use would be to have the restoration of Hawaiian cultural practices and agriculture and the establishment of learning and healing centers.
Submit Comments on the Draft Remedial Investigation (RI) and proposed Feasibility Study (FS) to:
Randall Hu: randall.hu@usmc.mil
Captain Derek George: derek.george@usmc.mil
David Henkin, Community Co-Chair of the Waikane RAB: davidlhenkin@yahoo.com
Deadline for comments on the Feasibility Study proposed options is January 1, 2011.
Background:
Waikane is a very culturally significant area for Native Hawaiians. Its very name – Waikane – meaning the water of Kane, one of the four principal dieties in the Hawaiian pantheon – speaks to the importance of this area. The valley is also very important for its abundant fresh water and rich kalo (taro) fields.
In the 1940s, the U.S. military leased nearly 1000 acres of land in Wai’ahole and Waikane Valleys for training with an agreement to return the land in its original condition. One of the families whose land was used was the Kamaka family, who are ancestral to the area. The military used 187 acres of Kamaka family land in Waikane valley. This happened to be the area of the heaviest munitions impacts. After the land was returned to the family in the 1970s, Raymond Kamaka began farming the land until unexploded ordnance began to turn up. When he asked the Marine Corps to clean up the munitions as agreed, the Marines instead moved to condemn the property. After a long legal and political battle the land was condemned. Raymond refused to accept the court’s ruling and the “blood money” from the military.
The surrounding 800+ acres of Waikane training area has been transferred to various public and private land owners.
In 2003, the Marines announced plans to expand jungle warfare training in Waikane aimed at fighting insurgencies in the Philippines. The community came out in strong opposition to the Marines’ plans and called instead for the clean up and return of the land. The jungle warfare idea was scrapped, but the Marines refused to discuss clean up at that time.
Then quietly around 2006, the Marine Corps officially “closed” Waikane as an active range, which triggered the Department of Defense Military Munitions Response Program (MMRP) and the commencement of clean up procedures. Clean up programs under the Department of Defense often have a joint community-military Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) to monitor and advise on the clean up process. Waikane impact area (the 187 acre Kamaka parcel) has the highest hazard rating, and therefore highest clean up priority, of all sites in Hawai’i.
The Marine Corps’ Waikane Valley RAB began in 2007. It overseas only the Marine Corps clean up on the Kamaka parcel in Waikane.
Meanwhile the Army Corps of Engineers began a clean up of munitions in the surrounding portions of Waikane valley under a different program called the Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS). The Army program is several years further along than the Marine Corps clean up. It does not have a RAB.
2. Army Corps of Engineers Waikane Training Area Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) Restoration Advisory Board
The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) recently held an informational meeting on its project to cleanup the formerly used defense site (FUDS) Waikane Training Area, which encompasses approximately 800+ acres surrounding the 187-acre Marine Corps/Kamaka parcel. The USACE is inviting the public to apply for membership on a Restoration Advisory Board for its cleanup project. If there are at least ten people interested, it will create a RAB for that site.
The deadline for applying to join the USACE Waikane Training Area RAB is December 4, 2010. Download, complete and submit the RAB Community Interest Form to
Clayton Sugimoto
c/o Wil Chee – Planning, Inc.
1400 Rycroft Street, Suite 928
Honolulu, Hawaii 96814
Phone: 808-955-6088
Fax: 808-942-1851
E-mail: wcp@lava.net
OR
Walter Nagai
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Honolulu District
Building 252, Attention: CEPOH-PP-E
Fort Shafter, Hawaii 96858-5440
Phone: 808-438-1232
Fax: 808-438-6930
E-mail: walter.t.nagai@usace.army.mil
Below are fact sheets handed out at t he USACE Waikane RAB:
UXO Safety Fact Sheet
RAB Fact Sheet, Nov 2010
RAB Community Interest Form, Nov 2010
MMRP Fact Sheet
