Army has no plans for live fire in Makua

The new commanding general of the U.S. Army Pacific may be softening his position with regard to live fire training in Makua. The Honolulu Star Advertiser reports:

There may be no Army live-fire training in Makua Valley for years to come, and possibly never again, the new commanding general of the U.S. Army in the Pacific said.

Lt. Gen. Francis J. Wiercinski, who took over the Fort Shafter-based command in March, said he’s focusing on providing replacement live-fire training for Hawaii soldiers through range improvements at Schofield Barracks and at Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii island.

“I firmly believe that if those things stay on track at Schofield and PTA, we will not have to live fire in Makua,” Wiercinski said in a recent interview.

Additionally, Wiercinski is putting on hold his predecessor’s plan to convert Makua into a “world-class” roadside bomb and counterinsurgency training center as the Army continues to deal with litigation that has prevented live fire in the 4,190-acre Waianae Coast valley since 2004.

“I’m not going to move forward with disrupting anything or trying to add another element to this until we get the first steps done,” he said. “I don’t want to complicate what’s already in the court system.”

But Makua is still being held hostage as insurance against delays in the expansion of training areas in Lihu’e (Schofield) and Pohakuloa, which pits communities and islands against one another. There have been major changes in the army’s command structure that shifted more training and operations to the U.S. Army Pacific:

U.S. Army Pacific oversees issues such as Makua Valley, but also has taken on greater responsibilities across the region.

Troop levels in Alaska and Hawaii have increased as numbers have dropped in South Korea. A series of sub-commands has been added in Hawaii that has bolstered Fort Shafter’s command and control role as an administrative and deployable headquarters.

In years past, U.S. Army Pacific “never really participated in exercises as a headquarters, never participated in operations as a headquarters,” Wiercinski said.

It was always a service component command, meaning it did all of the administrative functions.

“For the first time in the last couple of years, it’s become operationalized,” Wiercinski said. “It gives (U.S. Pacific Command) an extra set of headquarters to be able to do things at a moment’s notice.”

This shift has meant an expansion of Fort Shafter as the Army Pacific headquarters:

In 2001, Fort Shafter had 1,194 soldier “billets,” or positions, and a total population of 4,077, including families and civilian workers, officials said.

That population now stands at 6,306 military members with a total Fort Shafter census of 13,172, according to the command.

While the U.S. tries to reinforce its military presence in east Asia in order to contain China, it is also withdrawing and realigning forces to Guam and Hawai’i in response to protest in Korea, Japan and Okinawa. The realignment of forces in Korea is having negative repercussions for Hawai’i:

The Eighth Army is becoming a combat unit in a return to its Korean War-era roots.

Fort Shafter will exercise the service component command change with the Eighth Army in August.

For an increase in soldiers in Hawaii, firing ranges have been added at Schofield and a Battle Area Complex for Stryker vehicle training is expected to be completed in late 2012, officials said.

Meanwhile, a new Infantry Platoon Battle Area at PTA that could permanently replace Makua Valley might be ready for use in 2014 or 2015, the Army said.

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January 14, 2011

Army’s Makua move welcome

The editorial from the Honolulu Star Advertiser about the Army’s decision to end live-fire training in Makua is surprisingly favorable to the community groups. It ends with an acknowledgment that the move of major training activities to Pohakuloa will incite other resistance: “The decision to move live-fire training from Oahu to the Big Island will not quickly dissolve reasonable resistance and scrutiny — nor should it.”

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Source: http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/20110113_Army_ends_live-fire_training_at_Makua.html

Army’s Makua move welcome

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jan 14, 2011

After some two decades battling environmental and cultural advocates, the Army has agreed to remove heavy firepower exercises from Makua Valley. The decision is not the full surrender that some had wanted and the Army needs to provide an analysis of the environmental effects created by the decision to alter its training grounds — but the move is a step in the right direction.

The decision comes five years after a federal judge ruled that the Army had failed to show that 25th Infantry Division soldiers would be “inadequately trained” if denied use of live ammunition in field exercises in the leeward valley, an Army training area since the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Four years have passed since the Army reported to Congress that the training in Makua was “absolutely necessary,” although no live-fire training has been permitted there since 2004.

Just over the Waianae ridge from Schofield Barracks, the 25th Infantry’s headquarters, the valley is regarded by some as a sacred place and is home to a multitude of endangered species.

Little more than two months ago, U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway found that the Army had failed to adequately show how the live-fire training would affect cultural sites in the valley and Makua Beach limu, a seaweed consumed by families that fish in the area.

A trial on unresolved issues had been scheduled to begin next month.

The Malama Makua community group, which challenged the Army in court in 1998, and David Henkin, its Earthjustice attorney, welcomed the Army’s new stance. Waianae physician Fred Dodge, a Malama Makua board member, is understandably cautious about what the Army intends to do with the valley, remarking that he “would like to know more” about the Army’s plans.

Lt. Gen. Benjamin R. “Randy” Mixon, former commander of the 25th Infantry and now head of the U.S. Army in the Pacific, says the artillery and other heavy weapons training will move from the 4,190-acre Makua Valley to the 133,000-acre Big Island Pohakuloa Training Area, Schofield and mainland sites.

The Army is now eyeing Makua for a roadside-bomb and counterinsurgency training center, with conditions replicating those in Afghanistan. The potential effects of that new plan should be cautiously vetted.

The Army already faces opposition at Pohakuloa over depleted uranium contamination, but asserts that the radiological doses are “well within limits” considered safe.

Pohakuloa now is being used as an Army training area for 19-ton Stryker tracked vehicles.

The live-fire training move to Pohakuloa will provide ammunition for the opposition Malu Aina Center for Nonviolent Education & Action, headed by longtime peace activist Jim Albertini.

Mixon says the plan for Pohakuloa will be described in a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement now being prepared.

The decision to move live-fire training from Oahu to the Big Island will not quickly dissolve reasonable resistance and scrutiny — nor should it.

January 14, 2011January 19, 2011

A partial win for Makua, but struggle far from over

Yesterday, the Army announced that it will end live fire training in Makua valley. This is a win for those who have struggled for many years to save Makua from the destructive and contaminating activities of the U.S. military. The Honolulu Star Advertiser ran a story and so did the Associated Press.

However, it is only a partial victory.

The Army continues to hold Makua hostage and plans to use the valley for other kinds of training. Furthermore, the Army is shifting the bulk of its training to Schofield in Lihu’e, O’ahu and Pohakuloa on Hawai’i island. This is consistent with the recent announcement of a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for expanding or renovating training facilities at Pohakuloa.

This was never a “Not-In-My-Back-Yard” movement. Trading one ‘aina for another is not acceptable. Furthermore, it leaves unchallenged the very premise that the training is needed. Training for what purpose? To invade and occupy other countries? Inflict death and destruction in the name of Pax Americana?

The movement to protect Makua moves into a challenging phase as we now push for the cleanup and return of the land. The Army is hoping that non-live fire training will be less likely to inflame community anger. By removing a major flashpoint, the Army hopes to deflate the momentum of the movement. It is more difficult to sustain high levels of energy around the technical and tedious clean up and restoration of a site. So we must be inspired by our vision of the alternative we hope to grow in Makua.

Every gain we make in Makua owes to the thousands in Hawai’i and around the world who have come forward to malama ‘aina, speak out, protest, pray and grow the peaceful and blessed community we wish to see in the world. The Makua movement must not forget its kuleana to the many people who have stood in solidarity with us, as we continue to stand and speak out in solidarity with others.

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http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/20110113_Army_ends_live-fire_training_at_Makua.html

Army ends live-fire training at Makua

After decades of opposition to bombing the valley, real ordnance will be used only at Schofield and Pohakuloa

By William Cole

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jan 13, 2011

The last company of soldiers may have stormed the hills of Makua Valley with M-4 rifles blazing, artillery whistling overhead, mortars pounding mock enemy positions and helicopters firing from above.

After battling environmentalists and Hawaiian cultural practitioners since at least the late 1980s, the Army said this week it is acceding to community concerns and no longer will use the heavy firepower in Makua that started multiple fires in the 4,190-acre Waianae Coast valley and fueled a number of lawsuits.

In place of the company Combined Arms Live-Fire Exercises, known as CALFEXes, the Army said it is moving ahead with a plan to turn Makua into a “world class” roadside-bomb and counterinsurgency training center with convoys along hillside roads, simulated explosions and multiple “villages” to replicate Afghanistan.

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February 12, 2010February 12, 2010

Live-fire over Makua valley

As the Honolulu Weekly reported below, the community turned out to protest the Army’s plan to establish an Asia-Pacific Fusion Counter-IED center at Makua. Like a pimp, the Army is soliciting other countries to use and abuse Makua. Stars and Stripes reported that in Thailand during “Cobra Gold” joint military exercises, “U.S. Army Pacific officials briefed the Thai brass on a new Asia-Pacific Fusion Counter-IED Center now starting up in Hawaii.” Time for the Army to get out of Makua.

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http://honoluluweekly.com/feature/2010/02/live-fire-over-the-valley/

Live-fire over the valley

Citizens ask why the Army needs Mākua at all

Chris Nishijima
Feb 10, 2010

Image: Chris Nishijima

Tension was high at the Waianae Neighborhood Community Center as Waianae Neighborhood Board Chair Jo Jordan opened the Feb. 2 meeting by leading a restive crowd in Hawaii Ponoi. When the song reached its traditional conclusion and most of the room started to sit, many in attendance carried on through the deeper verses of King David Kalakaua’s national anthem.

Before the meeting, Jordan offered condolences to the family and friends of her fellow board member, Michael Anderson, who died during a hiking accident the previous week. Anderson’s empty chair set a somber tone, as did the main business of the evening–the Army’s presence in Makua Valley.

Makua Valley spans more than 4,190 acres and has been the site of military training since World War II. In recent years, Native Hawaiians and environmentalists have been pressing the Army to reduce its impact in Makua, and to halt live-fire training in particular.

“Makua is a want of the Army, not a need,” said William Aila Jr., a Hawaiian cultural practitioner who is active in the community’s attempts to reduce the Army’s presence in the valley. Aila points out that the Army has not trained in Makua at any point during the past five years.

“This is the greatest indication that they don’t need Makua,” he said. “It is a need of the community.”

Others echoed Aila’s concerns, and said that the Army is not properly respecting the area as a sacred part of Hawaiian heritage.

But Army officials insist they understand the community’s concerns.

“We are not some big evil organization,” said Col. Matt Margotta, who represented the Army’s 25th Infantry Division. “We are attempting to better understand the Hawaii community.”

Margotta explained that Makua provides a unique setting which allows the Army to simulate a war zone without taking soldiers stationed on Oahu away from their families for an extended period of time. Margotta also pointed to ways in which the Army’s presence has helped improve the community. He said that the military has spent some $7 million toward repairing roads and $10 million toward protecting Hawaii’s endangered species, 41 of which can be found in Makua Valley.

“The Army recognizes that we have an impact on the community,” he said, “We are trying to change that.”

But many of those in attendance were not satisfied, and voiced concerns over the military turning the area into what they said amounts to a munitions trash heap.

“What you need to do is go back to Kahoolawe and clean it up!” said Shirley Nahoopii of Waianae. “You have not fulfilled your promise to clean up there after you were finished with it! Is Makua going to end up the same way?”

Concerns about the dangers of unexploded ordnances, or UXOs, left over from Army training are widespread in areas surrounding the Makua Valley. That’s why Apple, Inc., is donating more than 300 Apple MacBook computers, each equipped with a unique question-and-answer system, to select public schools.

“The students will be required to answer one question regarding UXOs before signing in,” said Tom Burke of the Hawaii Veteran’s Society, who announced the program at the meeting.

Despite these efforts, some found the program itself, which features a caricatured version of a Native Hawaiian, to be controversial.

“If this is a native, I think it is rather tasteless,” said Johnnie-Mae Perry, a member of the board.

The Army has yet to release a date to resume training in Makua. Another meeting with representatives of the 25th Infantry will announced by the Waianae Coast Neighborhood Board within 60 days.