Honolulu-a great altitude plateau on Island Grande is the only place in Hawaii, where thousands of land forces can practice the dismissal of living ammunition. It is also a place that many native Hawaiians consider the spiritual heart of the island.
The American army wants to continue training in this place, called Pohakuloa, so he is ready to send troops quickly to Asia and the Pacific. Its importance for the United States is only growing as China becomes more assertive, particularly with respect to Taiwan.
But the army lease for state lands under a key part of the training range expires in 2029. The native Hawaians annoyed with the history of the US army to damage the Hawaiian lands with target practice and fuel leaks want the army to be.
“They have bombarded and contaminated not only our land but also our waters,” said Healani Sonoda-Pale, a community organizer of the Hawaiian sovereignty Ka Lahui Hawaii. “When does this end?”
A problematic story
The military controls approximately 5% of the land of Hawaii, including the bases for all branches. It has programs and personnel to protect endangered and threatened species, prevent fires and plant native plants.
But past incidents have made many Hawaiian natives skeptical.
The Navy converted Kaholawe Island, outside of Maui, into a pump field after 1941 attack against Pearl Harbor. The Navy returned it in 1994 after years of protests. But subsequent cleaning efforts have been incomplete. Live grenades and pumps remain scattered in a quarter of the island.
The memories are still just out of when the Navy spilled fuel for airplanes in Pearl Harbor drinking water from a network of tanks and underground fuel storage pipes in 2021. The escape took 6,000 people to seek medical attention for eruptions, nausea and other ailments and contaminated an Honolulu aquifer. The disaster occurred after the admirals spent years dismissing the calls of the community to move the tanks. On Tuesday, the Honolulu water services company sued the Navy seeking to recover an estimated $ 1.2 billion that it has had to spend due to the spill.
Also in Oahu, environmental defenders say that army’s living fire training in the Makua Valley caused forest fires and destroyed native forests and sacred cultural sites. A legal agreement arrested this training in 2004.
The cultural meaning of Pohakuloa
Pohakuloa consists of rocky plains, hills and brush of about 6,200 feet (1,900 meters) above sea level between the highest volcanoes on Island Grande, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Organize endangered species, including the Hawaiian capture bush.
The first Hawaians ventured through the plateau to reach a quarry of Mauna Kea that produced high quality basalt for stone tools and travel between coastal cities.
In 2022, Army staff discovered the old “Kii” of wood, or figures, in a lava tube, an underground corridor created by molten rock. The consultants said that the figures are of human burials, and state conservationists say they are among the most important archaeological findings of Hawaii.
The Pohakuloa training area covers more than 200 square miles (518 square kilometers). The section in question is only 17% of that total, but is critically between two largest federal plots. Troops shoot ammunition from the state package in federal lands.
The importance of earth for training and deterrence
Other areas of living fire training in Hawaii are too small to accommodate battalions and brigades.
The commanders say that it would take too much time to send troops, trucks and helicopters to the US continent. For exercises.
“What we anticipate in a future fight is that we will not have time to recover that team and position ourselves back to the region,” said General General James Bartholomees, head of the Pacific Cabinet of the US Army. UU.
Pohakuloa’s training, he said, allows the troops to “move from Hawaii to the Indo-Pacific, to the key field, to be prepared to meet our adversaries, or most importantly, to deter them.”
The body of Marines, the Navy and the Air Force exercise there, as well as the allied and associated military. The Hawaii National Guard represents a quarter of Pohakuloa’s training. Firefighters and County Police departments also use it.
Negotiations to exchange land
The army prepared an environmental impact statement, including public feedback, which analyzed how the continuous use of the Army land would affect plants, animals and cultural heritage.
On May 9, the State Lands Board rejected it after hearing hours of often emotional testimony in opposition. Among other issues, the Board cited an inadequate inappropriate artillery inappropriate and an insufficient inventory of old burials and associated artifacts.
The army is considering whether to appeal. It could also negotiate an exchange of land with the State.
Such conversations cannot begin until the army ends its environmental study with a decision on their plans. The Office of the Secretary of Defense must sign to land acquisition.
Alice Roberts, manager of the US Army Program. Uu. To train land retention, he said that the service has had some informal conversations, including the attempt to understand the state exchange criteria.
Buying the Earth would be a “great obstacle” for the army, he said, because two thirds of the House of Representatives and the Senate would need to approve said transaction.
The American representative Jill Tokuda, a Democrat, said that the army must double the good butlers and compensate for the past errors of the army.
Tokuda wants the army to help increase the offer of Hawaii housing, given that service members occupy 14% of Oahu housing stock and that high housing costs are expelling residents. She said she could reinforce Hawaii’s water and sewerage infrastructure.
The governor of Hawaii, Josh Green, suggested in an interview with Hawaii News now that the military could carry the land through the eminent domain, but Tokuda said that he has not heard anyone in the army or the administration of President Donald Trump mention that.
A call for cleaning
Kaialiʻi Kahele, president of the Hawaiian Affairs Office, who advocates the Hawaiian natives, wants to see what federal lands the army would offer. He wants to know if he would be willing to reduce the impact of his training and what kind of cleaning and benefits of the community would provide.
“We have to reach a point where you train and then clean your disaster,” said Kahele, a former congressman who served more than 20 years in the Hawaii National Guard and is now in the Air Force Reserve.
“That should be the training model that respects Aina, respects this place and its culture and its people,” he said, using the Hawaiian word for the earth.
