Stryker brigade snag

Kudos to Joan Conrow for monitoring the depleted uranium (DU) issue at Schofield Barracks and writing a great article in the Honolulu Weekly. The Army tried to move ahead with construction plans for the Stryker Brigade expansion in an area contaminated with DU. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must approve all activity by the Army involving radiological materials like DU. The Army only applied for a permit to “possess” DU, arguing that it intended to leave the material in place and not disturb it by any activities. But recently, the Army planned to burn grass and begin construction in a contaminated area, which would constitute a removal or clean up action, something not allowed under the Army’s requested permit. As Conrow reports, the NRC “snapped”. This may delay the Army’s plans. Furthermore, it reveals the dishonesty of the Army in its handling of contamination and cultural issues.

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Stryker brigade snag

In tense meeting, regulators snap over depleted uranium

Joan Conrow | Nov 3, 2010

Stryker / Plans to construct a Stryker Brigade training area at Schofield Barracks ran afoul of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) because the Army has no license to handle the toxic depleted uranium there.

This was underscored during the Army Corps of Engineers’ Oct. 29 informational briefing to the NRC in Washington, DC. (This reporter attended the meeting via conference call.)

The Corps had planned to begin the $80 million construction project this week with a controlled burn at the range. Instead, NRC staff warned the Corps that it risked sanctions if it proceeded because it has no license to possess, decommission or transport radioactive depleted uranium at Schofield.

Depleted uranium from weapons likely used in training between 1962 and 1968 was discovered at Schofield Barracks in August 2005, according to information available at the NRC’s website.

“I’m putting you on notice that this could constitute potential deliberate violations of NRC regulations,” NRC attorney Brett Klukan told Hans Honerlah, chief of the Corps’ Radiation Safety Office. “We don’t approve of what you’re doing right now. There needs to be a review and approval of what you do. You are outside the process.”

It was also disclosed at the briefing that the Army conducted an unauthorized cleanup of soil contaminated by depleted uranium at Schofield in 2008. Some of that material was already transported out of the state and some remains stored in Hawaii awaiting shipment.

“Under what legal authority did you remove this DU?” Klukan asked Honerlah.

“It was an Army call,” Honerlah said. “We had the choice of leaving it there or properly disposing of it, so we disposed of it.”

“So you didn’t really do that analysis to see if you had legal authority to dispose or transport this material,” Klukan pressed.

Honerlah said the cleanup work was done under the license of the Army’s contractor, Cabrera Services. But NRC staff said the Army, as the owner of the radioactive material, must hold the license.

“This shows the Army has been playing fast and loose with the rules,” said Kyle Kajihiro of Demilitarize Hawaii. “That’s what we’ve found all along. They’ve given misinformation to the public and to the regulators. That’s why we can’t trust that they [the Army] will do the right thing by the community.”

The NRC said it would investigate the 2008 clean up as part of its ongoing review of whether enforcement actions should be taken against the Army for unlicensed activities involving depleted uranium dating back to the 1960s.

The dense, toxic material served as ballast in the M101 “spotting rounds” used in Hawaii and elsewhere for training in conjunction with the Davy Crockett recoilless gun, one of the smallest nuclear weapons ever built.

The Army has applied to the NRC for a license to possess 17,600 pounds of depleted uranium at its American installations, including Schofield and Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii Island. But Klukan said the application was for possession only.

“We were never made aware the Army intended to pursue decommission,” he said, adding that the NRC had advised the Army that areas with depleted uranium should not be disturbed.

Klukan said the Army must either amend its application or seek a separate license to conduct the decommissioning work.

Klukan also rapped the Corps for attempting to proceed with the Stryker construction project without first running its plans by the NRC.

“Where did you get the authority to think the NRC wouldn’t need to review the remediation plans?” Klukan asked.

“We didn’t think it was decommissioning,” Honerlah replied. “We thought it was just cleaning up the area to make it safe for construction.”

NRC staff said it typically takes the agency a year to review technical plans.

“Usually an applicant gives us notice of an activity of such magnitude so we can rally resources,” Klukan said. “You guys want to start next week.”

Honerlah said all the plans have been completed in draft form, but only half have been finalized.

“Do we have to notify them [NRC] and get approval of all our activities?” asked a Cabrera staff member of his attorney during a break in the proceedings. The attorney, apparently unaware that his voice was not muted on the conference call, replied: “I guess that depends on how they interpret what we’re doing.”

Klukan also noted that the Army claimed in its application that it did not know how much depleted uranium it actually possesses because it could not conduct a full survey of its ranges.

“But now we’re finding in an area where you want to do a full survey, you can. I’m highly concerned about that. So it is possible to clean up the unexploded ordnance, which we were told was not possible.”

“Anything’s possible,” Honerlah said. “It’s a question of cost.”

Honerlah said he would need to talk to his supervisors about how the NRC’s stance would affect the construction schedule, although he did note “it could take years” to complete the agency’s review process.

Kajihiro said he hoped the delay would support efforts to gain protection for archaeological sites and burials that would be impacted by construction.

October 16, 2010

Army monitoring Kolekole Pass wildfire

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/105080389.html

Army monitoring Kolekole Pass wildfire

By Star-Advertiser Staff

POSTED: 03:39 p.m. HST, Oct 15, 2010

Army firefighters are allowing a wildfire to burn on several ranges near Kolekole Pass.

The fire began about 6:15 p.m. Wednesday at Range KR8 and is not threatening any facilities at this time, the U.S. Army Garrison said.

Army firefighters are monitoring it and still have not determined a cause.

The 300- to 400-acre fire is burning in an area that was scheduled for a prescribed burn in November, so officials are letting the fire burn out on its own.

September 11, 2010

“Stryker Advise and Assist Brigade”?

According to the Tacoma News Tribune the Hawai’i-based 2nd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division is now called the Stryker Advise and Assist Brigade:

the Defense Department is using kinder, gentler terminology to describe its deployed units in Iraq, now that President Obama has pulled out all “combat” troops.

For example, according to a casualty press release we read, the 2nd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division out of Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, is now called a “Stryker Advise and Assist Brigade” rather than the traditional “Stryker Brigade Combat Team” – even though the soldiers are presumably still driving the same 20-ton vehicles equipped with the same .50-caliber guns, grenade launchers, etc. And even though they are still dying in combat engagements with enemy fighters.

That brigade, by the way, is taking part in “Operation New Dawn,” according to the same press release. The name has a slightly different flavor than the longstanding “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

But apparently the Iraqis don’t like the advice and assistance they are getting. Michael O’Brien writes in antiwar.com that ‘First US Soldiers in Iraq ‘Non-War’ Killed’:

The first two US soldiers to die in Iraq since Barack Hussein Obama told the country (and the world) that we were no longer at war there were killed on Tuesday, September 7, 2010. To those with a shred of logic and common sense, this poses a problem: if we’re not at war, how do we classify their deaths? If we’re not at war, as Obama and Biden tell us, I guess that makes the deaths of these two soldiers the equivalent of a training accident, or maybe the equivalent of a bar fight gone wrong. If we’re not at war they aren’t combat casualties. Obama and Biden have made it so. The insurgent who killed these soldiers must not have gotten the word when Joe Biden was over there a week ago. Someone needs to tell him the war is over and to go home. Maybe Joe will go back and do that.

September 9, 2010

Missile programme raises concern in Hawaii

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=55776

Missile programme raises concern in Hawaii

Posted at 04:30 on 09 September, 2010 UTC

A Kauai resident in Hawaii says people are divided over the issue to expand a military missile programme to develop ballistic missile testing from the island.

Juan Wilson says some residents support the military, saying it brings jobs and incomes in economically tough times.

But he says others are concerned about the environmental damage to sea life, the atmosphere and the land.

He says while there is the US military’s push to grow its presence in the Pacific region, there’s increasing concern about people’s safety on a small remote island, like Kauai, if the military’s expansion plans continue.

“For one thing it makes us a target here which we don’t particularly like. If there were the things that the military anticipates, major conflicts that uses weapons systems of the kind that they are developing, we would be ground zero.”

Kauai resident, Juan Wilson.

September 7, 2010

Kaua’i missile site will expand

The Honolulu Star Advertiser reports that “Garden Isle missile site will expand: Testing for a land-based defense system would bring a new complex to the island”:

The Pentagon is planning a $278 million program to increase missile testing on Kauai that would improve the protection of Europe from ballistic missiles from countries such as Iran, and provide an additional element of defense for Hawaii from North Korean threats, officials said.

The “Aegis Ashore” testing would have a land-based missile defense capability similar to the successful ship-based ballistic missile systems on 21 U.S. Navy ships, including six cruisers and destroyers based at Pearl Harbor.

The Obama administration announced in September 2009 plans for the “Phased Adaptive Approach” for the protection of Europe using Navy ships with ballistic missile defense and two land-based versions, probably in Romania and Poland, that would each have 24 SM-3 missiles.

August 30, 2010

Military plans to fence off firing range on Kaua’i

The AP reports that the Hawaii National Guard was granted approval by the Kau’i County Planning Commission to fence off a nearly 10-acre firing range in Kekaha. The excuse: “to deter vandalism, to control access and to provide security.”

The planned 6-foot-tall, 1.2-mile-long fence is to be topped with three strands of barbed wire. It will be constructed along the eastern, western and southern boundaries of the range.

Last January, the commission approved an Army request to install a fence 102 feet from the shoreline. Rifle Range is a popular surf spot in the area.

In 2007, Bob Sato, who works with youth, teaching them to surf and producing a video program on the cable access station, was assaulted by private security guards from the Pacific Missile Range Facility. The guards were using the firing range and told Sato to leave the public surfing area near this firing range. Sato stood his ground, pointing out that he was on a public beach outside the military base. He videotaped the entire incident. The guards threatened Stato and grabbed his camera. When Sato reported the assault, the police cited him instead. The video appears to have been taken down from YouTube, but here are some articles about the incident.

Now it appears that the military is engaging in another land grab.

August 30, 2010

In Search of Real Security

Earlier this month, I was honored to be invited to Kaua’i by Kaua’i Alliance for Peace and Social Justice to participate in a forum on ‘real security’. The forum was important because it was one of the first public discussions that questioned the premise of the ‘security’ discourse of the government and reframed the question from the point of view of communities. Jon Letman wrote a two-part article on the forum for the Hawaii Independent. He writes:

Ours is a nation obsessed with security. Two months after the bitter sting of the 9/11 attacks, the federal government formed the Transportation Security Administration and, one year later, the Department of Homeland Security. In the decade that has followed we have been pounded with talk of security in every aspect of our lives: from computer security and private home security to food and energy security, national security, nuclear security, and global security.

Yet as we approach our ninth year of war and occupation in Afghanistan and our eighth in Iraq, Americans have seen security at home eroded by financial collapse, a neglected infrastructure, a hemorrhaging job market, anemic social services and public health care crisis, volatile energy and food markets, and the complex realities of climate change.

In the face of home foreclosures, bankruptcy, and unemployment with many Americans’ income flat or falling and funding for basic civil institutions like public schools, libraries, and parks in decline, the question screams: “What is real security?”

READ “IN SEARCH OF REAL SECURITY, PART 1” AND “IN SEARCH OF REAL SECURITY, PART 2”.

August 27, 2010

Navy refuses to allow public testimony at EIS Scoping meeting on Navy Expansion plans

Jim Albertini of Malu ‘Aina sent the following report from the Navy public scoping meetings in Hilo regarding planned expansion of its training and range complex in the Pacific. The new control tactic of the military has been to use stations with information and subject matter “experts” to answer questions rather than hold public hearings where the public may hear each others’ questions and comments. Hawai’i has a rich oral cultural tradition; the “information station” format fails to allow for sufficient public participation. The Navy is conducting another environmental impact statement (EIS) for its range activities mainly because it has to renew its “take” permit under the National Marine Mammal Protection Act. They figured that they might as well make changes to their plans while they are at it. NOAA’s website for marine mammal protection permits issued is: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/permits/incidental.htm#applications. On this page there are a number of Navy range complexes and other activities. The Southern California and Hawaiian Range permits are midway down the table. You can find annual reports there as well.

The meeting on O’ahu was also highly controlled. The Navy provided virtually no information about the proposed changes to their activities, making it impossible for the public to effectively comment on the scope of the project. What we have found out is that there will be more minesweeping training, meaning more active sonar use. This is the worst sonar for whales. Also, they plan to bring Joint Strike Fighters (F35) and Littoral Combat Ships (LCS, a cousin of the Hawaii Superferry) to train in Hawai’i.

And the Navy’s failure to hold public hearings denies meaningful public participation. Please submit comments on the website: http://www.hstteis.com/GetInvolved/OnlineCommentForm.aspx

Or by mail:

Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southwest
Attention: Mr. Kent Randall – HSTT EIS/OEIS
1220 Pacific Highway, Building 1, Floor 5
San Diego, CA, 92132

They do not provide a way to fax or submit email comments.

If the folks from Maui and Kaua’i can send their reports, we’ll post them. Mahalo.

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Aloha Kakou,

Tonight’s (8/26/10) EIS Scoping Meeting on Navy expansion plans for Hawaii and the Pacific was more hardball than the Marines similar meeting of 2 days ago. (Then again, at the Marines meeting we had retired Marine Sergeant Major, Kupuna Sam Kaleleiki, to open the path with a pule and the initial public testimony.) The Navy EIS personnel weren’t nearly as respectful of the right to public speaking and the community being able to hear each others concerns. Some of the Navy team were downright arrogant, insulting and contemptuous. Initially the Navy wasn’t going to allow us to bring our portable sound system into the Hilo H.S. cafeteria to hold a citizen public hearing. Finally with police presence brought in, the Navy yielded the last hour of the planned 4-8PM event to our citizen hearing. Some of the Navy EIS team were blatantly rude in not listening to community speakers and carried on their own conversations. Before the public testimony, we invited all present to join hands in a pule and asked for mutual respect, and open minds and hearts.

The Navy refused to have any of their personnel take notes to make the public comments part of the official record of scoping concerns. Community people were very respectful of the Navy personnel as human beings, but the aloha spirit wasn’t returned by many of the Navy people present. Too bad.

Many of the Navy people were hard set to their format. Tour the science fair stations, and If you wanted to comment, put it in writing or type it into a computer. We were told over and over. This is not a public hearing. No public speaking is allowed.–

Jim Albertini

Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action

P.O.Box AB

Kurtistown, Hawai’i 96760

phone: 808-966-7622

email: JA@interpac.net

Visit us on the web at: www.malu-aina.org

August 21, 2010August 21, 2010

Hawaii Independent: OHA considers legal action to protect cultural sites against Army Stryker vehicles

The Hawaii Independent reported that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs is considering legal action to get the Army to protect Hawaiian cultural sites. The report also exposes the fact that the Army Native Hawaiian liaison program and Native Hawaiian Advisory Council is a front for the Army that is incapable of standing up for Native Hawaiian culture, land or rights.

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http://www.thehawaiiindependent.com/story/molokai-stryker/

OHA considers legal action to protect cultural sites against Army Stryker vehicles

Aug 21, 2010 – 01:17 PM | by Samson Kaala Reiny

MOLOKAI—The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) is using a “balanced approach” to hold the Army accountable for protecting cultural sites from further desecration on its Stryker Brigade locations, according to OHA’s CEO Clyde Namuo at a board of trustees meeting on Molokai yesterday.

A member of the community complained that the letter OHA sent to the Army on August 13 had no legal teeth because no clear-cut demands or timelines were made.

The OHA letter only states that the Army “promptly evaluate the historic properties identified” as a result of the 2008 settlement between the two groups. It concludes by asking “in the spirit of cooperation and in good faith … a continued collaboration between our office and your agency.”

Namuo disagreed.

“I do believe it does have teeth because it states the Army is not fulfilling substantially [sic] the Programmatic Agreement,” Namuo said.

But Namuo thinks that OHA should connect with new Army personnel first. Colonel Mulberry, U.S. Army Garrison Commander, has only been on the job a few months and doesn’t know the issues. Namuo believes OHA should first reach out to him. There’s a chance he could be very receptive to concerns in the Native Hawaiian community.

“Past garrison commanders were sensitive,” Namuo said.

Nonetheless, Namuo believes the Army’s negligence in recent months, particularly with the unearthing of iwi at Schofield Barracks at Lihue in May, is telling.

“The spirit of the Army is not what we had hoped,” Namuo said.

August 20, 2010August 20, 2010

Site visit to cultural sites threatened by Stryker brigade expansion in Lihu’e, O’ahu

Article and photos by Summer Nemeth

A piece of rusted ordnance atop a pohaku that was clearly impacted by past training at Lihue.

On Wednesday, July 14, 2010, I received a call from Keona Mark, a cultural monitor with Garcia & Associates (GANDA) who has been working up at Lihue. She invited me to attend a site visit that Saturday (7/17) to see some ki’i pohaku (petroglyph rocks) that are threatened by future Stryker training in the BAX at Schofield Barracks. She had told me that the invitation was limited to 10 people. I asked if others could attend, and she told me I was the last person that they had selected to go.

As soon as I got the call, I began to call others who were on the previous visit to address the desecration of ‘iwi kupuna (ancestral remains) in the “borrow pit” located in the same area (BAX). No one that I talked with received an invitation. That evening, I attended a Wahiawa Hawaiian Civic Club (WHCC) meeting, and asked if anyone had been invited the Saturday site visit. Uncle Tom Lenchanko had received a call from Keona, and had shared his mana’o on the ki’i pohaku issue with her. He said that the sites should not be moved. I was disappointed to learn that Jo-Lin Kalimapau, historian of the WHCC, was not asked to attend, as I was told by Keona that she could not make the access.

At center of photo, ‘Borrow Pit’ in BAX, where ʻiwi kupuna were desecrated during SBCT construction.

Pohaku damaged during Army training at Lihue (BAX).

One option for site protection is sandbag placement.

I had also put in a call to Kamoa Quitevis, former cultural monitor at Lihue and Kahuku, who now works for OHA. He was not informed about this visit, nor was he invited to attend, but he was able to share with me his mana’o on the issue. Years ago, Kamoa, while working at Lihue, had recommended to the Army that these ki’i pohaku remain in place.

On Saturday morning, we drove to the training area and were escorted to a temporary structure where we were briefed on the site visit (I have recorded some video on the briefing that I will share with everyone). I had asked Keona Mark why those of us in attendance were selected to represent the community. She told us that she wanted to invite “open-minded” people to share their manaʻo on the protection of sites that would be impacted in the BAX. I was disappointed that not all 10 invitees were in attendance, and also disappointed that some cultural monitors, who were given an assignment to invite people from their communities, chose to bring their ohana instead. I felt that this was a sign that they were not communicating with others in the community who should have been informed about the situation at Lihue (including plaintiffs in lawsuits relating to Stryker expansion, those who had given testimony on the SBCT EIS, and those with ties to the ʻaina).

Cultural monitors suggested that pohaku be placed here (mauka of training area)

At the briefing we were told that this site visit was a response to a consultation letter dated September of 2006. According to Laura Gilda of GANDA, the consultation was put on hold because they were unable to clear ordnance at Lihue due to an injunction which halted all work in the project area (I will include the letter at the end of this reflection). I then realized then that my attendance on this “site visit” was actually part of the Army’s checklist to meet requirements for Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA).

A Cultural Monitor stands next to one of the kiʻi pohaku found in the BAX

Keona Mark, cultural monitor, walking toward a kiʻi pohaku.

We were told that the Army needed feedback from the community on the protection of kiʻi pohaku that will be impacted by SBCT training (some of which are very near to targets where 50cal ammunition would be fired upon).

There were several options that we would need to consider:

1) Leaving the pohaku in place without protection.

2) Leaving pohaku in place with protection (options included soil barrier, sandbags – which would have to be replaced regularly to ensure protection, metal coffin – metal box covering pohaku which could be a hazard to soldiers in the training area, or bury pohaku in place).

3) Moving pohaku outside of the BAX, or above firebreak road. At the end of the tour, we were taken to one of the suggested areas that cultural monitors felt kiʻi pohaku should be moved. We could not enter into this area because it had not been cleared of UXO.

This artifact was in the path of a bulldozer when cultural monitors first discovered it.

One of the kiʻi pohaku moved without community consultation.

One of the many kiʻi pohaku of Lihue located in what is now the BAX

Throughout the consultation we were escorted to different sites on the BAX. We went first to Haleʻauʻau Heiau, but could only stand outside the buffer and peer in. There is unexploded ordnance on this heiau, and further access was considered too dangerous.

There were a few other kiʻi pohaku that we could not see close up because of UXO issues. Instead, cultural monitors would walk down to the area and point out where the petroglyphs were located. We were shown poor quality photographs of the carvings along with sketches and written descriptions (please see the attached packets below).

We were also told that these kiʻi pohaku were aligned with Haleʻauʻau, and it looked like the alignment was also in the direction of Kukaniloko. There was a lot of discussion between those on the tour during the consultation process. Many felt it would be best to move the pohaku out of harm’s way, although I felt that moving the pohaku would permanently disconnect us from discovering the kaona our ancestors had intended for us to learn. I was extremely disappointed to learn that several pohaku and artifacts had already been moved from their original locations without community consultation.

In my short visit to Lihue, I was surprised that these artifacts and cultural sites still exist after almost 100 years of military training. What we were able to see today was just a handful of kiʻi pohaku and Haleʻauʻau Heiau, but according to the map we were shown at the beginning of the day, there is much, much more that we did not have clearance to see.

The Army wants us to see these sites and artifacts as separate entities, rather than parts of a larger complex within a Traditional Cultural Property.

So the questions remain: Was the SBCT EIS really complete if protections for this sacred area and all of its cultural resources were not included? Has the Army completed a thorough cultural survey of Lihue, Kahuku, Mokuleia and Makua? If surveys were complete, why were these results not included in the EIS before a decision was made to transform the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii to an Stryker Brigade Combat Team? If thorough surveys were not complete, why were they allowed to continue construction of the BAX and other firing ranges? Why was this consultation visit limited to 10 people, and why were cultural monitors allowed to hand-pick community representatives rather than inviting those who have addressed concerns for cultural sites in the past? What is the real reason behind delaying this consultation process for 4 years?

This community consultation process is serious – the Army has been able to avoid reaching out to the larger community thus far, and we need to hold them accountable for what they have done and continue to do to our wahi pana!

In order to force them to consult with more of us, we need more kanaka maoli to specifically request to become concerned parties to the section 106 consultation relating to cultural sites in Lihue. I urge everyone to demand access to see Lihue! It is important for you to see this desecration with your own eyes, and to connect with this ʻaina before the Army attempts to obliterate the physical proof of our existence here. To request section 106 consultation status, or to demand access, contact:

Dr. Laurie J. Lucking

Chief, Cultural Resources Section

Environmental Division

Directorate of Public Works

US Army Garrison, Hawaii

Phone: 808-656-6790

Fax: 808-656-1039

Email: laurie.lucking@us.army.mil