Construction on the largest public works project in Hawaii’s history could resume as early as Sept. 16 now that Honolulu rail officials have the state archaeological survey approvals they need.
The State Historic Preservation Division this week gave its nod to the $5.26 billion rail project’s archaeological inventory survey — an approximately 8,000-page report on the more than 420 trenches dug to find cultural sites and burials across the planned 20-mile route.
Officials with the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation announced the approval Friday after receiving an Aug. 29 letter from Board of Land and Natural Resources Chairman William Aila Jr.
Work on the elevated rail project came to a halt last year when the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that all of the archaeological work should have been done before construction started in West Oahu.
The state’s nod this week brings rail officials a step closer to resuming construction along Oahu’s southern shore.
"This approval is a major step forward," HART Executive Director Dan Grabauskas said in a statement Friday. "Getting back to work after the yearlong legal delay is essential to completing the project on time and on budget ― that’s our goal."
Rail still needs what’s called a "special management area" permit approved by the Honolulu City Council before construction can proceed. Such permits are required for developments along Hawaii’s shoreline, and the rail route will run near the ocean along Nimitz Highway. Rail’s previous SMA permit was invalidated by the Supreme Court ruling.
The city Department of Planning and Permitting held two public hearings on the latest SMA permit earlier this month, on Aug. 2 and Aug. 5. Officials have been waiting to see whether the state would approve the archaeological inventory surveys before sending their recommendation on the SMA permit to the Council. On Friday, DPP spokesman Curtis Lum said the department once again recommended issuing the SMA permit.
HART hopes the City Council’s Committee on Zoning and Planning will hold a special session on the SMA permit ahead of the Council’s next general meeting on Sept. 11. If all the scheduling and approvals work in HART’s favor, construction could resume the following week, Grabauskas said.
Opponents of the project questioned rail officials’ timing in releasing the news about approval of the survey on a Friday before a holiday weekend, because the first approval letters were dated Tuesday. Cliff Slater, chairman of Honolulutraffic.com, a group suing to stop the project in federal court, further criticized HART for not releasing a report on the approvals.
"They certainly do not want the opposition picking holes in the report before the news cycle runs out," he said in a statement.
However, both HART and state preservation officials said they had no such additional report to post besides the approval letters and several appendices.
Rail officials further said they needed the final letter, dated Thursday, to complete the approval before they could announce it.
LAST YEAR, work crews erected 16 columns parallel to Farrington Highway in the fields of West Oahu before construction was halted. The delay, based on the state high court’s ruling, cost about $38 million in direct costs and tens of millions of dollars more in "escalation" costs from rising prices for building materials, Grabauskas said Friday.
During the archaeological field work, crews found Native Hawaiian burials or fragments of human ancestral remains (iwi kupuna) in seven trenches. HART will work with the Oahu Island Burial Council and cultural descendants of those remains to complete final burial treatments and leave the iwi in place, Grabauskas said Friday.
Crews dug the trenches where they plan to build pillars, station foundations, utility boxes and other structures in the footprint of the rail project. That doesn’t mean they won’t encounter more remains during construction.
"It’s possible we’ll find future burials," Grabauskas said.
City officials hope to resume construction even as they wait with Slater and other project opponents to hear from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an ongoing federal lawsuit looking to stop the project.
A three-member panel of judges from that court considered oral arguments in San Francisco earlier this month. During an hourlong hearing, the judges weighed whether they had jurisdiction yet and whether the project would be too far entrenched in construction if they considered the case later.
"We have a responsibility to the taxpayers not to waste any more money on legal hold(s), and instead move forward and build this thing now as quickly as possible," Grabauskas said Friday. "Otherwise, we’re not going to be on time and we’re not going to be on budget … "
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