Another battle may be brewing around a historic Ewa airfield attacked on Dec. 7, 1941.
A Canadian renewable-energy company plans to develop a solar farm in the vicinity of Ewa Field, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, and two proposed historic districts connected with Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor nearly 80 years ago.
An affiliate of Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. published a draft environmental assessment for the Barbers Point Solar project on Oct. 8 indicating that significant negative impacts on important cultural and historical sites will be avoided in the 163-acre project area where photovoltaic panels on posts would cover about 45 acres.
However, Ewa Beach historian John Bond, who helped obtain federal recognition of Ewa Field’s historical value for preservation, is concerned that part of the planned solar farm encroaching into the historic district will be harmful.
Bond also opposes another part of the solar farm displacing remnants of a former Navy Seabees Camp.
“I’m not trying to stop the solar farm,” he said. “I’m just trying to make sure the eligible sites get their due consideration (for protection).”
Bond would like to see the solar farm plan reconfigured or reduced to protect historic sites.
“It’s an important point that we fight for this,” he said.
In addition to numerous historic military structures, the planned project area has over 200 ancient Hawaiian cultural features that Innergex would avoid disturbing in most, but not all, instances.
The Historic Hawai‘i Foundation views the plan as avoiding negative impacts to the historic district and two nearby proposed historic districts, though it is still evaluating whether the project would affect significant archaeological features.
“We’ll have a more complete analysis when we comment on the environmental assessment, but the initial review indicates a thorough documentation of historic properties and the project was designed to avoid adverse effects to important historic and cultural resources,” Kiersten Faulkner, the organization’s executive director, said in an email.
The 15-megawatt solar farm would generate enough power for about 6,200 homes, include a 60-megawatt-hour battery to store energy for evening use and help the state reach its goal to produce all electricity from renewable sources by 2045.
Innergex plans the project on three unconnected parcels owned by the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, which received the property years ago from the Navy and is leasing it to Innergex for income that supports its mission to provide homesteads for Native Hawaiians.
The project site is part of the former Barbers Point Naval Air Station, which closed in 1999, though Ewa Field’s history dates to 1925 as an airship mooring field.
During World War II the area was Marine Corps Air Station Ewa and included a crisscross runway, half-dome aircraft protection revetments, bunkers, buildings, a swimming pool and the camp for the Navy construction battalion known as the Seabees.
On Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft attacked Ewa Field in three waves, killing four Marines and destroying or damaging the majority of nearly 50 aircraft on the ground.
Two U.S. Army pilots in P-40 fighters — 2nd Lts. George Welch and Kenneth Taylor — shot down Japanese planes over Ewa Field after taking off in Haleiwa.
USS Arizona Memorial historian Daniel Martinez has called the site “hallowed ground.”
Yet for decades the area’s importance surrounding the attack on Oahu was overshadowed by larger events, and most Ewa Field structures disappeared over decades under military use.
In 2008 the state Historic Preservation Division, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and Historic Hawai‘i Foundation urged the Navy to do more to research and preserve Ewa Field’s history.
A 2011 study produced by consultants at the direction of the Navy and Texas-based developer Hunt Cos., which received most of the site and other lands at the former base, said Ewa Field retained “minimal integrity” as a battlefield site.
But persistent efforts by preservationists led to 180 acres including and surrounding the runway being listed on the National Register in 2016.
Around the time of the study, Hunt proposed a solar farm covering the runway. This plan drew opposition, and the 5-megawatt Kalaeloa Renewable Energy Park was instead built just below the runway’s cross-point and a taxi strip, with about a third of the solar panels within the historic district boundary.
Bond fears that the Innergex project, which is partly planned next to the existing solar farm and would encroach a little less into the historic district, will invite other encroachments and clash with plans to create a historical park featuring interpretive signs and trails.
Bond also said he plans to present new research contradicting views from a recent survey by Innergex consultant Pacific Legacy Inc. and a 1997 report that the former Seabees campsite lacks historical integrity because not much of it remains.
Innergex’s environmental report notes that 27 structural remains of the camp exist — remnant utility features, roads, a tennis court surface and a large berm. But it concludes that the camp was almost completely dismantled, with some debris consolidated into the berm or pushed into limestone pits.
“However, the location of this former camp near the revetments, its association with the development and dismantling of (Marine Corps Air Station) Ewa, and the setting and feeling of this location remain,” the report also said.
Bond said remaining camp infrastructure should be preserved especially because infrastructure is much of what the Seabees were known for developing.
“It has a story to it,” he said. “This is like their handiwork.”
Two adjacent areas with 57 aircraft revetments built during World War II after Dec. 7, 1941, are proposed as historic districts and are eligible for the National Register. These two areas are between Innergex solar farm parcels.
On all three Innergex parcels slated for solar arrays, which would be mounted on posts driven six to 10 feet into the ground, historic Hawaiian cultural features also exist.
The project would potentially affect 90 of 438 documented cultural and historical features, according to the environmental report.
The other 348 are slated for preservation and wouldn’t be disturbed, including 188 limestone pits, six military bunkers, the revetments and an open space framed by limestone wall fragments recognized as ancient grounds for Hawaiian makahiki ceremonies featuring sports and religious activities.
Of the 90 sites that would be disturbed, any significant archaeological or paleontological deposits would be collected from 42 sites that include 35 limestone pits, two limestone mounds, a limestone enclosure, three limestone wall sections and a subsurface cultural layer.
Another 48 historical military features would be affected, though the report said any loss would not be significant because sufficient archaeological data was previously recovered.
These features include Seabee camp remnants, two Ewa Field parking aprons with a couple of plane tie-downs, an irrigation ditch and building foundations.
Innergex proposes that an archaeological monitor be present during ground-disturbing activities to ensure that sites slated for preservation are protected along with potential discoveries of human remains.
The company’s preservation plan is subject to review and acceptance by the state Historic Preservation Division.
“With implementation of these measures, the project would not be expected to result in significant adverse impacts to historical properties,” the report said.
If Innergex receives all approvals without trouble, it anticipates starting construction around the end of 2022 and delivering electricity by the end of 2023.
PUBLIC INPUT INVITED
The public may submit comments on the environmental assessment up to Nov. 8.
Comments can be sent to Andrew Choy at 808-620-9500 or dhhl.planning@hawaii.gov.
Please copy comments to Julia Mancinelli at 604-345-4009 or barberspointsolar@innergex.com and to Leslie McClain at 503-222-4536 or leslie.mcclain@tetratech.com.
