The Army released its draft environmental impact statement on its intention to renew its lease on the Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii island and has opened up a 60-day public comment period.
The training area sits between the peaks of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea and is the largest contiguous live-fire range and maneuver training area the military has in Hawaii. Of the approximately 132,000 total acres at Pohakuloa, the Army leases around 23,000 acres from the state on a 65-year lease for which it pays $1. The lease is set to expire in August 2029.
“The retention will preserve maneuver area, provide austere environment training, enable access between major parcels of U.S. Government-owned land, retain infrastructure investments, allow for future modernization, and maximize use of the impact area,” the Army asserts. “Loss of this land would impact the ability of the Army to meet training requirements and its mission of readiness.”
But the Army is making its pitch at a time when relations between military leaders and local communities are strained. In November, jet fuel from the Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility contaminated the water supply for 93,000 people, including military families and civilians living in former military housing areas such as the Kapilina Beach Homes.
In response, the Honolulu Board of Water Supply has shut down several of its wells to seal them off from potential contamination. Oahu is expected to experience water shortages this summer as a result.
Honolulu City Council Chairman Tommy Waters and Vice Chairwoman Esther Kia‘aina wrote a letter to President Joe Biden in January warning that the water contamination crisis could have long-lasting consequences for the military’s operations in Hawaii.
“We believe the Navy’s mishandling of the Red Hill crisis is jeopardizing national security interests and the overall relationship between the U.S. military and the people of Hawai‘i,” the lawmakers wrote. “(Hawaii has) historically supported the United States military’s strategic positions and assets in our communities for decades. This support, however, is not unconditional.”
U.S. Rep. Kai Kahele (D-Hawaii), an Air Force veteran, told Navy leaders during a congressional hearing that the relationship between Hawaii and the military is at a “pivot point.” Last month Kahele announced he would introduce legislation requiring the Army to clean up unexploded munitions in the Makua Valley training area and return the land to the state, telling reporters “it is time to demilitarize and return Makua Valley to the people of Hawaii.”
Kahele’s office did not respond to requests for comment on the future of Pohakuloa. Kahele’s late father, also a veteran, worked at Pohakuloa after leaving the military.
Pohakuloa is a critical training ground for Hawaii’s military, allowing the Army and Marine Corps space that isn’t available elsewhere to conduct large unit exercises, and a venue for joint training with foreign military forces during exercises such as the biennial RIMPAC. It’s also the only range where they can conduct live-fire, long-range artillery training.
Artillery is playing an increasingly prominent role in modern conflicts around the globe.
Over the past two decades the U.S. military has focused on what it calls “low-intensity conflicts” against terrorist and insurgent groups. Artillery was de-emphasized in favor of using infantry to patrol towns and villages and try to win over local support as they hunted down insurgents. But in 2014, Islamic State militants used tanks and artillery captured from the Syrian and Iraqi militaries to take over large swaths of Iraq and Syria. In the battle to retake that territory, artillery also played a major role. During the battle for the Syrian city of Raqqa, a single U.S. Marine battalion supporting the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces fired more artillery rounds than the Army and Marines did during all of Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
Today, Russian and Ukrainian forces have pummeled each other with modern artillery in some of the most intense and bloody battles of the 21st century.
In Hawaii, U.S. troops have training for operations in the Pacific and Asia with a major emphasis on flashpoints in the South China Sea and Korean Peninsula.
China and Taiwan have both been investing in long-range artillery as tensions between the two simmer. Meanwhile, North Korea has spent decades setting up a series of artillery batteries along its border aimed at bases and major cities. Analysts estimate that if North Korea unleashed its artillery at full strength it could kill up to 200,000 people in an hour.
The terms of the Army’s lease for Pohakuloa say the military must “make every reasonable effort to … remove or deactivate all live or blank ammunition upon completion of a training exercise.” But what constitutes “reasonable effort” has been hotly disputed.
A particular point of contention is the “impact area” where artillery and rounds are fired. The military considers approximately 51,000 acres, which includes U.S. government-owned land, an active range and does not remove or dispose of unexploded munitions from that part of the training area, citing safety reasons.
In 2019 the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the state has not properly managed the lands or held the military to its agreement, noting that Hawaiian cultural practitioners who use the land found spent shell casings and other ordnance. “As trustee, the state must take an active role in preserving trust property and may not passively allow it to fall into ruin,” the high court asserted in its opinion.
Activists also have expressed concern about the possible effects of sustained live-fire training on groundwater beneath Pohakuloa. An Army-funded 2015 study by University of Hawaii geologists found groundwater reserves beneath Pohakuloa.
The draft EIS states that training “may have impacts on soils within the confines of the State-owned land; however, potential impacts to water resources could reach beyond the State-owned land to include the regional aquifers and watersheds.”
But it also concluded that “the contaminants detected in site soils have a low likelihood to become mobilized off-site due to the low rainfall in the area, lack of streams and absence of a developed drainage system across the State-owned land” and that “the surface contamination detected is also unlikely to infiltrate to the underlying localized perched aquifer and more regional high-level aquifer present at PTA due to the low rainfall in the area and the considerable vertical depth to these groundwater systems.”
The UH researchers who tested the water have so far found no evidence of contamination by metals or munitions.
The Army has continued to conduct water studies in the area and provided funding for UH researchers. But the Army’s interest isn’t just environmental or scientific. Commanders have expressed interest in tapping into the subterranean reserves as an alternative to hauling water up to Pohakuloa for troops training in the field, saving trips and money.
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Public meetings set, input sought
The Army is hosting two in-person public meetings on Hawaii island from 6 to 8 p.m. on back-to-back days this month in two locations.
>> April 25: Imiloa Astronomy Center; 600 Imiloa Place, Hilo
>> April 26: Waimea District Park, Ala Ohia Road, Waimea
>> Watch it live: The meetings will be broadcast live on the U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii’s YouTube Channel at youtube.com/usaghawaii/live
>> Mail your comments: Written comments to be considered in the final environmental impact statement can be submitted throughout the 60-day comment period until 11:59 p.m. June 7, and can be mailed to: ATLR PTA EIS Comments, P.O. Box 3444, Honolulu, HI 96801-3444
>> E-mail: atlr-pta-eis@g70.design
>> Find out more online: Information on how to participate in draft EIS public meetings and how to submit comments is available on the EIS website: home.army.mil/hawaii/index.php/PTAEIS
