Preservation planning for Ewa Field — a key Dec. 7, 1941, battlefield — is progressing with well-known infrastructure redevelopment firm Louis Berger offering six proposals calling for between 15 and 206 acres to be set aside with walking trails and interpretive signs.

“Although most of the buildings and structures associated with Ewa Field … no longer exist, the area holds important historic resources which warrant consideration for preservation and protection,” the company said in a recent report.

A website on preserving Ewa Field (ewabattlefield.com) was recently created, with details of the various options in the “battlefield preservation plan” and how to submit comments provided in a December 2018 newsletter under the “engagement” heading.

But plenty of challenges remain, including a decades-­long lack of oversight at the overgrown battle site that led to 28 enormous concrete pilings being placed around an old aircraft warmup ramp in July without permission or permits.

Those pilings remain, with vague information provided by the city on plans for their removal.

At the same time, the National Park Service approved a $55,000 grant earlier this month for Louis Berger to also create an “interpretive plan” that would build on the preservation plan for Ewa Field, which has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2016.

“I’m hopeful something good will come out of this,” said Ewa Field historian John Bond, who was responsible for bringing attention to the forgotten airbase and has made it his mission to preserve its history. “I’d like to see it become part of a regional historic park.”

Bond wants to see all 206 acres that are recognized on the National Register become part of that park.

The concrete warmup ramp still bears witness to the violence of Dec. 7, 1941, with horizontal slashes from the machine gun bullets of low-flying Japanese Zeros and tight circles where backseat gunners in Aichi D3A “Val” divebombers trained their fire on Marine Corps planes on the ground.

The pavement also shows scorching where one aircraft burned. About 35 planes were destroyed on the ground and four Marines were killed, three close to the warmup ramp, Bond said.

USS Arizona Memorial historian Daniel Martinez has called it “hallowed ground.”

Ownership confusion

In more recent years, an evolving and often confusing ownership chain involving the Navy, city, Hunt Companies and others has left Ewa Field open to car racing, dumping and vandalism.

An airship mooring field as far back as 1925 and later a Marine Corps air station, Ewa Field was eventually swallowed up by Naval Air Station Barbers Point, which was shuttered in 1999.

The Navy is still transferring land for re-use.

The 15-acre plan would preserve the Dec. 7 warmup ramp and an adjacent mooring apron and former hangar site. The most ambitious plan envisioned would include those elements and the former camp site extending to Roosevelt Avenue where barracks, a mess hall, swimming pool and other facilities were once located.

“We’re going to be looking for the input from a lot of different organizations and groups and individuals,” said Robert Nardi, senior vice president of the Louis Berger Group. “So what I think we did in laying out these options is (offer) what the pros and cons are.”

Nardi said the hope is for stakeholders to form a consensus on a way forward.

Hunt Companies in late 2015 opposed the National Register listing. Most of the site is on land the company is getting from the Navy and was slated for development.

Steve Colon, president of development for Hunt’s Hawaii region, said at the time that “the Navy leased this property to us at full market value. Both the Navy and Hunt believed the area had significant potential for productive use.”

Hunt said it agreed to pay for the new battlefield preservation plan at the request of some of the other organizations involved.

However, “Hunt is playing no role in the development of the plan,” Nardi said. “They are not setting the direction. They are not dictating the outcome.”

In the short term, the city, which has administrative control over a portion of Ewa Field, has so far not been able to effect the removal of the 28 pilings — many nearly 60 feet long — that were trucked there in July.

Donovan Lazarus, the commander of American Veterans Hawaii, or AMVETS, which runs Dec. 7 commemorations at Ewa Field, admitted he was responsible for the placement, which he said was intended to delineate the concrete warmup ramp.

Lazarus said he wants to preserve Ewa Field, and his organization, the AMVETS Hawaii Service Foundation Corp., was the group that applied for the funding to pay Louis Berger for the follow-on “interpretive plan” study.

Historians said the pilings altered the historic integrity of the Ewa Field site and heavy trucks damaged the warmup ramp. And there was the issue of no permission.

The city, in an email, said the “unfortunate incident” transpired without its knowledge or approval, and ordered that “whoever is responsible must remove the pilings as soon as possible in a manner that is respect (ful) to this historic site.”

Pilings remain

In October, Lazarus said he’d remove the pilings. Contacted recently he said he thought the city or state wanted to take them as a donation for use elsewhere.

State Rep. Sean Quinlan (D,Waialua-Kaaawa) and City Councilwoman Kymberly Pine, whose district includes Ewa Beach and the Leeward Coast, both expressed interest in using the pilings as barriers to cars driving on the beach.

The state Department of Transportation said it couldn’t place barriers on the makai side of Kamehameha Highway in Punaluu without going through an environmental review.

Pine said the long pilings could be used at Oneula Beach Park instead of large rocks — which get moved — to prevent cars from driving on the beach.

“I would have to talk to the community and make sure that there is buy-in (and) that it looks beautiful,” she said.