O'ahu Army Lease talking points

This week there will be three public hearings (all starting at 6pm) regarding the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Army’s proposal to renew their state leases for lands in Kahuku, Poamoho and Mākua for another 65 years.

Tuesday, July 9, 2024 (Wai‘anae District Park Multi-Purpose Room)
Wednesday, July 10, 2024 (Kahuku High and Intermediate School)
Thursday, July 11, 2024 (Leilehua High School)

Even if you don’t feel ready to speak on this topic, we encourage you to attend one of these hearings! Your presence matters!

• Bring a sign with an aloha ‘āina message!
• Help be the eyes and ears for the broader lāhui and ʻāina
• Take pictures and notes on what you hear and share it out on social media.
• Use your experience at the hearing to inform a written comment (due Aug 7th, instructions below)
  

In 2021, hundreds of you, our supporters, submitted comments to the Army about what the scope of their EIS should be. We called for a future that prioritizes health, healing, and peace at home and abroad. Unfortunately, though their DEIS is lengthy (1,000+ pages), it does not meaningfully address any of the concerns we previously raised. Here are some points to consider, for either written or spoken testimony:

• Military presence in Hawai’i puts a target on our islands. With global tensions mounting with the war in Ukraine, the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, recent alliances between Russia and North Korea and more – the US military presence, does not offer us protection, but instead, threatens the safety and wellness of Hawaiʻi both externally and internally.

• The framing of this proposal as a mere “real-estate” action is offensive. What is being proposed is another 65 years of disconnection from these lands. 3 more generations of our ancestral places being used to rehearse the destruction of othersʻ homelands and killing of the people who live there.

• The legacy and ongoing presence of the military in Hawai’i is one of toxic abuse. This history includes, but is not limited to: evictions/blocked access, burial desecration, intentional bombing of cultural sites, irreparable pollution of lands and waters with toxins (like jet fuel and PFAS) and/or UXOs, destruction of native habitat with impact to rare plants and animals and perhaps hardest to measure, impacts on practices and connections to places from which we are cut off. The military presence in Hawaiʻi has already caused grave harm to our natural and cultural environment and the Army retaining these leases will only extend a bad situation.

• The Army assumes, without basis, future lease terms would be the same and does not assess or propose new lease terms. DEIS at ES-12 This is presumptuous considering what poor stewards the military has been. The state should inspect the conditions of these lands before considering a renewed lease. The Army should clean and restore the lands theyʻve held for 60 years, to support their claim that despite their atrocious track record, they can be trusted with these special places.

• The Army should not be allowed to contaminate land without cleaning it up, simply because it is too expensive. The DEIS says that the Army will, “remove weapons and shells used in connection with its training activities to the extent that a technical and economic capability exists and provided that expenditures for removal of shells will not exceed the fair market value of the land.” DEIS V. 3.2 Appx. G, (KTA lease ¶29), (Poamoho lease ¶29), (MMR ¶8, 26) If you can’t afford to clean it up, don’t contaminate it in the first place.

• DEIS fails to meaningfully evaluate socioeconomic impacts of continued Army presence

• 38% of arrests resulting from Operation Keiki Shield (a coordinated effort involving local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies tasked with the investigation and prosecution of internet-facilitated crimes against children) were active-duty military personnel.

• Large housing allowances mean military personnel outcompete locals in a very tight rental market. Basic Allowances for Housing (BAH) range from $2,256-$4,638 depending on one’s rank and whether or not they have dependents. This money is tax-free and exacerbates an already dire housing crisis.

• DEIS dismisses cultural impacts through a disingenuous process and fails to address the long-term impacts of little or no access.

• Though they didn’t ask, the DEIS repeatedly faults community members for not providing specific locations within the project area for different cultural resources or practices. If specific locations within state-lands was the standard for cultural practices to be considered relevant to the DEIS, the Army should have said as much.  If the Army was genuine in learning about how cultural practices may be impacted by their actions, it could have simply asked community members whether or not any of the practices mentioned occur within the state-lands in question. It is disingenuous that they did not ask such an obvious follow-up question. It is poor logic to assume that because people did not, unprompted, volunteer specific locations of their cultural practices, that they do not occur on the relevant state lands.

• DEIS fails to consider the impacts of maintaining the status quo. What is the impact of  NOT using these lands to address the many pressing issues our communities face? These include but are not limited to affordable housing, food insecurity, energy independence, and climate change.

If you can’t make it in person this week (and even if you can!) written comments are being accepted until August 7th. They can be sent to atlr-oahu-eis@g70.design or via webform here: https://home.army.mil/hawaii/index.php/OahuEIS/project-home.

This week’s hearings and the written comment deadline in August are a few opportunities to weigh in on what the US military presence in Hawai’i will (or won’t!) look like in the future. There will be many more opportunities. Now is a good time to learn/refresh ourselves on the history of these places and our personal (dis)connections to them and our hopes for our collective future.