Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 22, Number 6, 1 June 2005 — H-3 impact project releases strategic plan [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

H-3 impact project releases strategic plan

Public input on draft sought through June 30 By Sterling Kini Wong Afederally funded project tasked with preserving cultural sites impacted by the construction of the H-3 freeway is seeking puhlie comment on its newly released draft strategic plan. The project, called Hālawa-Luluku Interpretive Development (HLID), was created in April 2000 and funded with $11 million from the Federal Highways Administration (FHWA). HLID, along with a community working group and a planning consultant, spent the last two years working on the plan. They will accept puhlie comment on it until June 30, after whieh time it will be revised and offered for approval to OHA, FHWA and several state agencies. The final strategic plan will be used as the foundation for the last phase of the project: the creation of an interpretive development plan. The draft strategic plan includes a variety of mitigation measures for the areas affected by the

H-3, such as development of education and visitor facilities, replanting of native plants, and restoring and improving access to cultural sites. Māhealani Cypher, a member of HLID's work-

ing group, said she believes one of the most important elements of the project is to correct the history of the area's many cultural sites. She said that the cultural significance of some of the sites was downplayed in order to make it easier for the freeway to be built. "When they have a history written that is incorrect, they steal from us our history, our heritage," Cypher said. "It's our people that lose." The $1.3 hillion H-3 freeway is both the most expensive and the most controversial puhlie works project in state history. After 37 years of planning, construction, community protests and legal ehallenges, the freeway finally opened to the puhlie in December 1997. Stretching from Hālawa valley through the Ko'olau mountain range down to Mōkapu, the freeway impacted at least 150 cultural sites, including a sprawling agricultural terrace and the largest known religious shrine in the district of Ko'olaupoko, Kukui o Kāne Heiau. Working group member Clara "Sweets" Matthews was a panelist on a recent OHA puhlie access television show that focused on the HLID project. In the show, Matthews said that kūpuna, keiki and various community groups, including a few from prison, visit Hālawa Valley regularly. As they work to help the valley heal, she said, they themselves also heal. "It's beautiful seeing people so happy leaving the valley and expressing what they want to happen in the future there," she said. The draft strategic plan ean be viewed online at www.hlid.org. For a printed copy or more information, eall the HLID office at 587-4391.

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More than 150 archaeological sites identified by Bishop Museum in the Hōlawa and Luluku valleys were directly impacted by development of the H-3 freeway. Photo. Qha staff