Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 22, Number 7, 1 July 2005 — Army to release overdue study on impacts of live fire training in Mākua [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Army to release overdue study on impacts of live fire training in Mākua

Document was mandated by a 2001 agreement with community group Mālama Mākua By Sterling Kini Wong The Army is planning to release the draft environmental impact statement for its live-fire training at Mākua Valley in early July, nine months after a decision was supposed to be made on the final version of the document. According to the terms of a 2001 settlement between the community group Mālama Mākua and the U.S. Department of Defense, the Army agreed to complete the environmental impact statement (EIS) by October 2004. In return, the Army was allowed to conduct up to 37 live-fire exercises in Mākua Valley over a three-year period. Capt. Juanita Chang, Schofield Barracks spokesperson, said that the Army took the necessary amount of time to complete a thorough study of the impacts the training has on the valley's cultural and environmental resources. The valley is home to 40 endangered species and various heiau and agricultural features. However, David Henkin, an attorney representing Mālama Mākua, said that by delaying the release of the EIS, the Army is demonstrating that it ean conduct its military operations without additional live-fire training at Mākua, whieh is prohibited until the environmental study is completed. "They have done limited training in the valley since 1998 and the Stryker Brigade EIS stated that Mākua isn't essential to that project," said Henkin, who works for the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund. "This calls into question their rhetoric that they need to continue

to imperil the valley's irreplaceable cultural and environmental resources to accomplish their mission." U.S. military training in the valley dates back to 1920, with operations there increasing during World War II. In 1998, a misfired mortar triggered a fire that burned 800 acres in the 4,190-acre military reservation. As a result, a series of lawsuits filed by Earthjustice on behalf of Mālama Mākua stopped training in the valley until after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when the settlement agreement was signed. In July 2003, the Army lost eontrol of a planned fire that then scorched 2,100 acres of the valley. Chang said that public-comment hearings on the EIS will likely be held the last week of August, depending on when the draft is released.

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A soldier participates in training excercises at Mōkua. Army exercises in the valley have resulted in a number of devastating fires. Photo: KWO Archive