Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 33, Number 12, 1 December 2016 — Mākua access ban challenged in court [ARTICLE]

Mākua access ban challenged in court

Mālama Mākua, represented by Earthjustice, is taking the U.S. Army to court over allegations that a ban on access violates a 2001 court-ordered settlement. Mākua has been used as a live-fire training facility by the U.S Army since World War II. Although the military was supposed to hand over the Mākua when the war ended, an argeement wasn't reached until 200 1. The settlement forced the Army to stop live-fire training while it eompleted an Environmental Impact Statement and began cleaning up unexploded ordnance in order to provide safe access to cultural sites. As a result of the ceasefire, Mālama Mākua uncovered many cultural artifacts, such as Hawaiian temples, shrines and petroglpyhs. However, Mālama Makua claims that in June 2014 the Army cut off cultural access and halted the elean up - even after Mālama Mākua provided a National Historic Preservation Act memorandum of agreement at the Army's request in 2015. "Our patience is at an end," said Sparky Rodrigues of Mālama Mākua. "There was no valid reason for the Army to cut off cultural access in the first plaee, and even less justification to continue the access ban. In over a decade of cultural access at Mākua, there has never been a single person hurt. By keeping practitioners from Mākua's sacred sites based on trumped-up safety concerns, the SEE NEWS BRIEFS "II PAGE 17

NEWS BRIEFS Continued from page 16 Army causes those sites to lose their mana (spiritual force), inflicting severe cultural harm."