Robinsons reject
use of Niihau for
missile tests

By Tony Sommer
Star-Bulletin

LIHUE -- The head of the President's Advisory Council on Historic Preservation has signed an agreement with the U.S. Navy and the state of Hawaii on the use of Niihau as a launching site for Navy missile tests at the Pacific Missile Range Facility.

Although the pact lays out criteria for protecting native Hawaiian archaeological artifacts, its real effect is to remove Niihau from the list of possible test sites.

"We've said all along if they go ahead with this agreement, we're out," said Keith Robinson, who owns Niihau along with his brother Bruce.

The state Historical Preservation Office and the Navy signed the agreement in January.

John Fowler, executive director of the advisory council, signed yesterday.

The pact gives the Navy the ability to use Niihau for launch sites and communications, tracking and telemetry equipment associated with upcoming tests of the Theater Ballistic Missile Defense program, considered the Pentagon's top priority weapons development effort.

It gives the state the right to conduct as much archeological research as it believes is required so the Navy tests do not destroy any culturally significant sites.

And it gives the Robinsons the right to say no.

Keith Robinson said his family is saying no immediately.

Despite numerous assurances of confidentiality in the agreement, Robinson said he is afraid the results of any "ethnographic studies" will find their way into the hands of militant native Hawaiians who then will claim a right to move to Niihau.

Called the "Forbidden Island," Niihau has been closed to most outsiders since the Robinson family bought it in the 1860s.

A small community of native Hawaiians lives on the island and is aided by the Robinsons. Some work on the family's cattle ranch on Niihau, but most are unemployed.

The Robinsons for years have said the ranch has been losing money and they have been trying to come up with ways to subsidize it.

At public hearings last year, a delegation of Niihau residents supported the Navy tests, as did the Robinsons.

Native Hawaiian groups from other islands objected to the possible effect on the Niihau community, saying the Niihauans are the only totally Hawaiian community remaining in the state and they should be protected even if they aren't objecting.

"We would have had some income from the Navy and there would have been jobs for some Niihau residents," Keith Robinson said this week. "But the cost of repairing the damage done by militants squatting on the island would be too high."

Navy officials both at the Pacific Missile Range Facility and at the Pentagon did not respond to questions seeking to know what will be done to replace Niihau.