Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Army may be
required to protect
Makua sites

---

By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-Bulletin

The Army would be required to monitor and protect from damage more than 37 Hawaiian cultural sites on Makua Military Reservation during future training exercises, under the terms of a proposed plan.

A supplemental environmental assessment released this week would require the Army, during the first year after the statement is adopted, to check these sites before and after an Army unit left the bowl-shaped valley.

The valley also is home to 31 endangered plants and two endangered birds (the Oahu creeper and the Oahu elepaio), one endangered mammal (Hawaiian hoary bat) and one endangered invertebrate snail (Oahu tree snail) -- whose greatest threat is fire.

Three small fires occurred in 1997 and six a year later. Although none of listed species perished in these fires, several came close, the draft said.

The Army suspended training in 1998 to evaluate its fire-management plan and training procedures.

A large fire -- which was deliberately set in 1995 to burn off some of the vegetation in the area -- destroyed 2,400 acres.

Under the proposal, the Army would limit the types of weapons that could be used in the 4,190-acre Waianae Coast training facility, which the Army has had under its jurisdiction since 1943. Anti-tank (TOW) missiles and rifles using tracer ammunition would be outlawed.

In the past, tracer ammunition has been the cause of wildfires. Between 1994-98, 66 of the 99 valley fires were set off by tracer ammunition. Anti-tank missiles (TOWs), mines and other training demolitions caused the other fires.

The Army already has prohibited the use of high-risk ordnance such as flares and rockets, and had limited the use of tracer ammunition within the boundaries of the firebreak roads.

The proposal will be presented to the Waianae community at a meeting Monday at 7:30 p.m. at the Waianae Army Recreation Center.

The public will have until Oct. 23 to comment on the draft.

The 120-page draft also acknowledges that Makua, which has a variety of meanings in the Hawaiian language including "parents," "full grown" and "the main stalk of a plant," has a place of importance in Hawaiian history.

Past archeological surveys have identified 37 cultural sites, including heiaus, platforms, walls, habitation areas, agricultural terraces, shrines, caves and imu ovens. One site, Ukanipo Heiau, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The draft said the Army would be required to reduce the damage to significant cultural resources by restricting its training activities and educating its personnel in how to protect and avoid these areas.

Native Hawaiian organizations as well as the State Historic Preservation Office and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation would be required to review a status report on what was being done to protect these cultural resources.

The Army also would explore the possibility of relocating some of the species in areas outside of Makua and in the surrounding Waianae Mountain range. But the draft report points out that "many of the stabilization actions the Army is and will be implementing at Makua are experimental in nature and success cannot be ensured at this point."