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Public getting
look at Army’s
Makua plan

Details of the Makua Valley
assessment will be revealed

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By Harold Morse
Star-Bulletin

Thursday marks a critical moment in the controversy over Army live firing in Makua Valley, when details of a Supplemental Environmental Assessment on the subject become public at a 6 p.m. community meeting at Waianae Army Recreation Center.

Two previous meetings there have at times featured acrimony with civilian demands that the matter be treated in a full-blown Environmental Impact Statement rather than an Environmental Assessment.

Maj. Gen. James M. Dubik, commander, 25th Division and U.S. Army Hawaii, will address the meeting.

"Although the EA process does not call for community involvement, we sought ways to involve the community," said Ron Borne, Army range officer here. "We want to be good neighbors so we wanted to listen to the community's input."

Makua on the Waianae Coast has been an Army training area since the 1940s. However, the Army voluntarily halted training in September 1998 after range fires threatened endangered species there.

The Army consulted with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and put in an ecosystem management plan to protect 29 rare and endangered plants, one tree snail, two birds and one bat with habitats in the 4,200 acres that make up Makua Military Reservation.

Malama Makua, a community group, brought suit in October 1998 for compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. Under an out-of-court settlement reached in September 1999, the Army agreed not to resume training until studies were completed on the valley and the impact of Army training there.

The environmental assessment is a supplement to one produced in 1985, Borne said. "We have added a significant amount of research to that original EA, and we hope to finalize and publish it this month."

The new EA includes a fire management program, biological assessment and means to preserve more than 33 archeological sites.

The Army received more than 130 comments from the community during the comment period, Borne said. "Everyone who sent a comment with a return address will receive a response," he said.