The Other Side
of the Story
The Other Side
of the Story
ON Memorial Day, Malama Makua and its supporters gathered at Makua Beach in honor of Uncle Ivanhoe Naiwi, a guiding spirit in the movement for peace at Makua. Across Farrington Highway, Makua, Ohikilolo and Kahanahaiki valleys were at peace, as they have been since September 1998, when, in the face of Malama Makua's notice of intent to sue for violations of the Endangered Species Act, the Army halted all military training. Malama Makua intends
to stop Army live-fire
training in valleyBut it is an uneasy peace. On May 15, the Army announced plans to resume live-fire training as early as this July. If the Army has its way, bombs and fires will once again shatter the peace at Makua. We intend to stop them.
On July 9, Malama Makua will head to federal court to seek an order preventing the Army from resuming training at Makua until it fully complies with the National Environmental Policy Act. Under NEPA, the Army must prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for every action that has even the potential for significant environmental impacts.
It is beyond question that live-fire training at Makua meets this test. The history of training at Makua has been one of cultural sites blasted, native habitat burned, and endangered species destroyed. The Army's claim that it can resume training with mortars and artillery and hundreds of soldiers maneuvering and firing in a valley filled with sacred sites and home to over 40 endangered species, without even the potential for a significant environmental impact, is contrary to common sense and the Army's own experience at Makua.
The Environmental Assessment (EA) that the Army is trying to pass off as complying with NEPA violates both the letter and the spirit of the law. Congress enacted NEPA to ensure that all federal agencies, including the Army, fully disclose all environmental impacts associated with proposed activities before going forward with them. In this way, both the agency and the public could ensure that any final decision was based on a reasoned assessment of all the facts.
Instead of disclosing the impacts of training at Makua, the Army carefully crafted its EA to hide the truth. It buried its own consultants' conclusion that we do not have enough information to know whether resumed training would poison the Waianae Coast's water supply. It failed to disclose that live-fire training poses the risk of catastrophic fires that threaten Makua's endangered species with extinction.
The Army went so far as to alter a report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, removing a statement that dozens of endangered plants at Makua were "likely to be jeopardized by military training." This is not full disclosure; it is a cover-up.
Preparing an EIS would force the Army to go beyond making a show of seeking public comment, and actually listen to what the public has to say and respond to community concerns. Unlike an EA, an EIS ensures meaningful public participation in defining the parameters of the Army's analysis of training at Makua. There must be a public "scoping" process in which the Waianae Coast community would help define the issues of greatest concern and identify alternatives to training at Makua at the beginning of the process.
In contrast, the Army sought public input only after its EA was all but finalized. It's not surprising that the EA reached the conclusions it did, since it addressed only the questions the Army wanted to answer.
Waianae Coast residents have come together to testify and petition for an EIS. Not all share Malama Makua's goal of restoring the land at Makua and returning it to traditional and cultural uses. However, we have found common ground in the belief that the only way our community can make rational choices about its future is to have an EIS, which will provide full disclosure of the impacts of training at Makua, with meaningful public participation in information-gathering.
Malama Makua is continuing to fight in the courts to ensure that the Army, which is sworn to uphold the laws of the land, fully complies with those laws and prepares an EIS.
Leandra Wai is president and Fred Dodge
is treasurer of Malama Makua.