One-time activist
heads up
Kahoolawe
commission

Colette Machado is named
chairwoman by the governor

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By Pat Omandam
pomandam@starbulletin.com

An activist involved in the movement to stop the bombing of Kahoolawe and turn it into a native Hawaiian cultural reserve now heads the state commission that manages the former target island.

Colette Y.P. Machado, a trustee for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, was appointed chairwoman of the Kahoolawe Island Reserve Commission on July 1 by Gov. Ben Cayetano.

Machado first served on the commission for two years as a representative of the Protect Kahoolawe Ohana and now fills OHA's seat on the panel. She is expected to serve four more years on the panel before she reaches the mandatory limit of eight consecutive years of service as commissioner.

She replaces outgoing Chairman Noa Emmett Aluli, M.D, who had reached his eight-year limit.

The KIRC manages the 45-square-mile island and its near-shore waters.

Kahoolawe was used for bombing by the military until 1990. It is now undergoing a federally funded cleanup of unexploded ordnance.

The Navy is directing the 10-year cleanup, which is expected to end on Nov. 12, 2003. The Navy estimates it may be able to clear 60 percent of the island by then.

Once the work is completed, Kahoolawe will become a reserve for education, environmental restoration and native Hawaiian cultural, spiritual and subsistence practices.

Machado lives in Pukoo, Molokai, and is president of a nonprofit limu (edible seaweed) cultivation and bottling business.

The other commissioners are Isabella Abbott, Jeffery Chang, Robert Lu'uwai, Burt Sakata, Craig Neff and Gilbert Coloma-Agaran, chairman of the state Board of Land and Natural Resources.