People statewide urged the Board of Land and Natural Resources on Friday to reject a proposed land exchange between the state and the U.S. Army that would allow it to continue to use land in the Pohakuloa Training Area and elsewhere.
About 23,000 acres of the 132,000-acre PTA are leased from the state, with that lease scheduled to expire in 2029. Since 2017, the Army has been following a yearslong process to retain that land, which is considered vital for the training area’s operations, since it cuts through the middle of PTA.
On Oahu, the Army also leases about 50,000 acres across 18 different sites — including the Kahuku Training Area, Schofield Barracks and Dillingham Airfield — and is also engaged in its land retention process for those areas.
At Friday’s meeting of the BLNR, representatives of the Army provided an update about that process and requested that the board consider a potential land exchange between the state and the Army in lieu of new leases.
Gen. Charles Flynn said Hawaii’s location presents key strategic value for the Army, allowing it to project force and respond to threats and disasters in the Pacific. PTA, in particular, is “one of the most important training areas for the entire country,” he said.
U.S. Army Pacific Program Manager Alice Roberts explained that the Army and state Department of Land and Natural Resources have discussed the possibility of a land exchange in the past, wherein the Army would retain portions of the state-leased lands currently in use, while relinquishing other federal lands to the state.
Roberts and Board Chair Dawn Chang emphasized that no specific sites for a land exchange have been identified, and that any discussions about the possibility have been very preliminary.
However, the agenda for Friday’s meeting included an item that would authorize the board chair to negotiate such an exchange in the future. Chang said such an authorization would not trigger the exchange itself, but would allow the board to develop the potential terms for such an exchange.
“We need to know what is the value of our state lands that the Army is using,” Chang said. “So that we can determine, one, what do we charge for a lease, or two, what are we going to charge for a land exchange, in the event that’s decided?”
That said, the board did not make any decision about that authorization after about three hours of public testimony widely in opposition to the concept and to the Army’s continued presence in the state.
“How many of you have ever been raped?” inquired Alfred Keaka Hiona Medeiros. “Because that’s what’s been happening to us in Hawaii since the military has been here. Our ‘aina’s been raped, kanaka have been raped, our resources have been raped.”
“If I came to your home, and I threw a dirty bomb in your house, and you wanted to sell it to … Dawn, what would be the value to Dawn to buy your house with a dirty bomb in your yard?” asked Waianae resident De Mont Kalai Manaole. “You would all laugh at me if I gave you a ‘value’ for what I stole from you. So, what value do they (the Army) have for what they stole from us? … There is no value for a land destroyed.”
Waikoloa resident Avalon Paradea, who formerly worked for PTA’s cultural resources program, said the Army’s presence at PTA has devastated the land.
“There’s military rubbish littering the landscape everywhere, including lead debris. There’s dead and dying native species everywhere, and fire threats are next-level in this area,” Paradea said.
Testifiers agreed that continuing the land retention effort, even if only to the extend of conducting a land appraisal, is inappropriate.
“Yes, this is just an appraisal, we understand the sentiment, this is possibly a next step in the process,” said Oahu resident Jasmine Slovak. “But ultimately it’s a process that is incongruent with the values we’re talking about.”
As the meeting reached its 10-hour mark, the board moved to postpone action on the matter until a future meeting to allow for better discussion.
Meanwhile, the Army should release another draft environmental impact statement about the process in two weeks, Flynn said.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
