A decades-old Hawaii County law allowing the U.S. Armed Forces to freely transport radioactive materials on the island may be coming to an end.
Kona Councilman Holeka Goro Inaba introduced a measure at Tuesday’s meeting of the County Council’s Committee on Health, Safety and Well-being that would remove an obscure exception in the County Code specifying that prohibitions against the transportation or storage of radioactive material do not apply to U.S. military operations.
Inaba told the committee the county in 1981 adopted a blanket prohibition of radioactive materials, but the council added the military exemption in 1984 during “emergency circumstances.”
Inaba told the Tribune-Herald how that exemption came to be: In July 1984, a U.S. Navy warship, the USS Ouellet, visited Hilo. Because the ship was nuclear-armed, the council at the time hastily introduced the exemption to prevent it from contradicting the county’s prohibition on radioactive materials.
The new bill includes “a statement that removes that exemption … (which) should not have ever been, in my opinion,” Inaba said.
Inaba told the Tribune-Herald that he is not sure how much radioactive material the U.S. military has moved on the island since 1984.
However, the U.S. Army has used munitions containing depleted uranium — a byproduct of the nuclear enrichment process that is less radioactive than natural uranium, although entirely inert — at Pohakuloa Training Area, where it is still authorized to store them.
No representative of the military testified Tuesday.
However, several residents did testify in support of Inaba’s bill. Inaba credited a testifier, peace activist Jim Albertini, for bringing the matter to his attention in the first place and inspiring the creation of the bill.
“I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Albertini told council members. “I was a junior in high school. And I think we’re in a more dangerous time today than ever in history before.”
Albertini, who protested the arrival of the USS Ouellet in 1984, said tensions in Iran, Russia and China all present a growing potential for a nuclear exchange, and said the global community needs to move away from nuclear proliferation.
Inaba grew emotional during Tuesday’s meeting, saying he recently visited Hatsukaichi, a sister city of Hilo located in Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan.
“It’s a reminder … of our duty,” Inaba said, voice audibly choked with emotion. “Not just for our community, but efforts around the world to remove and not support further development of nuclear activities.”
Council members were largely supportive of the bill as a symbolic gesture, voting unanimously to recommend its passage to the full council, although with Hilo and Puna council members Sue Lee Loy and Ashley Kierkiewicz absent.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.