Navy cleanup of Kahoolawe comes to an end

The Maui News has an article on the Kahoolawe cleaning:

"The Navy completed its handover of this former island bombing site Friday, withdrawing personnel and equipment and fully transferring authority over the island to the state as a six-year bomb clearing project came to an end."

Officially, the federal government returned full control of Kahoolawe to the state on Nov. 10 - 10 years after a ceremony that marked the formal end of military use of the island.

The last barge full of equipment and scrap departed from the island on Friday, with Rear Adm. Barry McCullough, commander of Navy Region Hawaii, on hand for a final assessment of the work performed under a $280 million cleanup contract awarded to Parsons-UXB.

McCullough also thanked the last of the Parsons-UXB workers on the island.

"The people responsible for the project, mostly from Maui and Molokai, were the ones on the ground who enabled the project to succeed. They have a right to be proud for the effort they put forth," he said. "There were people who worked 10, 12 hours a day, some for seven days a week.

"I think they should be proud of what they accomplished to provide for the state for cultural and educational programs."

In all, the Parsons-UXB workers removed 12.9 million pounds of scrap metal from Kahoolawe since 1997.

According to the Navy, 22,214 of Kahoolawe's 26,158 accessible acres were cleared on the surface of ordnance, fragments and scrap metal. And 2,650 acres were cleared up to 4 feet below ground in areas where major activities will occur, including creation of cultural facilities.

Stanton Enomoto, acting executive director of the state's Kahoolawe Island Reserve Commission who met McCullough on the island, said he was pleased with the Navy's work.

"They did what they could,'' he said. "But as long as there's ordnance here on the island or even in the water, there's a responsibility of the government. There's work to be done.''

Other Native Hawaiian groups have been more critical of the government's presence on the island and its commitment to clean it up, noting that the original presidential executive order taking over the island for military use mandated that when the island was returned, the Navy should restore the island to be "reasonably safe for human habitation."

They argue that the Navy should have cleared the entire island of all ordnance left from 50 years of target practice.

Under current agreements, the Navy will return to remove any unexploded ordnance that may be uncovered, according to Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis, Navy public affairs officer for the Kahoolawe project.

If an object is considered an immediate hazard to activities on the island, a Navy unexploded ordnance team will go to the island to remove the hazard, he said. Objects that are not an immediate threat will be recorded until there are enough to warrant having a contractor spend a week clearing the materials, he said.

Kahoolawe is sacred to Native Hawaiians who feel the island connects them to their ancestors. A Hawaiian group, the Protect Kahoolawe Ohana, began protests over the continued bombing of the island in 1976 and in 1979 won a federal court order that the Navy conduct an archaeological survey of the island.

The survey uncovered a significant number of cultural sites that led to the entire island being placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Congress moved to stop the use of the island for military target practice in

1990 and in 1993 authorized up to

$400 million over 10 years for the cleanup. At the same time, the state designated Kahoolawe as a cultural preserve, to be used for cultural, educational and archaeological activities, with no commercial uses allowed.

The island is to be turned over to a Native Hawaiian entity, when one is recognized by the state.

The 45-square-mile island was used by the Navy as a target and training area from 1941 until President George H.W. Bush ordered a halt to the exercises in 1990.

McCullough on Friday said he was relieved that the cleanup was completed with only two major incidents.

On May 22 last year, a helicopter pilot was killed when a cable used to haul heavy loads was entangled in the rotor of the helicopter after it had dropped off a 3,000-pound fuel pod. Three workers were reported injured last month by an explosion as they were clearing a load of scrap metals.

"It's a big project and it's inherently dangerous when you're dealing with unexploded ordnance," McCullough said. "From the aspect of a project safely completed, I'm relieved.

"There was one death and one minor unexploded ordnance incident in which three people were injured. While it's unfortunate that anyone was injured, in the overall scheme of things, it's a pretty spectacular performance."

He said the cleanup also was "a huge learning experience" that will benefit future efforts to clean up areas contaminated by unexploded ordnance. He said he has instructed his staff to prepare a file of "lessons learned" to be applied to other cleanup projects.

"We learned a lot of things, and I think in the process we improved what we were able to do. Through the project, we applied what we learned while we conducted the operation," McCullough said.

"If any other such projects come along in the future, there will be a place to start. We pretty much invented as we were going along," he said.

McCullough also said the Navy had no regrets over having to give up the island as target range.

It was important for training during World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam, he said.

"It served a significant purpose for us in the U.S. military generally and for the Navy specifically," he said. "We trained with ships on naval gunfire support, which was a real art until we had GPS systems. We could train forward air control and airborne controllers on delivering on target in operations on the ground."

But around the time Congress was moving to end the use of Kahoolawe, he said, technology was developed that allowed the same kind of training using targets in the ocean without a need for a target range.

"The timing was pretty good, I'd say. The new technology enabled us to give up the range without a loss in our ability to train."

On the Net:

- Kahoolawe Island Reserve Commission

- Navy Region Hawaii

Copyright © 2003 — The Maui News

Posted: Sat - April 10, 2004 at 10:43 PM

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Navy cleanup of Kahoolawe comes to an end

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