Tough to embrace military here due to environmental harm

It may be Hawaii Military Appreciation Month, but I find it difficult to appreciate the military’s role in Hawaii.

David Carey, chairman of the Military Affairs Council, points out the economic benefits of military spending in Hawaii (“Military adds much to our communities,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, May 14). If, however, the federal government instead spent that money on homelessness, education and elder care, we would benefit both economically and socially. In fact, military housing allowances actually inflate rents, making it more difficult for local people to rent affordable housing.

I also find it difficult to appreciate the military’s presence in Hawaii because of all the damage it has done, and continues to do, to our environment.

The Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility has spilled more than 170,000 gallons of petroleum products into the environment. Using antiquated technology that would be illegal if used by anyone in the private sector, the Navy stores millions of gallons of petroleum a mere 100 feet above our primary aquifer. Naphthalene and benzene have been detected in wells at Red Hill. Nevertheless, the Navy refuses to clean up its mess, or to use modern safeguards such as secondary containment. I do not appreciate the Navy’s attitude, or its contamination of our water.

Nor do I appreciate the Army’s use of depleted uranium at Pohakuloa on the Big Island and Schofield Barracks on Oahu. Why did the Army choose to expose us to this risk?

The military’s threat to our health and its refusal to clean up its mess is part of a well-established practice — a practice that none of us should appreciate. For years, the military resisted calls to clean up unexploded ordinance at Makua and Waikane Valley on Oahu. It has left these areas unsafe.

In 1964, the military signed a lease in which it promised to clean up ammunition after each training exercise and to remove all garbage at Pohakuloa. Nevertheless, the Army has scattered garbage and unexploded ordnance across the landscape. Cultural monitors have observed military trash “everywhere.” Internal Army documents recognize that munitions scattered on the ground there pose “for the potential for significant danger to public health and welfare.” I do not appreciate the Army’s trashing of Pohakuloa.

The military’s disdain for Pohakuloa is no surprise given its desecration of Kahoolawe. Sure, the Navy made it an effort to clean up its mess, but it failed to clear ordnance from 25 percent of the surface of the island, leaving those areas unsafe. The military’s wanton destruction of an island is unforgivable.

The military’s recklessness does not stop at the shoreline. The Navy generates noise during RIMPAC and other exercises that harm marine life. The Navy admits that its exercises kill whales. The military also routinely impedes access to surf breaks.

When the military destroys our land, our water and our cultural sites, it has failed to fulfill its mission of protecting us. It needs to clean up its mess and reduce its footprint in the islands to earn the appreciation it so desperately seeks.

David Kimo Frankel is an attorney who grows wing beans.