Cultural access to Makua restored in settlement

Nonprofit group Malama Makua is regaining cultural access to Makua Military Reservation, $80,000 in attorney fees and the Army’s agreement to address an unexploded ordnance stockpile with the settlement of a 2016 lawsuit against the Army.

On Friday the federal District Court for Hawaii entered the agreement. The Waianae Coast group will have access to about a dozen sites and added a new one within the 4,195-acre Army training grounds.

Environmental law group Earthjustice, which represented Malama Makua, said cultural practitioners had legal access to the sites until June 2014 “when the Army suddenly cut off access, claiming it needed to comply with the National Historic Preservation Act before continuing to cut grass on trails leading to cultural sites.”

“Prior to the Army’s abrupt decision to bar access, the Army had cut grass to allow access to cultural sites for nearly 13 years, without incident,” Earthjustice said in a release.

According to the lawsuit, a programmatic agreement that governed vegetation maintenance at Makua expired in May 2014, and the Army deemed the grass too tall to allow safe access to cultural sites.

On April 6, 2015, two contractors cutting grass at Makua for training, and not cultural access, were injured when one contacted a leftover 66-mm anti-tank round and it exploded, according to officials and court documents.

“We look forward to working with all parties involved. Makua Valley has been used to train our service members for nearly 100 years,” U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii said in a statement. “The valley continues to be an active training range, and the safety of our soldiers, civilian workers and community members entering the area is a responsibility the Army welcomes and takes very seriously.”

The Army has been battling Earthjustice and attorney David Henkin over live fire at Makua since 1998. Earthjustice said the training grounds contain over 100 cultural and historical sites, including Hawaiian temples, shrines and petroglyphs, and nearly 50 endangered plants and animals.

Makua Valley had been used for bombing and infantry training since the 1920s. The area was retained by the Army and used for company-size live-fire training with artillery and helicopters until 2004, when ongoing legal disputes over the completion of an environmental impact statement stopped live fire.

The new settlement restores access to all but two sites, which remain off-limits because they are within the blast radius of an Army stockpile of unexploded ordnance, Earthjustice said. The Army agreed to seek a waiver to access the area and remedy the hazard, the law organization said.