The Navy wants to cover Ford Island’s historic runway with photovoltaic panels — an addition the service said would "define and interpret" the original runway while providing environment-friendly power.
But the neighboring Pacific Aviation Museum calls the proposal an "atrocity" in light of the airfield’s rich history.
Federal law requires the Navy to consult with historic preservation agencies before moving ahead, but service officials have been touting the Ford Island project nationally as one of its "green energy" initiatives.
Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, assistant secretary of the Navy for energy, installations and the environment, told a congressional committee March 29 that a solar contract for Navy installations in Hawaii would result in 28 megawatts of capacity, "including covering the runway on Ford Island with PV, re-creating the look of the runway as seen from the air."
But initial plans to install flat black panels low to the ground to mimic a runway appearance are now in doubt, raising concerns about what the solar array ultimately would look like.
The issue again raises the question on Ford Island — sometimes called the Gettysburg of the Pacific for its role on Dec. 7, 1941 — as to what should be preserved for history’s sake and how.
There’s no dispute Ford Island and its airfield are steeped in military and aviation lore.
"It goes all the way back to 1917 when the thing was first established and the Army brought their first airplanes over here and it was called Luke Field," said Kenneth DeHoff, executive director of the adjacent nonprofit Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor. He added there are still some old propeller plane landings there for museum events.
Famed aviator Amelia Earhart crashed her Lockheed Electra on Luke Field in 1937 in her first attempt to fly around the world.
Ford Island and its Battleship Row were ground zero for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation calls the 450-acre island — which still bears remnants of bomb craters and has World War II hangars with windows pocked by bullet holes — the "centerpiece" of the Pearl Harbor National Landmark District.
It’s also an active military base, and the Navy in 1999 pursued major redevelopment plans there. The planned changes were so extensive that the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Ford Island to its list of 11 most endangered historic places in 2001.
Among the Navy plans was the replacement of the runway — deactivated by the Navy in 1962 and used by the state until 1999 for general aviation — with a greenway lined with palm trees to delineate the former landing strip’s location. Under a compromise, 231 new homes and other new facilities were added to Ford Island, but the runway was largely left alone.
DeHoff said Ford Island military families now use the old weedy strip to fly kites and exercise dogs.
Plans by the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Pacific call for up to 27.5 acres of photovoltaic panels on the runway but not on the adjacent taxiways. The panels would carry 2.5 megawatts of capacity, according to a U.S. Pacific Command PowerPoint slide.
The naval facilities command said in an email to the Star-Advertiser that "the Navy is very supportive of installing a solar array on the historic Ford Island runway," adding, "This project affords us the opportunity to define and interpret the original configuration and markings of the runway, while implementing the administration and (Defense Department’s) goals for generating sustainable renewable energy as an alternative to foreign-produced fossil fuels."
The command added that "the Navy strives to be good stewards of our nation’s historic and cultural resources, and we continue to consult with our regulatory/trustee agencies and preservation partners about this important project."
But DeHoff strongly opposes the Navy plan.
"I think it’s an atrocity that the Navy is going to cover that (runway area) with something that’s electronic." DeHoff said. "It’s a disrespect to the ground."
He added, "As soon as they put that photovoltaic out there, they are going to find out they have to put a fence around it, and that’s going to further detract from what that space was originally used for."
A Navy contract solicitation in 2010 said the only fencing could be vegetation about a foot high, and that there would be a "small trench to deter automobile traffic" as well as unspecified "security protection from pedestrian traffic."
The notice said the PV panels would be placed directly on the ground, without penetrating the asphalt, so as to resemble the original runway. A white "X" would be painted every 1,000 feet to signify a closed runway. The existing asphalt was not to be disturbed except for weed clearing.
Kiersten Faulkner, executive director of the Historic Hawai‘i Foundation, said when the Navy first talked about the runway PV, "it was proposed as a way to define that historic asphalt, so it was going to be flat black panels that would coincide with the edge of the runway and essentially be a functional use that would look and feel and read like the historic (runway) use."
The historic preservation agencies were intrigued and "cautiously optimistic," and asked for more details, she said.
The Navy eventually came back and indicated the PV wouldn’t be quite as seamless as it had originally thought, and that "the panels would have to be elevated, they might have to be tilted, they would have to be screened, they would have security fencing and that, in fact, it would not look like a historic runway," Faulkner said.
"So that’s when the discussion changed, because then it wasn’t about defining the runway, it was just, ‘Can we put PV here?’" she said.
A similar plan by the Hunt Development Group to install photovoltaics on the Navy’s old Ewa Field runways at Barbers Point was ditched after historic preservation concerns were raised there. The 5.91-megawatt solar field now is being pursued adjacent to the runways.
DeHoff advocates leaving the weedy asphalt runway alone. "Let Mother Nature take care of it," he said. "Don’t try to asphalt it again. It was originally a grass strip out there."
Faulkner said the Navy indicated it would check again to see whether it could put in PV that looks like a runway. The Navy, meanwhile, said August is a target date for a contract for the photovoltaics.
Faulkner said the Navy has not completed the historic preservation compliance measures that are legally required before federal money can be appropriated.
"At this point," Faulkner added, "I don’t know that we’re opposed to or supportive of the project as much as we have questions of, How would it (the PV installation) actually work in reality?"
