Pohakuloa fires raise health concern
What’s blowing in the smoke from the recent brush fires at Pohakuloa?
Pohakuloa has been bombed for 70 years with a wide variety of weapons.
There is depleted uranium (DU) in the Pohakuloa Training Area — the amount never adequately studied despite repeated requests. No one knows where all the DU is located or how much is there. DU in oxide form is extremely dangerous when inhaled and can cause cancers, birth defects and genetic damage. Other toxins from various munitions fired at Pohakuloa are also a concern.
Is anyone doing downwind fire air monitoring? There are at least 57 present and former military sites on Hawaii island involving more than 250,000 acres that contain unexploded ordnance and/or military toxins. The military is good at making a mess but poor in cleaning up.
Hawaii’s children deserve better.
Jim Albertini
Kurtistown
Don’t waste money on missile defense
Recent letters to the Star-Advertiser have urged the building of an anti-missile system in Hawaii to save us from a North Korean attack.
Apparently, North Korea’s nuclear saber-rattling is evoking a measure of hysteria among our good citizens.
Yes, the dangers of catastrophic nuclear war are very real, but our opponents would likely be China and/or Russia. In that kind of total war, there is no safety for anybody in Hawaii (or anybody on this planet.)
So instead of spending billions to build a useless anti-missile system, let’s invest in building understanding and trust between ourselves and the Chinese and Russians through creative peaceful means. Let’s work together on common problems like climate change.
Of course, this does not mean not criticizing Moscow and Beijing when we disagree with their human rights or foreign policies.
Noel J. Kent
Manoa
HTA poor negotiator over NFL Pro Bowl
Donald Trump keeps reminding us that our government does not know how to negotiate.
Now our Hawaii Tourism Authority is proving that to be true yet again.
March 31 was the agreed-to deadline by both sides regarding the next Pro Bowl game being played here. The state allowed the NFL to waste two more months to shake down everyone for more concessions.
This, after 35 years in Hawaii. After giving the NFL way too many tax breaks. After allowing a private event on the beach serving alcohol, while no one else could do the same. When the players association keeps stating they want to play here.
We should tell the NFL owners, enough already. To get a two-month extension, they should have to give us something in return. Fewer tax credits, more games, etc. Or they can take their game elsewhere and watch it completely disappear.
TV ratings are down and headed lower. Players would not show up and fans would follow. Life would continue without the game. The NFL would be the loser.
John Waring
Kailua
Hawaii needs its own Cancer Center
I agree with the March 30 article, “Everyone stands to benefit from UH Cancer Center,” written by Beadie Kanahele Dawson and Don Murphy.
One point to emphasize is that the University of Hawaii Cancer Center is conducting research on cancers that have more prevalence in our diverse ethnic community. If we don’t undertake these studies relating to Hawaii’s cultural diversity, we can’t expect that other cancer centers in the U.S. will.
On average, approximately 17 Hawaii residents each day receive the dreaded news that they have been diagnosed with cancer. Hawaii’s failure to support funding for the UHCC would be an embarrassment and a message to the nation and world that Hawaii is not interested in joining President Barack Obama’s recently announced bold initiative to find a cure for cancer, for those presently battling cancer and for those who will be diagnosed in the future.
Bernard Lum
Nuuanu
Psychiatric services can be improved
We thank the Star-Advertiser for the editorial, “Psychotropic drugs: Improve access to psychiatric care,” (Star-Advertiser, Our View, March 22).
We wholeheartedly agree that telemedicine and team-based behavioral health/primary care integration have significant potential to improve access to psychiatric medications and other evidence-based psychological treatments, which also are in high need; while maintaining and improving upon existing standards. Furthermore:
>> Hawaii law allows equivalent reimbursement for telemedicine-delivered psychiatric services.
>> There are examples of how involving trainees in telepsychiatry services and collaborative care models can significantly grow the rural/neighbor island workforce.
>> More information about project ECHO, a valuable healthcare community resource, can be found at http://www.ahec. hawaii.edu/project-echo/.
Certainly, the care system needs to do much more, not only to solve workforce supply and distribution problems, but also to provide mental health- related prevention and early intervention (e.g., eliminating poverty, improving maternal-child health, optimizing K-12 education, etc.).
Anthony P. S. Guerrero, M.D.
Punchbowl (on behalf of 15 other health professionals)
Rail tax extension didn’t do much good
The rail tax was extended just three months ago, but already that’s not enough?
I agree with those who say end the rail at the Middle Street bus depot until someone can administer this job without bankrupting the taxpayers.
And save Honolulu’s beauty.
Suzanne Ramos
Downtown Honolulu
77 responses to “Pohakuloa fires raise health concern”
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IRT Noel J. Kent: Good point. We should be using that money to buy more nukes. The best defense is a good offense.
Professor Kent seems to be saying that global warming is the cause of a future nuclear war between Russia/China vs. U.S.; so don’t bother spending money on missile defense. Huh? Say what?
No. He’s saying fear and mistrust are the problem. We can build our relations by working together on things of global importance. Who, except Republicans, don’t believe in global warming.
Well perhaps those scientists who have taken note that since 1997 the earth has been measurably COOLING.
So right, Wiliki.
Indeed you might find this recent offering fascinating:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/an-overheated-climate-alarm-1459984226
Commentary
An Overheated Climate Alarm
The White House launches a scary campaign about deadly heat.
Guess what: Cold kills more people.
By Bjorn Lomborg – – Mr. Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, is the author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist” (Cambridge Press, 2001) and “Cool It” ( Knopf, 2007).
April 6, 2016 7:10 p.m. ET
When attempting to deal with Ethnic Studies Professor Noel Jacob Kent, it is best to avoid wasting your time at logical persuasion. His mind is made up, so facts and logic need not apply.
Or as the Red Queen famously observed “FIRST the verdict THEN the trial”.
Yup, and defenses win championships. China and Russia will never listen to the U.S. It is not in their best interest. Putin has proven this already in Syria and their fly byes near U.S. territory. China pulls N. KOREA’s chain all these time and making Islands in the South China sea. They don’t fear us any more. We are just the welcome mat. So bad that Cuba doesn’t greet the President of the United States on a historical visit to Cuba.
Spend the money on a missile defense as it will probably a small country like North Korea or Iran who have little to no ownership in the Global Economy. Additionally, build more nukes as peace can be obtained through strength.
Well said!
During a UH summer session class on Hawaiian Politics 23 years ago, I heard guest speaker and Ethnic Studies Professor Noel Jacob Kent declaim on matters of international policy at which time he averred “I see no threat from the Soviet Union” by way of bad mouthing the USA – – much as he still does.
When a student had the temerity to ask him why he did not consider 30,000 USSR warheads that were then aimed at us to be a threat, he fell strangely silent.
IRT Bernard Lum: So the lowering the oceans thing is over already?
IRT Suzanne Ramos: Suzanne, rail is about theft. That’s it. Nobody is going to do anything about it, so get over it already. They’re taking our money.
Rail needs to go all the way to downtown to be fully effective in beating traffic congestion. The rail should however be operational in the first phase to Middle Street to achieve some benefits for west side residents while the community gets accustomed to multimodal transportation. The half percent GE tax for rail is hardly felt and should have been extended longer to ensure sufficient funds. Nevertheless, it is essential that rail gets completed to Ala Moana and that cost overruns can be minimized. We need to stay positive and look to a better future for our children and grandchildren.
ukuleleblue says: “The half percent GE tax for rail is hardly felt and should have been extended longer to ensure sufficient funds.”
I’m sure you don’t feel it at all in New York or Chicago or wherever it is that you really live, but let me assure you that families here, with both parents working two jobs certainly notice when the City and State take a taste of of every transaction involved in the purchase of toothpaste, food, rent, shoes, clothing and medicine and shovels into the pockets of unaccountable insiders.
Just three months ago, after shooting wildly over budget by BILLIONS, HART and Mayor Caldwell came out again demanding more money and higher taxes and breaking their promises of accountability and their ability to rein in the out of control spending and promised that THIS tax increase would be enough. Not surprising, Mayor Caldwell and HART were lying again and already breaking promises.
Why should anyone “stay positive “about a project that has shot billions over budget, broken every promise it’s made and been wrong about all it’s cost projections? And their latest “unexpected, and unbudgeted surprise conditions that no one could have foreseen? Telephone poles. Like you, they don’t even try, just repeat the same tired lies.
Now, isn’t today a good day to tell everyone where it is on the mainland that you live and what your connection is to this mess of a rail project? It’s really time you did.
Financing is solid. No city funds are involved. Rail will be paid for when it’s completed.
wiliki: I guess you don’t watch the news. The other day Don Horner told the City Council that he cannot say with any assurance that the new GET extension will be enough to complete the project. This statement just months after saying it would be enough. Where do you think the money will come from? And, by the way, the 0.5% GET surcharge IS “city funds”. The money goes into the C&C general fund and then reallocated. Good thing you’re not a CFO.
No one has a crystal ball.
Can he predict whether the money will be spent or not. Of course not.
Is he confident the projection is good. Of course he is.
Only lawyers want to confuse us on these rhetorical questions – or basically lies desguised as questions.
Obviously, grabby and those before him were either outrageous liars or completely incompetent in predicting the cost of the project. I believe they were liars understating the cost to get public approval for the project and since then, incompetence since grabby took over.
If they honestly don’t know, they should admit they don’t know and give the public the best and worst case scenarios.
That would make them look more credible than asking for money, then saying it should be enough and then coming back a month later asking for more. And we’re not talking a few dollars, we’re in the billions over the original projections.
wiliki says: “Financing is solid. No city funds are involved. ”
Fantastic news wiliki! Would you please tell Mayor Caldwell and all those Hungry, Hungry Hippos at HART to stop trying to squeeze us for more money then.
ukuleleblue says: “Rail needs to go all the way to downtown to be fully effective in beating traffic congestion. The rail should however be operational in the first phase to Middle Street to achieve some benefits for west side residents while the community gets accustomed to multimodal transportation. ”
The rail was promised to go to Ewa and Kapolei and run to UH Manoa. Unfortunately, with the approval of rail cheerleaders like yourself, it was gifted to wealthy corporations and developers and now is slated to run between a developers new, previously undevelopable suburban sprawl, past new luxury high-rises built for wealthy foriegn investors and stopping at the luxury upscale tourist mall. It’s heartbreaking, because traffic weary west families thought they were finally getting traffic relief instead of losing their express buses and getting a slow seatless train wth bus rides at both ends.
If you’re a millionaire living in your penthouse condo in Kakaako. you can look forward to brief train ride to Prada, Tiffany, and Morton Steakhouse. If you’re a student or UH employee living in Ewa, you’ve got a long, commute with two bus transfers and a slow train ride on a train with few seats that stops every mile for 20 miles.
And isn’t it time you told everyone where it is on the mainland that you live and what your connection is to this mess of a rail project? It’s really time you did.
I really wish ukuleleblue would stop his BS that rail is needed for our children and grandchildren. Most of the children and grandchildren will not ride the rail. They will only pay for the rail.
It’s no secret now that rail is going to increase commute times. That’s a another negative for our children and grandchildren. People who don’t drive will have less time to spend with their children and grandchildren.
Without rail, our children and grandchildren have no future.
Let’s be clear. Where wiliki says “our children and grandchildren have no future without rail”, he means his own children and grandchildren because wiliki is a rail shill for Kirk.
We kupunas even include Keolu’s children.
HART’s propaganda minister speaks again!
That’s HART’s “lying” propaganda minister.
uku & wiliki= BS to da max
“The rail tax was extended just three months ago, but already that’s not enough?”>> What surprises me is that you’re surprised by this. Ever see that Steve Martin movie “Little Shop of Horrors” where that plant keeps requiring more and more blood to grow – singing “Feed me”..”Feed me”? That’s how our govt taxation and growth works here.
For your entertainment…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7SkrYF8lCU
The ink is barely dry on the latest approval of the bill to extend the GET and Don Horner testified the other day to the City Council that he can’t give any assurance that the extension will be enough. One council member asked bluntly of Horner: “Are we being played?”. Yes. Yes we are. The sad part is that this is coming as such a surprise to the council member.
This is no surprise. Based on other rail projects (i.e. The big dig), we should have known this would happen. moofi was deceptive enough to fool people into thinking the rail would ease traffic, provide jobs for all the unemployed and that it would cost just above 3 billion with a generous 18% contingency fund.
Add in an incompetent project manager and what you see now is the result.
I highly doubt that there is enough political will to stop the rail but at least hold people accountable and contain the costs.
Oh, and fire the rail shills like ukuleleblue and wiliki. They sound like kids with their fingers in their ears saying “lalalalalalalala”.
No one has a crystal ball to predict the future.
Panos and Cliff Slater must have had a crystal ball. Everything they predicted about rail was spot on.
Willi has a dull bulb.
wiliki says: “No one has a crystal ball to predict the future.”
I predicted you would say that.
The “Big Dig” was a major highway project that now greatly improves the traffic flow through downtown Boston. Even with the cost overruns, it was good that the project was done at the time as it would cost much more to build now. We just need to bite the bullet and get rail finished. Decades from now the rail cost will look cheap and we will be glad it got built for our better quality of life.
Ukuleleblue, spoken like a true paid rail shill.
How is rail making for a better quality of life? Not only are families paying more taxes every time they make a purchase, including food and medicine, pretty soon our property taxes will be raised to pay for operations of the rail.
And then the cherry on top is that the current bus riders will have their direct bus routes cancelled and fed to the rail, which will make their daily commute times longer.
The rail is just a drain on Oahu tax payer’s finances with no tangible benefits.
IRT Suzanne Ramos,
The rail tax extension will never be enough. No matter how much money we keep expending, even in the billions, HART and the city shamelessly keep coming back asking for more every couple of weeks or months. It doesn’t help matters when HART is located in a million dollar a year lease in downtown instead of being located in Waipahu where the action is going on.
I believe we only see the tip of the iceberg right now. HART has not address the issues f relocating power lines and the power source for the rail. Keep in mind that we’re building rail in the easy part of the island now. As the line gets closer towards town, the costs will skyrocket.
Also, AFTER the ridership projections fall short, there will be more money needed to fund the operation and maintenance. That’s when the city will double up our property taxes. While the city and rail shills like to say Oahu’s property taxes are low, that’s because states with high property taxes don’t pay state income taxes and the regressive GET which includes our food and medicine.
The city is going to bankrupt themselves and the Oahu taxpayers.
One reason our property taxes are (supposedly) low is that there is no property tax going for schools. That is all financed by the state, which by the way, has one of the highest state income tax rates in the nation.
Between the GET, state and local taxes and fees you have to add them all up to get the total tax burden per capita. On that basis we are not “low” by any means.
On that basis we are an average state. But we provide excellent services in an area with a High Cost of Living.
You think an 11% marginal tax rate is “average”? Guess again. And exactly what services do you think are excellent? Road maintenance, dealing with the homeless, running a health exchange, DMV services, tax refund processing?
schools in this state are well-funded. Unlike many mainland school districts with a low property tax base.
wiliki with more BS. If our schools are well funded, why were they asking the state to raise the GET 1% more to pay for their expenses?
wiliki says: “schools in this state are well-funded. Unlike many mainland school districts with a low property tax base.”
FIDDLE STICKS!
The obscenely bloated DOE bureaucracy is well funded, but damn little of that torrent of tax money trickles down to the classroom. That is why parents are asked to send their kids back to school in the fall with classroom supplies, why schools have to hold fund raisers, and why classroom teachers – – at the plankton level of the DOE bureaucratic food chain – – have to go out of pocket to furnish their classrooms.
We have a one of a kind in the nation state wide school “district” and, not coincidentally, our kids routinely score among the worst in the nation. Hint: it ain’t our KIDS that are the worst in the nation.
And please don’t trot out any shibai about ‘funding equity’ because that is a flat lie used by DOE bureaucrats to protect their comfy rice bowls.
Wiliki: If schools are “well funded” then why did the HSTA want the state to raise the GET 1% to fund the schools? And tell the kids with no a/c in their classrooms how “well funded” their school is.
Fire grabby and kirk. They’re delaying and botching up rail!
Why aren’t all the taxpayers NOT insisting that the rail be stopped at Middle St or even better, Aloha Stadium?
Stopping the rail at Aloha Stadium will cut the rail cost to less than $5 Billion total. The GET surcharge extension can be cancelled. Would avoid HART’s request for an additional 9% property tax increase for train O&M.
A bus transit center can be established on a portion of the many open acres of parking spaces at the stadium to provide commuter car parking spaces which will allow commuters to board express buses to Airport/Honolulu/Waikiki, UH and beyond.
The big problem is the “rush hours” in the morning and afternoon. Like in Ben Cayetano’s proposal, run express buses from Aloha Stadium to downtown and UH for 3 hours every fifteen minutes. With all the parking available at Aloha Stadium, it’s the ideal “park and ride” location. For the rest of the day when the rail will be running virtually empty, the buses can be run every 30 to 60 minutes. Once the rail passes Aloha Stadium, the construction problems and cost will escalate exponentially!
costs are already paid for.The financing is solid.
Buses coming every 30 to 60 minutes during off peak hours? Rail will have much smaller headways than buses all day long for better service.
More ukulele BS. Aren’t the buses with 30 to 60 minute intervals going to be feeding the passengers to the rail?
So even if the rail can run more often, they won’t have passengers until the buses make their runs.
IRT Jim Albertini : I agree, but felt I must make a side comment: You look out for the Keiki, But also ‘Elderly Lives Matter’ Too, Seems like everyone are adjusting the original comment.
PMINZ, any individual following the development of Pohakuloa over the decades understand that Jim Albertini is the only one blowing smoke.
So true!
Mr. Albertini has been hornswaggled by politicall correct propaganda:
QUOTE
A common misconception is that radiation is depleted uranium’s primary hazard. This is not the case under most battlefield exposure scenarios. Depleted uranium is approximately 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium. Depleted uranium emits alpha and beta particles, and gamma rays. Alpha particles, the primary radiation type produced by depleted uranium, are blocked by skin, while beta particles are blocked by the boots and battle dress utility uniform (BDUs) typically worn by service members. While gamma rays are a form of highly-penetrating energy , the amount of gamma radiation emitted by depleted uranium is very low. Thus, depleted uranium does not significantly add to the background radiation that we encounter every day.
UNQUOTE
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/dod/du_factsheet_4aug98.htm
This, like the myth of man made global cooling/warming (take your pick), are road markers for lemmings who think thinking is a chore.
The current Democratic Party is the most dangerous threat facing America. Far more so than ISIS. They have no tolerance for discussion, or any desire to consider cogent facts that run contrary to their own ideology. There used to be vigorous debate in this country. It used to be a healthy discourse, without the finger pointing and the name calling that the Democrats have become so famous for. Anyone who disagrees with today’s Democrats is immediately labeled: homophobic, racist, misogynistic, or just plain “dumb”. It is their only defense, of their myopic ideology. Pathetic.
IRT Noel J. Kent: Yes – hasen’t the Kauai range been setting up and testing Just for such events, and some have been protesting against it as well as almost everything else for Kauai? Hmm
We’ve had poor test results. Why waste any more money?
You must be talking about the rail.
Actually we have had some quite good results, especially with ship launched interceptors that have destroyed incoming targets during re-entry phase of their parabolic journeys. Even better is to have defensive interceptor sites close enough to enemy launch points to take down the bird during launch phase BEFORE it goes into its exo-atmospheric flight regime. Hence the interest in Japan and ROK for such defensive missile sites.
Now of course, not all intercept tests are “successful”, but from an R&D standpoint, we probably progress faster up the learning curve because of lessons learned from our test failures than from their successes.
Bill Gates is worth 81 Billion dollars….ask him to bail Rail out for a piece of the action?
No profit, they are gonna lose money! Gates aint stupid!
No way, he made his billions because he’s smart and makes the right decisions.
Average mainlanders like Grabauskas should stop using excuses to account for their very poor performances.
He’s doing an outstanding job.
grabby is outstanding at incompetence.
wiliki says: “He’s doing an outstanding job.”
An outstanding job for who? Ansaldo?
Caldwell’s Kupuna is campaigning on the public’s dime.
Fire Ernie. He’s delaying rail.
Exactly how has he delayed Rail? Please explain.
Ernie now claims the bill he passed doesn’t cover rail contingencies. He’s playing politics on rail by delaying it. Fire Ernie.
Kirk is delaying rail even more. He didn’t secure enough funding before construction.
No, Don Horner said that.
Nope-the Get extension provides more than enough contingency
Two thoughtful letters by Jim Albertini and Noel Kent raising awareness.,questions on military waste and destruction.. Oh, that the State of Hawaii leadership was concerned about both, oh that State of Hawaii leadership approached both issues with intelligence instead of rolling over to the military.
The young men and women who put everything they have on the line to defend you are the only reason ‘other worldly’ n i n c o m p o o p s like you are not being burned alive, drowned in cages or forced to watch as the throats of your family members are sliced open by grinning, feral killers who delight in having their crimes captured and disseminated on video.
Please, dont sugar coat it, say it like it is!
Nope… the cold war is OVER. The military should downsize to our new conflicts.