Leaders criticize ‘chronic mismanagement’ of Native Hawaiian burials

Island burial council leaders are accusing the state of “systemic and chronic mismanagement” of a program developed three decades ago to handle the discovery of Native Hawaiian burials and are calling on the Legislature, which convenes today, to establish a working group to implement reforms.

Oahu Island Burial Council Chairwoman Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu laid out a long list of grievances Tuesday during a news conference on the lawn in front of the Hawaii State Library in downtown Honolulu. She said the State Historic Preservation Division has failed to help adequately staff the island burial councils, hasn’t provided training to its staff, hasn’t developed an inventory of Native Hawaiian burial sites and failed to enforce burial site violations, among other concerns.

Unlike other state boards and councils, island burial council leaders say they aren’t provided with adequate legal support from the Hawaii Attorney General’s Office to help them interpret complicated laws relating to the treatment of burial remains. They say a deputy attorney general rarely shows up at their monthly meetings and is often unavailable by phone to provide legal advice. The Attorney General’s Office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, council vacancies continue to be a problem. The burial council on Molokai hasn’t been able to meet for years because it doesn’t have enough members, said Edward Halealoha Ayau, who was hired to create and administer the burial councils program when it was created in 1990. Three of the five seats on the Molokai burial council are currently vacant.

Burial council members are appointed by the governor from recommendations developed by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and SHPD and must be confirmed by the Senate.

SHPD Administrator Alan Downer said in a statement he would work with the Attorney General’s Office to provide training to the burial councils. He didn’t address much of the specific criticism, but said his division was committed to increasing communication and support for council staff.

SHPD has been plagued with criticism for years. The National Park Service placed SHPD on high-risk status in 2010 and threatened to revoke its federal funding if it didn’t make major reforms. Downer took over administration of the program in 2013 amid hopes that he would turn around the division. He had previously served for 27 years as director of the Navajo Nations Historic Preservation Division.

Ayau, who helped lead Tuesday’s news conference, said concerns about SHPD’s management of Native Hawaiian burial remains have been inflamed by the handling of hundreds of historic burials at Kawaiaha‘o Church, Hakipuu on the windward side of Oahu and a housing development on Maui called Maui Lani.

The burial councils oversee whether previously identified Native Hawaiian burial sites will be preserved in place or relocated. What are called “inadvertent” discoveries of ancestral remains fall to SHPD. However, juris­dictional issues have often been a source of contention.

Dane Maxwell, chairman of the burial council for Maui and Lanai, questioned how more than 180 burials at the Maui Lani development could be classified as “inadvertent” in recent years, which essentially means they were unanticipated. He called it an “egregious misinterpretation of the law.”