Making Waves: Defending Ka’ena

Post Date July 18, 2011
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Category DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, GI rights/resistance, Ho’ola Hawai’i – Environmental Justice, Wai'anae

Making Waves: Defending Ka’ena, Episode 55

Length: 0:27
Social issues & cultural programming dedicated to peace and social justice.
7/19/2011 Tue 9:30 am, Channel NATV Channel 53
Or streaming online:  http://olelo.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=30&clip_id=21987

I speak with Summer Mullins and Uncle Fred Mullins about their efforts to protect Ka’ena from the scourge of off-roaders destroying the sand dunes with their mud bogging, drunken crashes, bonfires and garbage. According to Uncle Fred Mullins, 90% of the offenders are military.  We show some video and photos from Ka’ena.

Also, you can watch past episodes online.

Making Waves, Episode 54 “No Can Eat Concrete!”

I speak with Wai’anae kupuna, Auntie Alice Greenwood (Concerned Elders of Wai’anae) and Candace Fujikane (UH Manoa English Professor) about the struggle for environmental justice to preserve Wai’anae’s cultural sites and agricultural lands from industrial encroachment.

Making Waves, Episode 51, “Violence and the Military Culture”

Darlene Rodrigues speaks with Col. Ann Wright about the epidemic of violence against women in the military and discuss how the military culture exacerbates the violence.

 

 

Wai'anae Environmental Justice summer youth program accepting applications for 2010

Post Date May 19, 2010
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Category DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae, Media Releases, Wai'anae

Applications are now closed.  Download application forms here.

Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai‘anae

A Summer Youth Environmental Justice Training Institute

kamakani

Aloha Kakou

We are Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae. We are learning how to promote environmental justice in Wai’anae.

We know there is a problem – environmental racism.

We swim and play in these waters. We eat food from the land and sea here. We all have family members who are sick with asthma or cancer.

We want environmental justice.

1. Stop or reduce all harmful impacts, not just the streams, but the sources of contamination: landfills, military and industry.

2. We want the clean up of all the contaminated sites.

3. We demand a healthy environment for our community.

A healthy environment is a human right!

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Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae is a summer youth environmental justice organizing training institute for youth from the Wai’anae coast to learn cenvironmental justice and ommunity organizing skills.

The program is geared to youth (age 15 – 19) from Wai’anae who care about the health and well being of their families, communities and the ‘aina.  Applicants must be committed to learning community empowerment skills and using those new skills to help their community and the environment become healthier.

We will learn about issues affecting the Wai’anae community, social justice movements in Hawai’i and around the world, the basics of making  positive social change, and digital story telling as a medium for shaping the vision and plan for the future of our community.

The Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae Institute runs four weeks – June 21 through July 16, 2010, weekdays from 9am to 2pm.

Most activities will take place at the Leeward Community College Wai’anae office (86-088 Farrington Hwy, Suite 201, Wai‘anae, HI 96792, Phone: 696-6378). The class will take field trips to help students better understand the issues affecting Hawai’i and the depth and scope of doing this work.

Why should you join other students this summer in this life changing experience? Wai’anae is under attack. It is an assault against the community and against the ‘aina, with military bombs and toxic chemicals, contaminated landfills, water pollution, chemical weapons, destruction of cultural sites, rising costs of living and growing numbers of houseless families. The Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae Institute will give the selected candidates a way to learn skills for making grassroots community change and a forum to present their ideas on how to improve conditions for peace and justice and environmental sustainability.

Program eligibility

  • Must be between the ages of 15-19.
  • Must be self-motivated and able to work well in a team towards a common goal.
  • Must have the desire to protect the environment and the health and well being of the Wai’anae community.

Participants who successfully complete the program will receive a $200 stipend.

Program Sponsor

AFSC is a non-profit international human rights organization focusing on peace and social justice. We have worked in Hawai’i since 1941 and have been active in the Wai’anae community since the 1970s. We promote human rights and justice for Native Hawaiians, non-military career alternatives for youth and the restoration and clean up of lands that have been damaged by the military, such as Kaho’olawe and Makua.

American Friends Service Committee – Hawai’i Area Program
Attn: Kyle Kajihiro
Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae
2426 O’ahu Avenue
Honolulu, HI 96822

Fax: 808-988-4876

Email: kkajihiro@afsc.org

Mahalo to the Ka Papa o Kakuhihewa Fund of the Hawaii Community Foundation, the Hawaii Peoples Fund and the Kim Coco Iwamoto Fund for Social Justice for their generous support of AFSC’s youth programs.

Homeless or internally displaced peoples?

Post Date August 03, 2009
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Category Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Social and Economic Impacts

Most of these houseless families are Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian).  It would be more historically accurate to describe them as landless or internally displaced peoples, uprooted from ancestral homelands by America’s taking of Hawaiian lands, ‘collateral damage’ of U.S. occupation. The eviction of the houseless from the beaches is only moving them further into the bush.  Meanwhile the government is not building new shelter or affordable housing.  So the

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Posted on: Monday, August 3, 2009

Hawaii’s homeless, rousted from parks, now living in remote areas

Many believe – incorrectly – that police lack jurisdiction there

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer

Remote, unimproved and isolated O’ahu beaches have become the newest homeless refuge for some of those forced to vacate Wai’anae Coast park encampments in recent months.

With fewer beach parks available, homeless camps are spreading to unimproved coastal stretches – with Ma’ili Point and an area beyond Kea’au Beach Park chief among the sites.

These areas are increasingly favored by homeless who want no part of the shelter system. That’s because of an incorrect perception that these locations are outside the jurisdiction of Honolulu police enforcing the effort to keep reclaimed city beaches free of tent city populations.

While homeless-service workers say the number of tent dwellers has increased in these locations, precise figures have been elusive. A City & County of Honolulu Point-in-Time Count of Homeless conducted in May noted that volunteers along the Wai’anae Coast did not survey “homeless individuals residing in areas that they felt were unsafe to visit.”

Some unimproved and secluded beach locations present additional health and sanitation risks as more tent dwellers move in and take over. And police report that a recent rise in crime at Kea’au Beach Park and the bush area beyond could be a result of overcrowding.

“We’re discussing what we can do when they congregate on our beaches,” said Russ Saito, homeless-solutions coordinator for the state, referring to a bush area on unimproved city state, and private lands in Makaha with a reputation so fearsome it’s often referred to as “the wild west.”

“In the area past Kea’au Beach Park, it’s hard even for us to ask our outreach providers to go out there. Because many of them are women, and that’s not exactly the safest environment.”

Utu Langi, who in addition to running the Next Step shelter in Kaka’ako, feeds Wai’anae Coast homeless on weekends through his program Hawai’i Helping the Hungry Have Hope, said he has noticed the growing population of unsheltered people in isolated coastal areas.

“The natural reaction to the closing of these parks is that they (homeless folks) hide out,” said Langi. “They tend to find places that are kind of hard to access. When if comes down to our trying to provide for some of their needs, it’s pretty challenging.”

More than two years ago, the City and County of Honolulu adopted a strategy to clean up and reclaim city beach parks along the Wai’anae Coast taken over by an explosion of tent dwellers made homeless largely by rapidly rising home prices beginning around 2003.

The strategy became feasible after Hawai’i Gov. Linda Lingle passed an emergency proclamation that allowed the state to fast-track an emergency and transitional homeless shelter system along the Leeward Coast.

Once that system was in place, city police began systematically giving homeless beach people four weeks’ notice to leave a particular beach park by a certain date, after which it would be closed to the public while work crews cleaned and improved the facilities.

When a park reopened, signs were posted stating it would be closed nightly from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. – making it difficult for tent dwellers to regain a foothold.

Since October 2006, hundreds of beach dwellers on the Wai’anae Coast have been displaced as city work crews have conducted park improvement projects at more than half a dozen major beach parks.

In June, a large and long-standing encampment at Depots Beach in Nanakuli disappeared. Two weeks ago, city crews shut down Lahilahi Park in Makaha after the last of some three dozen homeless people pulled up stakes and departed on July 19.

Tulutulu Toa, homeless-ness specialist for the Wai’anae Community Outreach program, said 20 of those at Lahilahi have signed up at the state’s emergency homeless shelter in Wai’anae. As for the rest, there’s no telling where they could be.

“Some of the individuals move, but we don’t know where they move to,” she said. “They move in with friends or relatives, or they move to another beach.”

More and more, they are moving to an area between Lualualei Naval Road in Nanakuli and Ma’ili Point along Farrington Highway.

One person who moved there after being evacuated from another beach park is Renee Barrett, 47. Barrett says she has spent much of her life in prison and admits she’s had problems with drug and alcohol abuse. That’s in the past, she insists. Now, she wants only to stay on the beach.

“This is my lifestyle,” said Barrett. “I refuse to go in the shelters. It would be like I’m institutionalized again. I’ve maxed out my time.”

If she’s ever forced to leave the water’s edge, she’ll find shelter on somebody’s porch, she said. Or she’ll sleep on the sidewalk: “I know how to survive.”

According to Toa, some move to unimproved beaches because they believe those are outside Honolulu Police Department jurisdiction.

“Yes, that’s correct,” said Toa, who believes the Nanakuli to Ma’ili Point stretch will be evacuated and cleaned by the city and county before the end of this year. If and when that happens, Kea’au Beach Park in Makaha – already the most crowded and remote beach park population on the Wai’anae Coast, and a growing concern for police – could explode and spill over into the vast thicket known as “the wild west.”

Toa tells tent dwellers she invites into the shelter system that one day all beaches along the Wai’anae Coast – including those in the farthest reaches – will be evacuated, cleaned and thereafter closed overnight. Whether there would be enough shelter space to accommodate the waiting homeless, were they to decide they even wanted it, is anybody’s guess.

And it is highly unlikely that more shelter space will be built, given the state’s budget crisis, Saito said.

Meanwhile, time seems to be running out for those who sleep under the stars. Honolulu Police Maj. Michael Moses warned that no beaches along the Wai’anae Coast are outside police jurisdiction.

“Ma’ili Point is actually on unimproved city and park land,” said Moses. “And we have jurisdiction at state parks – different rules, though. We can enforce state park rules, which actually are stricter than the city park rules.”

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090803/NEWS01/908030345/Hawaii+s+homeless++rousted+from+parks++now+living+in+remote+areas

NOAA monitors munitions dumped off Wai'anae

Post Date July 22, 2009
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Category Ho’ola Hawai’i – Environmental Justice, Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae

NOAA to track munitions in sea

Monitors at weapons dumpsites will check environmental effects

By Gregg K. Kakesako

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jul 22, 2009

Nine ocean current monitoring sensors will be placed off Pokai Bay at two World War II weapons dumpsites Friday as part of the Pentagon’s continuing assessment of the potential effects of sea-disposed munitions.

Tony Reyer, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said yesterday that four sensors will be located at the conventional weapons dumpsite a few miles off Waianae known as ordnance reef. Two will be placed in 300 feet of water, and another two at 50 feet.

Five others will be anchored with 3,000-pound weights in 8,000 feet of water at a deep-sea chemical weapons munition disposal site 10 miles west of Pokai Bay. A string of sensors will be linked at depths of 40, 492 and 1,476 feet.

Kekaula Hudson, project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, said the Army hopes to begin recovering some of the conventional weapons dumped at ordnance reef as early as next summer using underwater robots.

“The plan is to use a barge system,” Hudson said, “and to treat the munitions on the barge and then take the scrap metal out of the state for disposal.”

All of the sensors will be battery operated and will be in place for a year.

The sensors will record speed and direction of ocean currents to determine where they would carry munitions materials if they were ever released.

“These sensors will collect data that has not been previously available and will give us a better understanding of the ocean conditions in the area,” said Jason Rolfe, co-leader of the $1.6 million NOAA project.

The current data also will be used in other projects, Reyer added, such as coastal zone management, pollution control, tourism and search and rescue operations.

Sensors will be deployed from the 68-foot NOAA research ship Hi’ialakai, commanded by Cmdr. John Caskey, and the UH research vessel Klaus Wyrtki.

Sixty years ago, the military dumped munitions off the coast of Waianae and now the NOAA is launching a study to learn more about the potential impacts from those sites.

Reyer, who was involved in NOAA’s 2006 sampling of sediment, water and fish at ordnance reef, said the dumpsites have not caused any health problems. No explosives or related compounds were detected in the fish samples taken during the two-week survey. Most munitions are covered with coral growth.

No similar tests were done at the deep-water dumpsite, Reyer said.

Hudson said a follow-up screening at ordnance reef will take place next month.

Tad Davis, the Army’s deputy assistant secretary for the environment, safety and occupational health, said the Army will spend $3 million to remove or destroy in place up to 1,500 conventional munitions using remote underwater drones and other robotic techniques perfected by oil companies.

The weapons range from .50-caliber or smaller ammunition to 50- to 100-pound bombs and 105 mm projectiles. Many of the munitions have been in the water so long that they have been become part of the reef.

The Army’s goal is to clear the water from the shoreline to 120 feet offshore.

Source: http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20090722_NOAA_to_track_munitions_in_sea.html

Illegal Wai'anae dump being investigated

Post Date July 18, 2009
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Category Environmental Impacts, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae

Posted on: Saturday, July 18, 2009

Illegal dumping at Waianae landfill being investigated

State investigating how illegal dump was allowed to operate secretly for years

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Wai’anae Coast Writer

The state Departments of Health and Hawaiian Home Lands have begun investigating a large illegal landfill in a remote region of Wai’anae Valley in which hundreds of tons of construction demolition waste has apparently been systematically hauled, dumped and buried for years.

Steven Chang, DOH Solid and Hazardous Waste Branch chief, said yesterday that investigators from his office are also gathering information that will be turned over to the state Attorney General’s office for possible prosecution.

“There are a lot of allegations of criminal action,” Chang said. “I’m putting together things to send to them.”

Kaulana Park, deputy director of DHHL, who was among those who inspected the illegal landfill on Tuesday, said DHHL is launching an internal investigation into the matter.

Meanwhile, the owner of a Wai’anae trucking company linked to the site said his company has for years hauled waste materials to and from the landfill with the knowledge and authorization of DHHL officials.

Jay Foster, owner of Fosters Trucking LLC, said he decided to come forward because he suspects DHHL is trying to distance itself from an agreement the agency had with him and leave him holding the bag for unlawful dumping at the landfill.

He said since the illegal landfill story broke last week, his phone calls to DHHL have gone unanswered.

“When things like this come out, then everybody is looking at me like I’m the bad guy,” he said. “Especially, when I’m not running to my defense. Why do I have to run to my defense when I didn’t do anything wrong?”

Foster says he established an agreement with a DHHL land agent in early 2005 to collect rubbish on Hawaiian Home Lands property in Wai’anae Valley and move it to the area of the illegal dump site. Foster, who has documents that appear to support his claim, says he did the work for free in his off hours as a way of helping rid the community of unsightly rubbish.

A document dated Jan. 21, 2009, and signed by a DHHL representative states that Foster has permission to take “illegally dumped material” from an address on Haleahi Road – the location of the illegal dump – to the PVT Landfill, and indicates to the landfill operators that the bill for any charges should be submitted to the “State of Hawaii DHHL.”

Stephen Joseph, vice president of PVT, said yesterday that the DHHL clearance for the Wai’anae Valley landfill location has been canceled pending the results of the state investigation.

moving trash

Foster said he was told by the DHHL land agent that what he was doing wasn’t against the law because he was simply moving trash from one location to another on DHHL property until enough waste had been gathered to take it to the PVT construction waste landfill to be properly disposed of.

“From the back to the front – no, there is nothing illegal,” Foster said. “Because it’s going from Hawaiian Homes to Hawaiian Homes.”

Tons of waste debris had been dumped in the valley long before he and the DHHL ever reached their agreement, Foster said. And he said a locked gate with a “No Trespassing” sign he erected at the entrance to the dump site had been broken open on numerous occasions by people illegally hauling trash to the canyon.

The DHHL would not comment on Foster’s claims.

DHHL spokesman Lloyd Yonenaka said the department’s internal investigation will focus on how procedures may or may not have been followed.

“What we’re going to be trying to find out is did we follow a certain process?” he said. “We’re going to be saying what happened, why did it happen and were there things that were not done correctly? And then we’re going to have to make some corrections.”

site used secretly

Although unlawful trash heaps have long plagued the Wai’anae Coast, this site is exceptional in that it seems to have functioned secretly for years as an active landfill for the disposal of commercial construction materials.

“It’s obviously an illegal dump,” said Todd Nichols, environmental health specialist with DOH Solid Waste Section, who also visited the site on Tuesday. “There were new stockpiles of material. And then there was stuff that had been buried.”

The materials – which are both piled high in mounds of debris, and buried in the ground and covered with dirt – include asphalt, concrete blocks, old painted wood, hollow tile bricks, rebar, cast iron, roofing materials and green matter.

The landfill is on the mountain side of Highway 782 about a quarter-mile town-bound of where the highway intersects Wai’anae Valley Road.

Nichols said some testing for contaminants will probably be ordered by DOH. On Wednesday, large rocks and boulders were placed around the access areas so nothing could be removed.

“We still have to sort out what all is going to be required for the cleanup,” Nichols said. “There are a lot of rumors flying around.”

Trucking firms are charged fees of $32 to $90 a ton to dispose demolition debris and contaminated waste at the PVT Land Co. in Nanakuli, the only landfill on O’ahu that can legally accept construction materials.

Such fees can be substantial, considering they often involve many tons of waste.

The illegal landfill came to light after a community group that included Lucy Gay, director of Continuing Education & Training at Leeward Community College in Wai’anae; Hawaiian activist Alice Greenwood; and environmental watchdog Carroll Cox inspected and photographed the dump site earlier this month along with a group of adult LCC students.

According to Cox, president of EnviroWatch, the Wai’anae Valley site is “the most substantial and multi-faceted illegal landfill I’ve seen in the state.”

Among the chunks of concrete and twisted metal, Cox and the others found documents they believe might lead to the origins of the unlawful operation. But others had complained about the dumping activities months earlier.
Written notice

Former Wai’anae Coast Neighborhood Board member David Lawrence Brown sent a written notice via e-mail to numerous agencies and leaders on Sept. 18, citing “potentially illegal dumping activities on … DHHL lands” in the vicinity of the dump site off Highway 782.

Four days later, DOH solid waste inspectors visited the site. On Oct. 7, the department’s Solid and Hazardous Waste Branch sent a warning letter by certified mail to DHHL. In addition to scrap metal, tires, asphalt, concrete slabs and miscellaneous rubbish, the letter said the department had received an additional complaint that contaminated soil had been dumped in the area.

The letter gave DHHL 60 days to remove all solid waste from the area, take it to a DOH-permitted disposal facility, and submit disposal receipts to DOH – or face a penalty of up to “$10,000 for each separate offense, for each day of the offense, in accordance with Hawaii Revised Statutes 342H-9.”

Park said DHHL acted on that warning and cleaned up the site, which is near a cul-de-sac at the end of Haleahi Road, about a quarter-mile from the site the Wai’anae community group inspected on July 9.

Before that incident, illegal dumping had occurred on a two-acre parcel of DHHL land at 87-1670 Haleahi Road, according to Tait “Bo” Bright, who holds the lease to the property. Bright said the dumping had been going on since at least August 2007, around the time he was trying to establish an agribusiness on the property.

After months of complaining to DHHL officials, Bright said the materials were eventually removed from his land. But he said they were merely bulldozed to and buried at a site next to land leased by his sister. Since he lives with his sister, Bright said he saw heavy equipment bury the debris.

“I was watching them open up the ground and start dumping in truck loads,” he said.

That site is also within walking distance of the illegal dump site the Wai’anae community group inspected on July 9, Bright said.

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090718/NEWS01/907180344/Illegal+dumping+at+Waianae+landfill+being+investigated

Wai'anae Community Forum on Environmental Justice

Post Date July 13, 2009
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Category Action Alerts and Events, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae

Why is everyone dumping their ‘opala on Wai’anae?

What is being done to address these problems?

What can we do as a community?

Please come to our

Community Forum on Environmental Justice

Friday July 17
Thursday, 2009

Wai’anae Library

(85-625 Farrington Highway)

6 to 8 p.m.

Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae will be sharing and discussing their findings with the community.

This forum is sponsored by: Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae & The Wai’anae Environmental Justice Working Group.

For more information contact: Lucy Gay (808) 696-6378 or Kyle Kajihiro (808) 542-3668

Wai'anae Aunties Expose Illegal Dump site

Post Date July 11, 2009
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Category DMZ-Hawai'i / Aloha 'Aina In the News, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Land, Culture & Human Rights, Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae

The Concerned Elders of Wai’anae, one of the core groups of the Wai’anae Environmental Justice Working Group, discovered and reported an illegal dump site in Wai’anae.  It appears that construction and demolition debris has been dumped in a remote corner of land near the Lualualei Naval Magazine on Department of Hawaiian Home Lands land.  Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae, the summer youth environmental justice project of the American Friends Service Committee was there to support the Elders.

Here’s the story on KITV news from June 10, 2009:  http://www.kitv.com/video/20022567/

And the first story on KITV from June 9, 2009: http://www.kitv.com/video/20011403/index.html

City official says Mailiili Stream "was not used as a dump site"

Post Date July 04, 2009
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Category Environmental Impacts, Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae

A City official said that the illegal dumping of concrete debris in Mailiili Stream was to create a “temporary path”.  But they dumped this material over the course of two years!  Take a look at this photo below.  How temporary does it look to you?  The City did not obtain the required permit to dump the material. And now that the material is in the stream, a habitat for the endangered Ae’o (Hawaiian Stilt), the City cannot remove the material without the proper permits.

20090616_nws_dumping

Photo by Carroll Cox, EnviroWatch

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City official denies dump allegations

By B.J. Reyes

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jul 03, 2009

A city administrator says crews were not using Mailiili Stream as a dump site for concrete, as alleged in a complaint being investigated by city, state and federal agencies.

Jeoffrey Cudiamat, director of facilities maintenance, told a City Council committee that the concrete was being used to “create a temporary path to provide maintenance to remove debris.

“It was not used as a dump site,” he added.

Cudiamat was called before the Council’s Public Safety and Services Committee yesterday but said he could not elaborate on exactly what was done and why because of the pending investigations into the activities at the stream.

Members asked Cudiamat to follow up with the committee to help provide a timetable on when the investigations might be completed.

“We don’t want to interfere with any of the investigations,” said Committee Chairman Donovan Dela Cruz, “but we want to make sure that the Council knows when these investigations are going to be completed so that we can follow up with the administration.

“There’s obviously community concern.”

The Army Corps of Engineers, state Department of Health and other agencies are investigating alleged illegal dumping of concrete at Mailiili Stream, frequented by endangered Hawaiian stilts.

Concrete rubble from sidewalk repairs reportedly was placed in the stream area to restore an access road along the bank that was used to cut brush. The Health Department says no permit was issued for the dumping.

The watchdog group EnviroWatch Inc. first reported the activity in the stream to the city.

Some work already has been done to clear the stream, but city officials say additional permits might be required to finish the removal.

Source: http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20090703_City_official_denies_dump_allegations.html

City Dumps Debris in Wai'anae Stream

Post Date July 03, 2009
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Category Environmental Impacts, Ka Makani Kaiaulu o Wai’anae

Carroll Cox of EnviroWatch reported the City and County of Honolulu’s illegal dumping of concrete debris in Mailiili Stream in Wai’anae. On June 30, 2009, Cox spoke to students from the summer environmental justice institute Ka Makani Kai’aulu o Wai’anae and gave a tour of environmental justice impacts he has documented in the Wai’anae area.   One site the group visited was the Mailiili Stream dump site.

mailiili-stream

maililiili-rubble

Mailiili Stream dump site.  (Photos: Kyle Kajihiro)

You can see from the above photograph that concrete slabs and other debris were compacted along the shoreline and have filled much of the stream bed.   This stream flows through the 9000 acre Lualualei Naval Magazine and Radio Tower Facility, but most of the stream is dry.  The Navy tapped one of the water sources at the base of the mountain.  In this photo, there is a fence that cuts through the stream in the distance where the Navy occupied land begins, and antenna in the background.

_hawaiian-stilt

Source:  http://resources.edb.gov.hk/biology/english/images/bird/_hawaiian%20stilt.jpg

During the visit, several Ae’o (Endangered Hawaiian Stilt) were seen, obviously distressed.  The birds nest in the shallow water where the dumping occurred.  Below is an article from the Honolulu Star Bulletin about the illegal dumping by the City.

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City’s alleged dumping in stream investigated

By Gary T. Kubota

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jun 16, 2009

A number of government agencies are investigating the alleged illegal dumping of concrete by the city in a stream frequented by endangered Hawaiian stilts on the Waianae Coast.

State Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said the dumping of construction materials requires a permit and there are no permits on record for the work in her department.

“We haven’t issued any permits for that dumping,” she said yesterday.

The alleged dumping occurred in Maili at the Mailiili Stream, about two miles mauka of Farrington Highway.

City spokesman Bill Brennan said the city is also looking into the incident.

Brennan said his understanding is that concrete rubble from sidewalk repairs was placed in the stream area to restore an access road along the bank that was used to cut brush.

He said the city employees were unaware that a permit might have been needed for the work.

Brennan said heavy equipment removed material from the area Saturday and put it in a landfill.

“Apparently the area had not been maintained for some time and neighboring properties had used the city flood-control area and access roads along the top of the flood-control bank as storage and for their personal use and to let their horses run free,” Brennan said.

He said the city removed only the sidewalk material not in the stream.

He said the city might need a permit to remove the sidewalk material in the stream.

Other agencies investigating the dumping include the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Army Corps of Engineers.

Corps spokesman Dino Buchanan said his agency is investigating whether there was a violation and what, if any, fines might be levied.

The investigations were prompted by requests last week from the group EnviroWatch Inc.

EnviroWatch founder Carroll Cox said he received a complaint from city workers who told him that the dumping had been occurring on weekends for the past two years.

Cox said at least one high-ranking official in the city Department of Facility Maintenance was aware of the dumping and had told him some 100 truckloads had been dumped in the area.

“You can’t mistakenly dump something for two years,” Cox said.

Cox said he’s familiar with the area and knows of about 20 endangered Hawaiian stilts that built their nests in the wetlands area of the stream.

He said the concrete has narrowed the area of nesting and allowed predators such as mongoose and feral cats to have an easier time crossing wetland areas to get to the endangered birds.

Cox said although the city has accepted responsibility, he’s worried that city workers will try to clean the area without proper supervision.

He said the city needs to consult with a number of agencies and seek the proper permits for removal.

Cox said he was upset that the city was the violator and he felt officials needed to be held accountable.

“What kind of example are they setting for other people?” he asked.

Source: http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20090616_Citys_alleged_dumping_in_stream_investigated.html

"Several thousand" chemical munitions in "long trails" off Wai'anae

Post Date April 05, 2009
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Category Ho’ola Hawai’i – Environmental Justice

20090405_nws_armydump1

Photo: Terry Kerby/ Hawaii Undersea Research Lab

A University of Hawaii deep-diving submersible examines munitions discarded five miles south of the entrance to Pearl Harbor. UH and Army scientists spent 15 days earlier this month mapping the location of munitions dumped in the ocean at a deep-sea disposal site off Oahu.

Army analyzes data from offshore dump

Sonar finds that old munitions lie in “long trails” off Waianae

By Gregg K. Kakesako

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Apr 05, 2009
Army officials hope to have the results in about six months of tests on water and sediment samples collected during a 17-day, $3 million investigation at a military munitions disposal site five miles south of Pearl Harbor. “We were extremely pleased with the results of the survey effort,” said Tad Davis, deputy assistant secretary for Army Environment, Safety and Occupational Health. “We think we learned a tremendous amount of the technology and what it can do for us … the samples have been sent out to determine if there are trace elements of explosive materials or chemical warfare materials.”

Earlier this month, the University of Hawaii’s two deep-diving submersibles found “several thousand munitions” at depths of 1,500 feet over 240 square miles, Davis said. By comparison, Davis pointed out that the Empire State Building in New York City is 1,400 feet tall.

However, scientists failed to uncover a large cache of munitions.

UH principal investigator Dr. Margo Edwards said: “When we analyzed the sonar data, we saw long trails of reflective targets that we suspected were munitions discarded from a ship as it steamed forward. We were thrilled when the submersibles confirmed this hypothesis. The fact that munitions were discovered in trails, rather than a large pile, makes sense given how ships were navigated at the end of World War II and the fact that ships roll less when they steam into the seas.”

The water and sediment samples collected by the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory’s three-man submersibles, Pisces IV and V, will be sent to the Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center and UH and mainland laboratories for analysis of metal content, explosive compounds and chemical agents. Fish and shrimp samples are also being analyzed. The Army believes 16,000 M47-A2 bombs containing 598 tons of mustard gas were dumped in the area, now dubbed Hawaii-05, on Oct. 1, 1944. Each chemical bomb weighs 100 pounds and is nearly 32 inches long. The practice of ocean dumping was banned in 1972. Davis said the Army also will decide over the next six months whether to make onsite inspections of the two other suspected deep-water chemical munitions dumpsites.

Between 1932 and 1944, chemical weapons such as blister agents lewisite and mustard gas and blood agents hydrogen cyanide and cyanogen chloride were discarded in waters off Oahu. The largest dump is reported to be in an area 10 miles west of the Waianae Coast.

University scientists and students also will use the sonar data to map the area and pinpoint the location where munitions were found.

The Pentagon has determined that besides Hawaii, there were 19 chemical weapons sea disposal sites — in the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Alaska and two instances in the Mississippi, near Louisiana.

The Army has said that it does not plan to remove any of the chemical weapons because there is no data to indicate that they pose a threat to human health or the environment.

Davis said the deep-sea survey is also drawing on the experience and methodology used in another long-term project on the Waianae Coast, where the military already has spent $2.2 million to determine the effects of the dumping of 2,000 World War II-era conventional weapons on the sediment, shellfish, limu and fish near Ordnance Reef. The term “conventional” refers to munitions that are not nuclear, biological or chemical.

At Waianae, the Army’s goal is to clear the water from the shoreline to 120 feet offshore.

Source: http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20090405_army_analyzes_data_from_offshore_dump.html

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