HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0377.025 2024-2026Testimony in support of Resolution 234 re. Pohakuloa
for Policy Committee on Environmental and Natural Resource Management
2 PM Tuesday, July 22, 2025, Kona chambers
from Cory Harden
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The military claims it can't manage without Pohakuloa.. But remember they also spent years saying then .o;n
couldn't manage without Kaho'olawe. c+n
The military has a staggering amount of land in Hawai'i. -C�
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It controls one acre out of every 20 acres —more than in any other state.
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The state with the most DoD-owned land by percentage is Hawaii, which boasts 5.6%.
How much land does the military really own? Military Times, Aug 15, 2022,
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And in the ocean, the Navy uses 235,000 nautical square miles of sea and undersea areas.
In the air, there are 115,000 nautical square miles of special use airspace.
Nearly all the training and testing activities in the Hawaii Study Area take place within the Hawaii
Range Complex ... the area that immediately surrounds the island chain from Hawaii to Kauai...
The Hawaii Range Complex consists of 115,000 square nautical miles (NM2) of special use
airspace (Table H-1) and 235,000 NM2 of sea and undersea space, including 1,100 NM2 of
instrumented underwater ranges at the PMRF...
Hawaii -California Training and Testing Draft EIS/OEIS, December 2024, p. H-23,
https:t,''tvwiv.nepa.navy.mil/Portalsr'2OIDocumentsjf'c7c(nc%20Fleet1,L[STTEiSIHCT T,ibra rEt-SIHCTT
DEIS.4p,oendixHDescript7c)nofSvstetnso.iidRanuesDec2O24. odd
Back on land, a year ago, two million acres in Hawai'i were designated as Sentinel Landscapes (1), which
support conservation, agriculture, recreation, and preservation around military sites. But they also
"enable long-term destructive impacts on adjacent [military] lands while politically compromising groups
[which have'an interest in the land] who become beholden to military interests" according to Kyle Kajihiro,
an assistant professor at UH M5noa.(2)
And then there's the abandoned old military sites in Hawai'i—over 300 of them. Unexploded ordnance
and toxins were found on many of the sites. I spoke with an Army Corps of Engineers staff person at an
outreach booth at Maku'u Market a few days ago, and he freely admitted they are not able to find all of
the hazards hidden underground, a fact echoed in Civil Beat.
Hawai'i Needs New Tech To Clean Up Old Bombs, By Marcel Honore, Civil Beat, June 18, 2025,
hops': //bvwiv. clvtlbeat. orgi2025,,06/hawoii-needs-nets-Tech-to-clean-up-old-taom;J
But the military always wants more land.
According to the HMLUMP [Hawai'i Military Land Use Master Plan], military -controlled land in
Hawaii increased by 9% from 200,967 acres in 2002 to 221,981 acres in 2021...
Hawaiian trust lands make up the majority of the land occupied by the U.S. military in Hawai'i...
... at Pohakuloa, the Army proposes to acquire 413 acres of land near the main gate as a "security
buffer," an additional 1000-acre site off -base for relocating endangered species, and a 2-kilometer
land use control buffer (66,718 acres) around the entire installation.
Comm. No.
Ref. To:
Ref. gate All 9 2 2025
To extend military land use control beyond actual installation boundaries, the HMLUMP proposes
using land -use zoning mechanisms and conservation buffers such as the Readiness and
Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) and Sentinel Landscapes.
Military Land Use Plan Reveals Challenges and Opportunities, by Kyle Kajihiro, Ka Wai O/a,
December 1, 2021, htt s:, lmwaiola.news/aina,`rriilitorj;-land-use-Plan-reveals-challenges-and-
opportunities/
The military will never say it has enough. We, the people, are the ones who have to tell them.
1--"Sentinel Landscape" Designation Around Hawaii Military Installations Announced, Big Island Video
News, May 15, 2024, https:%/w+rv4v.bigislandvideone4vs..comr'2024jOSf15/sentitiel-landscape-desianation-
aroemd-howoi°6ccr/bbi-rnilitarv-installations-announced;
2-- Military Land Use Plan Reveals Challenges and Opportunities, by Kyle Kajihiro, Ka Wai Old, December 1,
2021, https:!1`kow7iola.net.,slolna/militor�l-land-use-p/airreveals-chollenges-arid-opportunities]
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