Skip navigation.
Home
  Hawaii Political Info
   Candidate & issue information
Home

Military Controls 25 Percent of Oahu Land Mass

Submitted by Guest on Sun, 05/27/2012 - 01:43
USS Kitty Hawk moored at Pearl Harbor/U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class John J. Mike/Click photo for enlargement

Honolulu Weekly

by Joan Conrow

With roots planted in the 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani and a presence that extends through the entire archipelago, the military’s influence in Hawaii is surpassed only by tourism.

The military controls some 236,000 acres throughout the state, including 25 percent of the land mass of Oahu, and thousands of square miles of surrounding airspace and sea. Yet as a branch of the federal government, the Department of Defense (DoD) operates in the Islands with little public oversight and virtual impunity, except when national environmental laws come into play.

Notwithstanding, it’s burned up native forests, dumped hazardous materials into the ocean and killed protected native species. It’s rendered land unusable with its unexploded ordinance, disrupted neighborhoods with its noise, dropped nearly every bomb known to man on the island of Kahoolawe. It’s unearthed ancient burials, launched rockets from sacred dunes, shut off public access mauka and makai. And in the course of a century, it’s transformed Waimomi, once the food basket for Oahu, into Pearl Harbor, a giant Superfund complex comprising at least 749 contaminated sites.

Read more . . .

»