Kauai‘i residents have reacted negatively to plans by the U.S. Navy to retain its missile testing facility on the island.
For three days this week, the Navy has held public meetings to discuss an environmental impact statement for the retention of 8,172 acres of state land used for the Pacific Missile Range Facility in West Kaua‘i.
All leases involving those lands are set to expire by 2030, and so the Navy published in June a draft environmental impact statement describing its plans to extend those leases for at least another 25 years.
But that plan was unpopular among the PMRF’s neighbors, dozens of whom testified at this week’s meetings to highlight perceived inadequacies in the plan.
“Are we really supposed to believe that decades of water diversion, rocket launching, wargames, access restrictions, development expansion has no cumulative adverse impacts?” said Christopher Kaia‘apu at Wednesday’s meeting in Kekaha, who added that the document does not sufficiently address PMRF’s long-term impacts on marine ecosystems.
Kaia‘apu said the PMRF operates pump stations that have shrunk wetlands that “supported some of the largest known native waterbird populations in Hawai‘i.
Ni‘ihau resident Kaneali‘i Williams said the EIS needs to take into account the PMRF’s impact on the Kaulakahi Channel between Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau, and was skeptical of the document’s claims that the Navy has contacted Hawaiian lineal descendants to carry out a Ka Pa‘akai analysis, a process that government agencies must follow to avoid impinging on Native Hawaiian traditional and customary rights.
Several testifiers called the facility’s presence on Kaua‘i “desecration” and warned of long-term health impacts caused by the Navy’s activities.
The testimony wasn’t strictly negative. Kekaha resident Keith Castaneda, by way of constructive criticism, recommended that the Navy consider allowing local residential use of the land and uncap several freshwater wells on the land.
Jose Felix, a worker at PMRF, said he and other workers do everything in their power to comply with environmental regulations, but acknowledged that the Navy doesn’t convey that information well to community members.
“I can testify that [the land] is being stewarded in the right way,” Felix said. “If you allow the state or the county [to manage it] I believe it’s going to get worse.”
The Navy was not able to respond to any of the testimony, as the meetings only served to gather public testimony. A final environmental impact statement taking public comment into account is scheduled for publication next spring.
