Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 23, Number 8, 1 August 2006 — Road work ahead [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Road work ahead

H-3 mitigation project moves toward refining its plan

By Sterling Kini Wnng Publicatinns Editnr The future of the numerous cultural sites affected by the construction of the eontroversial H-3 freeway is beginning to heeome clearer, as the federally funded Hālawa-Luluku Interpretive Development project (HLID) works with the eommunity to refine its recently approved strategic plan for the area into a more detailed document. After 37 years of planning, construction, coimnunity protests and legal challenges, the $1.3-bil-lion H-3 freeway finally opened to the puhlie in December 1997. Stretching from Hālawa valley through the Ko'olau mountain range down to Mōkapu, the freeway impacted at least 150 eultural sites, including a sprawling agricultural terrace and the largest known religious shrine in the district of Ko'olaupoko, Kukui o Kāne Heiau. Various federal and state agencies, working with OHA, agreed to mitigate the adverse effects H-3 had on the cultural sites in its path. Consequently, HLID was created in April 2000 to carry

out this mission and was funded with $11 million from the Federal Highways Administration. HLID, along with a working group of concerned conununity members and a planning consultant, spent several years working on its strategic plan, whieh was approved by the OHA Board of Trustees in Ianuary. The strategic plan outlines a variety of possible mitigation measures for the areas affected by H-3, such as the development of education and visitor facilities, the replanting of native plants, erosion-control methods, and improved access to and the restoration of cultural sites. HLID coordinator Kahikina Akana said that the project is currently trying to develop the concepts from the strategic plan into a new, more detailed document called the interpretive development plan. Onee the new plan is completed and approved, engineers and architects will be brought in to finalize specific designs for the chosen mitigation measures and facilities. Akana said that their goal is to finish the interpretive document by

next suimner, and that the design phase should wrap up about six months to a year later. At some point thereafter, he said, the HLID project would dissolve, and perhaps a nonprofit would be fonned and tasked with implementing and maintaining the plan. Some observers, however, have criticized HLID for moving too slowly. "In five years, they've managed to produce three

reports and a water buffalo to hold water for plants - all for $2 million," said Lela Hubbard, one of HLID's community working group members. Akana said he agrees that the project has taken a long time, but he added that often times the delays are the result of HLID trying to acconunodate the eommunity's ideas. "[The federal agencies] have

always felt that we should listen to the people," Akana said. "We're in a difficult plaee. We slow down the project to involve the eommunity, and we're criticized for taking too long. But if we blew by the people, they'd criticize us for not listening." S

MĀLAMA 'ĀINA • CARING FDR ĪHE LANŪ

Opened in 1 997, the H-3 freeway impacted at least 1 50 cultural sites. - Photo: KW0Archive