Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 23, Number 12, 1 Kekemapa 2006 — OHA sues Army over Schofield breaches [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OHA sues Army over Schofield breaches

Federal lawsuit centers on lands being prepared for Stryker force By KWŪ staff The Office of Hawaiian Affairs has filed a federal complaint against the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army over reported cultural and environmental degradation on Schofield Barracks land that the Army has been preparing as a training area for its planned Stryker Brigade. OHA's suit, filed on Nov. 14, alleges that the Army has failed to comply with the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act

(NAGPRA) in construction work it has been doing at Llhu'e, the traditional name for the Schofield region. Additionally, OHA's eomplaint asserts that the defendants have not complied with their own Programmatic Agreement of 2004, designed to protect eultural resources and ensure eomplianee with federal laws as the Army expands its training areas in Hawai'i to accoimnodate the Stryker force. OHA was one of the parties to that agreement. Cultural monitors working under the Programmatic Agreement have assisted in the discovery of numerous culturally and historically significant sites and burial grounds in the area that were overlooked by the military's archaeologists. Among the instances of reported cultural resource impacts are substantial

damage to Hale'au'au heiau (temple) by bulldozers; displacement and damage of pōhaku (petroglyphs); the filling of a stream bed known to contain Native Hawaiian cultural sites; and the building of a road over burial grounds. "OHA has documented eoncerns of probable violation of the Prograimnatic Agreement in transmittals to the Army," said Board of Trustees Chairperson Haunani Apoliona. "To date, these eoncerns raised on behalf of our beneficiaries have not been remedied. Consequently, OHA is compelled to act." OHA is asking the court to ensure that the defendants eomply with NHPA and NAGPRA and, until they comply, to prohibit them from proceeding with any grading, grubbing, construction, training or other activity associated with the Stryker Brigade. For several years, the Army has been moving ahead with its plans to base around 300 of

the 8-wheeled, 19-ton Stryker assault vehicles in Hawai'i. The $1.5 -hillion plan involves extensive redevelopment of existing training areas, as well as acquisition of 1,400 acres of new training land on O'ahu and 23,000 acres on Hawai'i Island. Work on the project has recently been put on hold, however, due to a temporary injunction issued by the U.S. Ninth Circuit

Court of Appeals in October. In a suit against the Stryker plan filed by the environmental law organization Earthjustice on behalf of several Native Hawaiian organizations, the court ruled that the Army must halt its Strykerrelated work until it supplements its environmental analysis of the project by taking into consideration other possible sites to base the brigade. S

NŪ HOU • NEWS

I OHA has sued the Army over work being done in preparation to base around 300 of the 8wheeled, 1 9-ton Stryker assault vehicles (above) in Hawai'i. - Photo: Department ofDefense