More Military Training at Pohakuloa Planned
Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact for Construction of an Urban Close Air Support Range and an Aviation Bulls-Eye Range at Pōhakuloa Training Area
http://www.mcbhawaii.marines.mil/UnitHome/FeaturedInformation/UCAS.aspx
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Jim Albertini Malu ‘Aina Center For Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box 489 Ola’a (Kurtistown) Hawai’i 96760 Phone 808-966-7622 Email ja@malu-aina.org www.malu-aina.org This communication may be unlawfully collected and stored by the National Security Agency (NSA) in secret. The parties to this email do not consent to the retrieving or storing of this communication and any related metadata, as well as printing, copying, re-transmitting, disseminating, or otherwise using it. If you believe you have received this communication in error, please delete it immediately.
Below are my comments to the Marines
tiffany.patrick@usmc.mil
Feb. 12, 2014
Attn: Commanding Officer, Attn: Tiffany Patrick
Comments to Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact
for Construction of an Urban Close Air Support Range and
an Aviation Bulls-Eye Range at Pōhakuloa Training Area
I have reviewed your EA on line and find it totally insufficient. The entire PTA 133,000-acres should be considered a “Radiological Control Area” due to poor military record keeping about Depleted Uranium weapons used, less than 1% of PTA has been surveyed for DU, and the fact that citizen monitors on numerous occasions have detected radiation in civilian areas beyond the confines of PTA boundaries. The Hawaii County Council, on July 2, 2008 passed resolution 639-08 that called for 8 military actions, none of which have been carried out. The first and foremost action is that all live-fire at PTA, and anything that creates dust, should be stopped until there is comprehensive testing and monitoring to determine the full extent of radiation contamination at PTA, and the DU is cleaned up. In addition Army regulation 700-48 sec. 2.1 says that the Army is required to follow local government actions. The Army is in violation of its own regulations. The Army said for years, no DU has been used at Pohakuloa. This was proved to be false. How much and where it was used are still in dispute.
Furthermore, the independent nation of Hawaii is under continued illegal military occupation by the U.S. even since 1893. The illegal state of Hawaii has no clear title to the Crown and Government lands of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the area known as Pohakuloa, so the State of Hawaii and the U.S. military have no legal basis for building any ranges at Pohakuloa or conducting any activities there. Therefore cease and desist from any further operations.
A full EIS should be conducted to investigate thoroughly all of these matters raised. Below is a recent statement issued on DU contamination in Hawaii that has bearing on the proposed Marine training at PTA.
Hawaii DU Site to be Bombed!
Army to bomb known DU contaminated area on Oahu’s Schofield Barracks.
Is Pohakuloa on Big Island Next?
According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the Army will be using high explosives in known Depleted Uranium (DU) contaminated areas at Schofield Barracks on Oahu during the week of Feb. 4-11, 2014. The NRC has given the go ahead even though the NRC said it has not completed it’s review of the Army’s air monitoring plan. In effect, Hawaii residents and visitors are being used as lab rats for continued military experiments.
The history of military pollution in Hawaii is epic – hundreds of polluted sites, unexploded bombs and toxins all over the place on land and sea, thousands of nuclear waste drums dumped on the ocean floor off Oahu, etc. etc. And it’s not just Hawaii. The U.S. military is the greatest polluter the world has ever known, and the so called regulators such as the NRC, instead of regulating, are complicit in this pollution and disregard for the health and safety of the people. For years the Army said it did not know that DU was used on its own live-fire ranges in Hawaii and elsewhere, so they continued to bomb those ranges. Now they admit they know DU was used. How much, they are not sure. The Army said it will do air monitoring during its bombing. But as one scientist said if you try to catch BBs with a tennis racket you are not likely to catch many. The same with the Army’s monitoring plan. If they don’t want to find anything they are not likely to look very well. The fox guarding the hen house is not likely to report any chickens missing.
Recently two Hilo High School students were arrested for suspected terroristic threatening for setting off a small plastic bottle explosive device at the school. Now the Army can bomb known DU contaminated areas with high explosives that risk spreading the contamination around the island and beyond and that’s OK? That’s hypocrisy and a double standard. Bombing known areas of DU contamination is criminal reckless endangering and amounts to government terrorism on its own population.
All NRC and Army officials complicit in this approved bombing of known DU areas, should be prosecuted locally for terroristic threatening and brought before an international war crimes tribunal and tried for crimes against humanity. The world is in terrible shape with unprecedented toxic pollution, climate change, etc. because the precautionary principle has not been followed. The precautionary principle states that when you do not know the full consequences of an action, error on the side of caution. It’s common sense –you do not bomb nuclear waste dumps!
Fellow lab rats unite! Protest these reckless military actions with NRC consent. When the NRC and the Army refuse to act in the interest of the health and safety of Hawaii’s people, then the people themselves must act. All live-fire needs to be stopped at Hawaii’s military ranges and comprehensive, independent, testing and monitoring done to determine the full extent of toxic contamination. How much DU is being dispersed from Hawaii military bases? Hold your breath! The answer is “Blowing in the Wind!”
Fellow Lab Rats Unite in Protest!
Whatever Happened To Signed Informed Consent?
1.Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject war as a solution. 3. Defend civil liberties. 4. Oppose all discrimination, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anti-Hawaiian, etc. 5. Seek peace through justice in Hawai`i and around the world.
Malu `Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box 489 Ola’a (Kurtistown), Hawai`i 96760.
Phone (808) 966-7622. Email ja@malu-aina.org http://www.malu-aina.org
Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (February 7, 2014 – 646h week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office
