Cases

Makua Environmental Impact Statement

In Brief:

In October 2001, Earthjustice reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. Army that requires the Army to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) for its proposed resumption of live-fire training at Makua Military Reservation (MMR) on O‘ahu, a culturally and ecologically important area, with scores of Hawaiian cultural sites and nearly fifty endangered plants and animals threatened by training.

In March 2008, the Hawai‘i district court granted Earthjustice's motion to enforce the Army's settlement obligation to provide cultural access and established a schedule for the Army to identify additional cultural sites for unexploded ordnance (UXO) clearance, to increase opportunities for cultural access, and to report on progress in clearing UXO. On July 15, 2008, Earthjustice returned to court to challenge the Army' failure to involve the public in identifying high priority sites for UXO clearance and to focus its efforts on sites to which access could be restored promptly. On January 23, 2009, the district court ordered the Army to revise its high priority list based on public input and to focus on increasing access.

Earthjustice is currently back in court challenging the Army’s failure to comply with its settlement obligations to prepare key studies as part of the final EIS it released in June 2009: subsurface archaeological surveys to identify cultural sites that could be damaged or destroyed if mortar rounds, artillery shells, and other ordnance go astray during training exercises, as they have in the past; and studies to determine the potential for training activities to contaminate fish, shellfish, limu and other marine resources at Makua that Wai‘anae Coast residents gather for subsistence. Earthjustice is asking the court to prevent the Army from resuming live-fire training at Makua until it completes a revised EIS that contains the required studies.

Updated: October 15, 2009

Case #1221