Hawai‘i County Council committee moves forward resolution urging end of bombing at Pōhakuloa Training Area

The Hawai‘i County Council chambers in Kona echoed with testimonies and oli (chants) in ʻŌlelo Hawai‘i on Tuesday during committee discussions on a proposed resolution that requests the U.S. military to cease bombing at Pōhakuloa Training Area.

The councilʻs Policy Committee on Environmental and Natural Resource Management moved forward with positive recommendation of Resolution 234-25 after hearing public testimony that overwhelming was in support of it. It was a unanimous 8-0 vote with Councilmember Heather Kimball absent.

The resolution, introduced by Council Member Rebecca Villegas, was initially discussed during a committee meeting in July, but was continued. With the positive recommendation in committee, the resolution now moves before the County Council at a regular meeting.

On Tuesday, Villegas told the committee the last couple hours had her in tears, humbled, grateful, inspired and “radically hopeful.”

“I am extremely hopeful that my fellow colleagues on the council have been impacted, educated and convinced that now is the time for us to make this statement as a county,” Villegas said.

If passed, the resolution only provides a message of what the county wants, but it does not have any legal authority.

The proposed resolution comes about three months after the State of Hawaiʻi Board of Land and Natural Resources rejected the U.S. Army’s final Environmental Impact Statement to extend its 65-year lease for the Pōhakuloa Training Area, also referred to as PTA. The lease is set to expire in 2029.

Council Member James Hustace had asked for specificity in the resolution that detailed how land was desecrated.

“The concern I have is that some of these things, we cannot have any sort of determination on the action by the other actors that are party to this decision-making,” Hustace said Tuesday.

Hustace went on to say that there’s a lot of work to do concerning land stewardship.

“This (resolution) is really pointing in that direction,” Hustace said.

Councilmember Ashley Kierkiewicz said that although the county does not have jurisdiction, “we do have tools in our tool belt that allow us to make this known, that this is not one state issue and federal issue, but it is a community issue.

“We hear that very loud and clear today is (the community) is just tired of the military industrial complex and all of what that brings.”

Kierkiewicz went on to say that passing the resolution is an opportunity to send a strong message about what “we want to see, what we don’t want, and it lets the community know that we’re paying attention and that we hear you.”

Voices young and old were heard. Among them was 16-year-old Ulunuiokamāmalu Killion, who spoke in support of the measure, saying it’s important that they stand by and protect Pōhakuloa.

“If Pōhakuloa gets leased to the military once more, I will be 81 before the lease is up,” the teen stated to the council committee. “That is my whole life that I will have been fighting for Pohakuloa and I refuse to come back at 81 years old and fight for the same thing that I’ve been fighting for since I was 14 and giving the same testimony…”

Killion had a simple message for the military: “When you make a mess, clean it up. You have not been complying with the lease terms or the cleanup obligations.”

“If I rent a house and I go against my lease terms, I get kicked out,” Killion stated. “So how come you guys can stay here, desecrate our ʻāina and still be allowed to do it over and over and over again? So please, let our ʻāina rest. Let our future generations rest, and not have to come back here and fight for what we’ve been fighting for.”

There was one testifier who spoke in opposition to the resolution, and there were two submitted testimonies that spoke against moving it forward.

One of the written testimonies opposing the measure came from Carla Kuo, executive officer for the Hawai‘i Chamber of Commerce.

In her testimony, she writes that without access to the land, military readiness in the Pacific and the nation’s ability to respond effectively to threats, would be “signifcantly diminished.”

Kuo cited several examples, including the 2018 Kīlauea eruption, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Lahaina wildfires, as instances in which the military responded to assist the community.

“Renewing the Army’s lease of state-owned lands at PTA is essential at this time,” she wrote. “Without it, Hawai‘i risks losing an irreplaceable resource that supports national defense, disaster readiness, environmental stewardship and economic stability.”