We live on Kaua‘i. Our island’s delicate ecosystem is exceeding or near its capacities in solid waste, housing, clean water, electricity and military demands.
Now the Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency is proposing a massive radar complex, the Homeland Defense Radar-Hawai‘i, for the military base Pacific Missile Range Facility. It would be like nothing Kaua‘i has ever seen before.
In an aerial photo of the proposed site, note the island’s landfill and shrimp farm in the upper right. The ocean is at lower left. The complex of structures and the platform it would be built upon are superimposed on the photo.
It will occupy about 27 acres (20 1/2 football fields) and require a million cubic yards of concrete to construct. That would be 83,000 roundtrip 12-yard dump and concrete truckloads on the only access road to PMRF, Kaumuali‘i Highway, just to construct the platform.
This is one of the foreseeable repercussions if the MDA funds the HDR-H and selects the PMRF site. The MDA began the EIS process for the HDR-H three years ago with two proposed sites on O‘ahu.
PMRF was not announced as a potential site until last August 2020.
Construction and operation capabilities are projected with a dependency on infrastructure and resources present on O‘ahu, an island serving almost a million people. It is being assumed, wrongly, by MDA that Kaua‘i with a 75,000 population and corresponding infrastructure has equal ability to accommodate the radar. Please consider.
Re: the platform. Westside residents would have to contend with heavy-truck traffic and interrupted emergency services for months or years. Visitors may avoid the Westside and its tourist-dependent businesses (the Hanalei Hill effect). MDA has not commented on who would pay to repair/replace Kaumuali‘i Highway roadway and bridges at the conclusion. And all that is before they even start to build the radar complex, which will require trucking prefabricated parts, some on oversize loads, from Nawiliwili to PMRF.
The Federal Aviation Administration will impose a nine-mile no-fly zone in front of the radar, if built. The MDA’s HDR-H FAQ page says while there is no harm from electromagnetic exposure, they offer the qualifier that “tour helicopters might be affected.”
We can hope that the MDA is right that exposure to the radar is harmless. However, we live in a fact-challenged environment where perceptions of facts can and do compete with real facts. If a perception takes hold that Napali boat and helicopter tours are dangerous, those businesses and the jobs they provide will suffer the consequences.
The FAQ page estimates construction requirements would average 200 to 410 workers and three to five years to complete. That estimate does not include building the platform. Past experience predicts a few temporary jobs for Kaua‘i residents while the great majority will be off-island workers working for their off-island employers.
MDA takes no responsibility for housing these workers, many bringing their families. “It is expected they will rent or lease in the community.” No explanation is needed of the burden this places on Kaua‘i ‘ohana struggling for places to live, our schools and our county support agencies.
From the MDA FAQ page: Q: What is the impact on the power grid? Does the power company have the ability to support? A: MDA met with Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative. KIUC has ample capacity and planned structural upgrades that will be capable of providing needed power to PMRF for the HDR-H.
There are concerning reasons to believe that this is not true, unless one assumes “capacity” includes burning fossil fuels and emitting CO2 into the atmosphere.
The radar, which would operate all the time day and night, has substantial electricity needs. The back-up diesel generator that accompanies the radar is capable of 18 megawatts production. Fossil-fuel generators over 5MW trigger HRS 343 compliance. If in fact MDA received assurances of electricity delivery in this alleged meeting, the decision to burn fossil fuels, most assuredly necessary especially at night, should be made by your Kaua‘i constituents. They have endured some of the highest electricity rates to support the utility’s advances in renewable generation and to lower Kaua‘i’s carbon footprint, for the promised benefits of future lower electricity costs.
Q: What kind of waste products will there be? A: During operations, rust inhibitor, compressed gases, oils and lubricants, solvents, batteries (lead-acid, lithium, nickel-cadmium), paints, sealants, pesticides, solid waste and used coolant.
And 150,000 of diesel fuel will be stored for the backup generator. The military’s failed stewardship of Hawai‘i’s environment is indisputable. Not only in the event of tsunami or hurricane or in the near future a rising sea, but during normal operation the risk of leakage of toxins into the ground and into the ocean is too great and cannot be allowed.
The HDR-H has been defunded twice in the Trump and then Biden administrations.
Advanced-technology missiles can evade detection by the older technology and soon-to-be-obsolete HDR-H. The MDA has moved on to a space-based network of satellites that they say will detect the hypersonic missiles as well as ICBMs that North Korea may possess.
It is a component of the Joint All-Domain Command &Control globally networked, cloud-based command center which has no place for the terrestrial-based HDR-H.
MDA Director Jon Hill said, “There will never be enough terrestrial-based sensors to track maneuvering (hypersonic) missiles in large numbers. If we are to outpace the threat, we need a persistent, space-based, global-sensor capability.”
Senator, doesn’t our duty to country compel us to not second guess the strategists for perceived parochial short-term advantage?
Our delegation in Washington has responded to the HDR-H’s latest rejection by describing it as only a delay in funding and demanding an explanation.
Enough funding was retained to continue the $255 million environmental impact statement, and to fund weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin to begin radar parts construction.
We urge our delegation to act in the best interests of our Westside ‘ohana, our compatriots at the other considered site for the HDR-H in north O‘ahu, and all of Hawai‘i, and withdraw support for this burdensome and unnecessary enterprise. Be leaders in divesting from war preparation and diverting finite resources to confronting climate change and the many social inequities at home, for our children and their children’s sake.
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Kip Goodwin is a resident of Kapa‘a.
