The wao akua (godly realm) of Pōhakuloa is a high plateau in the center of Moku o Keawe.
Created over millennia by ancient lava flows from Maunakea to its north, Maunaloa to its south and Hualālai to its west, at its lowest point Pōhakuloa sits at an elevation of 6,200 feet. It is a vast area encompassing more than 200 square miles of land.
Evidence of its volcanic origin is revealed in the windswept, desert landscape, especially in its westerly reaches, although there is the occasional kīpuka (oasis) hidden throughout. Pōhakuloa is home to many rare, native species of plants and animals, and it includes a portion of the last remaining sub-alpine tropical dryland ecosystem in the world. It is a conservation zone.
For centuries, Pōhakuloa was a place set aside; a realm of deities and elemental spirits. Although it might see corporeal travelers from time to time, there were no permanent settlements. Still, it is not devoid of human fingerprints. Sometime around the turn of the 16th century, celebrated aliʻi nui Umi-a-Liloa built a kuahu (altar) and watchtower in Pōhakuloa at the place known as Puʻu Keʻekeʻe.
There is an otherworldly aspect to Pōhakuloa. It is no wonder that many iwi kūpuna were laid to rest there.
It is therefore hurtful and an affront to many Kānaka ʻŌiwi that this sacred space has been defiled by 75 years of military training exercises.
The Need to Restore Pono
Pōhakuloa Training Area Map – PDF Format
E. Kalani Flores is a professor at Hawaiʻi Community College, a cultural practitioner, and long-time kiaʻi who has walked the lands of Pōhakuloa. He served for about 10 years on the U.S. Army’s Pōhakuloa Training Area (PTA) cultural advisory committee – until his activism earned him a premature dismissal from the group.
Years ago, during a site visit to Pōhakuloa with the cultural advisory committee, Flores became aware of a place called Puʻu Koli that straddles the eastern boundary between PTA and state lands. Flores immediately knew that Puʻu Koli was special. Atop the puʻu (hill) there was an ahu (shrine) and the opening of a lava tube that he likened to a woman’s womb.
“When you look at a map, this puʻu is actually the center of the island,” he said. “There are certain points that are what we call piko (centers). Puʻu Koli is the energetic piko of the island.”
Flores explained that this particular piko is a intersection of energy lines within the earth and that certain ancestors would walk these lines to keep them intact and maintain balance between the spiritual and physical realms.
He believes that there are areas throughout the pae ʻāina, and at certain cultural sites, where energy lines intersect. An example is Kūkaniloko on Oʻahu, the site of the famous birthing stones. It is also considered an energetic piko.
Flores uses acupuncture as an analogy to explain the concept. “Acupuncture works on the premise that the body has energy lines running through it. If an energy line is not flowing properly [causing pain or illness], the acupuncturist tries to restore it by focusing on certain energy points. We have energy lines that run through us. And so does the earth.”
Flores says that we can leave an imprint on the land whenever we interact with it. He refers to this as “human energetic energies” and says that those imprints can be positive, negative or neutral. Which is why restoring lōkahi (harmony) and pono (balance) to Pōhakuloa is so important. Military activity in that area has resulted in tremendous destruction and disturbance causing the natural elements to be out of balance.
“The military is creating and inflicting an energy of killing and war and everything associated with it at Pōhakuloa,” he said. “That is the energetic imprint that they’re leaving right in the center of our island.”
Depleted Uranium in the Soil
Long-time Hawaiʻi-based social justice and peace activist Jim Albertini has been an outspoken critic of the military’s misuse of Pōhakuloa for decades. According to Albertini, millions of live rounds are fired annually at PTA and he notes that, “B-52 and B-2 bombers fly non-stop missions to and from Louisiana, Missouri and Guam to drop bombs on Pōhakuloa.”
But beyond the damage that conventional weapons inflict upon the ʻāina, and the violence they represent, Albertini is particularly concerned about the presence of depleted uranium (DU) at Pōhakuloa.
In 2007, it was discovered that spotting rounds containing DU, a radioactive heavy metal, had been fired at Pōhakuloa in the 1960s for Davy Crockett nuclear weapon system training. According to the U.S. Army, the Davy Crockett is “a battalion-level nuclear-capable recoilless weapon” deployed between 1961-1971.
DU is what remains after uranium-235 is extracted from uranium that has been mined to make nuclear weapons and reactors. In addition to its use in spotting rounds, DU was later used to make other munitions, including armor-piercing missiles. It is highly explosive.
At a Hawaiʻi County Council meeting in 2008, U.S. Army Garrison Hawaiʻi Commander Col. Howard Killian confirmed that DU spotting rounds had been fired at Pōhakuloa.
“Col. Killian testified that, based on the number of people certified at PTA to fire the Davy Crockett nuclear weapon system, the number of DU spotting rounds fired at PTA during the 1960s was about 2,000,” said Albertini.
“He also said that DU weapons have been ‘banned in training since 1996,’ suggesting that other DU weapons have also been used at Pōhakuloa – so it is likely that there is much more DU there than what was used in the spotting rounds in the 1960s.”
When DU rounds explode, some of the uranium settles onto the ground and the rest becomes aerosolized, meaning it can be inhaled and carried on the winds. And the half-life of DU (meaning the time it takes for the DU to decrease to half of its initial value) is a staggering 4.5 billion years.
This means that when current live-fire exercises at Pōhakuloa disturb the soil, there is still radioactive DU in the resulting dust clouds that can be aerosolized and blown across the island.
Albertini explained that the DU radiation at PTA is made up primarily of alpha particles. Inhaled, they travel through the lymph system causing cancers and other diseases. It can also affect a person’s DNA and cause genetic damage that will be passed down to future generations.
To address the hazards of DU at PTA, Puna Council- woman Emily Naeʻole introduced Resolution 639-08 which the Hawaiʻi County Council passed in July 2008. It outlined an eight-point plan. Item number one: “Order a complete halt to B-2 bombing missions and to all live firing exercises and other activities at the Pōhakuloa Training Area that create dust until there is an assessment and clean up of the depleted uranium already present.”
But the county’s resolution was not acted upon by the U.S. military and live-fire exercises at Pōhakuloa continued unabated.
Our ʻĀina is Not For War Games
The violence that the military represents and the human cost of war weighs heavily on Maxine Kahaulelio. She lost her brothers, Robert S. Andrade and Kenneth S. Andrade, in the Vietnam War. Though nearly 60 years have passed, her eyes fill with tears and her voice is heavy with emotion when she talks about them.
“In the Vietnam War so many of our local boys died. A lot of families were broken up because the military killed their husbands, their fathers, their brothers,” Kahaulelio reflected. “That is why I chose to fight.”
And fight she has. In 1977, Kahaulelio was arrested on Kahoʻolawe – part of the “ʻelima landing” of kiaʻi protesting the bombing. And she has been actively fighting the bombing of Pōhakuloa for decades.
Hawaiʻi is one of the most militarized states in the United States. Overall, the U.S. military controls almost 223,000 acres (about 5%) of land in the pae ʻāina – and fully 21% of the land on the island of Oʻahu. Kahaulelio says our congressional representatives are to blame.
“Our congressional representatives are supposed to be helping us and making good decisions for our ʻāina. They could stop all this but they don’t. Why? The money.”
Kahaulelio isn’t wrong.
In a May 23, 2024, press release, Congressman Ed Case announced that the 2025 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations bill approved by the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations includes over $1.55 billion in military construction projects for Hawaiʻi – the most for any state.
“So much money to the military,” grieved Kahaulelio. “We got hungry kids and schools falling apart, but the military gets millions? To what? Make more bombs to kill and keep killing?
“The military is even using our Hawaiian home lands – Mākua, Bellows, Pōhakuloa – while our people wait 40 years on the waiting list. How much more are they going to take from us?”
In 2014, Kahaulelio and her childhood friend and fellow Pōhakuloa kiaʻi Clarence “Ku” Kauakahi Ching, a retired attorney and lineal descendant of Umi-a-Liloa, filed a lawsuit against DLNR for its failure to monitor or mālama the Pōhakuloa lands that they leased to the U.S. Army back in 1964.
According to the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation which represented Kahaulelio and Ching, DLNR’s 65-year lease agreement allows the Army to use nearly 23,000 acres at Pōhakuloa but stipulates that they are required to “make every reasonable effort to remove or deactivate all live or blank ammunition upon completion of a training exercise or prior to entry by the said public, whichever is sooner.”
The lease also requires DLNR to monitor the Army’s compliance with the lease agreement. However, DLNR could not provide records demonstrating that the Army was complying with the conditions for its use of state-owned land at Pōhakuloa.
After four years, in April 2018, First Circuit Court Judge Gary Chang ruled in favor of Kahaulelio and Ching noting the state’s failure to “mālama ʻāina.”
Chang found that DLNR had breached its trust duties to conduct inspections to ensure that the lands were not harmed by the Army. He ordered the state to develop a management plan for PTA that includes site inspections and detailed reports.
Chang also concluded that, “The Defendants would further breach their trust duties if they were to execute an extension, renewal…or enter into a new lease of the PTA, without first determining (in writing) that the terms of the existing lease have been satisfactorily fulfilled, particularly with respect to any lease provision that has an impact upon the condition of the Pōhakuloa leased lands.”
DLNR appealed the decision to the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court. In August 2019, the Supreme Court upheld Chang’s overall ruling, but weakened it by making some of Chang’s requirements “recommendations.”
“If you read our court papers the decision is really wishy washy,” Kahaulelio said. “‘Go in there and clean up.’ But it’s not mandatory. That’s why we’re having a hard time. This is 2024. Has the military stopped bombing? No. Are they listening to the Supreme Court? No.”
To date, there is no indication that DLNR has complied with the court’s ruling; no management plan for Pōhakuloa has been developed or shared. And when DLNR was contacted regarding the status of the court-ordered PTA management plan, their representative did not respond.
Hoʻōla Hou ʻo Pōhakuloa
It is difficult not to compare the struggle to end military training at Pōhakuloa to efforts in the 1970s and 80s to stop the bombing of Kahoʻolawe.
Decades of military training at both places has caused irrevocable harm to the ʻāina.
In an unbelievably reckless experiment designed to simulate an atomic blast and determine how a such a blast would affect U.S. warships, in 1965 the Navy detonated a series of three bombs, each comprised of 500 tons of conventional TNT, on Kahoʻolawe’s southeastern shore.
The now infamous “Operation Sailor Hat” left a massive crater and cracked the caprock of Kahoʻolawe’s aquifer, allowing sea water to seep in and freshwater to seep out, permanently damaging it and diminishing the island’s ability to support life.
Cultural practitioners Craig Neff and Luana Palapala Busby-Neff have been involved with the Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana since the 1980s, and active in ongoing efforts to restore the island to health. They are deeply concerned about the potential damage to the massive aquifer located directly beneath Pōhakuloa at an elevation of 4,500 feet.
“Water is life for us,” Neff explained. “And the aquifer at Pōhakuloa is one of the most pristine aquifers in Hawaiʻi. It’s the deepest, it’s the widest, and it’s part of the historical, cultural, and spiritual significance of this land base that has been occupied and desecrated and bombed.”
“Our oli and pule are the data that explain the landscape and the environment,” Busby-Neff noted. “Through our mele, moʻolelo and moʻokūʻauhau (genealogy) the waiwai (wealth) of the ʻāina is revealed and our kuleana to love and care for these spaces is established so that they are able to flourish and thrive.”
As part of their kuleana to mālama and re-green Kahoʻolawe, Neff and Busby-Neff have celebrated Makahiki on the island for years. Makahiki is the season of Lono, the god associated with rainfall, agriculture, fertility, music and peace.
Neff is a moʻolono, a cultural practitioner trained to conduct ceremonies to honor Lono. About seven years ago, he and a small hui of practitioners known as Nā Kiaʻi o Pōhakuloa approached the Army commander at PTA asking for permission to conduct Makahiki ceremonies at Pōhakuloa in an effort to help heal the land there.
He notes that while political advocacy and peaceful protest are important, the most important way to address what is happening at Pōhakuloa is through pule (prayer). “We wanted to start with pule and call in Lono and honor him so that he would come back,” Neff explained.
The commander agreed to their request and, for the past seven years, Nā Kiaʻi o Pōhakuloa has conducted opening and closing Makahiki ceremonies at Puʻu Keʻekeʻe, the place where Umi-a-Liloa built his kuahu and watchtower – a site he selected because of its strategic vantage point. It is also near to Puʻu Kepele where the moku (land divisions) of Kona, Hāmākua and Kohala meet.
They have no binding agreement with PTA. Each year, they formally request specific dates for their Makahiki ceremonies. And every few years, as PTA commanders rotate in and out, they have to establish new relationships with each one to ensure that they will be allowed access to Puʻu Keʻekeʻe.
“Maybe the third year that we celebrated Makahiki at Pōhakuloa we asked the commander if we could leave our lele (altar) and hoʻokupu (offerings) in place for the entire season,” Neff recalled.
“He agreed but his staff wasn’t too happy about it. Although the commander put out the word to leave it be, when we came back, someone had desecrated it – torn down the lele and thrown our hoʻokupu into the bushes. You know, it not only shows their lack of knowledge and education, but their disrespect for the Hawaiian culture.”
A Kuleana to Mālama ʻāina
In every way, the struggle to protect Pōhakuloa is a clash between worldviews and values that are as far apart as the east is from the west. And as it was in the 70s and 80s, confronting the most powerful military force on the planet is daunting.
“The United States military is a business, a machine that generates billions of dollars so they want to keep that machine alive,” said Busby-Neff. “But our consciousness is changing. Our understanding of our kuleana to the places and spaces that we live in is changing. It’s a whole new generation.”
“People today are more educated about the environment and aloha ʻāina,” added Neff. “Times have changed. The world has changed. There’s a different mindset within people. We cannot just desecrate and destroy ʻāina for national defense.”
“What is happening now at Pōhakuloa is like a reflection of what happened at Kahoʻolawe,” Flores observed. “A few people said, ‘hey this shouldn’t be happening.’ And then more people became aware and were like ‘hey what are we doing?’ And eventually there was a shift in consciousness.”
But awareness is only the first step. Action must follow and those who have taken on the kuleana of advocating for the ʻāina at Pōhakuloa insist that military live-fire training must be stopped.
“As Kānaka, if we’re not trying to protect our lands and our resources and our cultural sites and our practices from what has been happening – why not?” asked Flores.
“Whatever happens ma uka comes ma kai,” Albertini noted. “Despite assurances from the fox and the mongoose that everything is fine in the hen house, we are all downwind and downhill of Pōhakuloa. A conservation district is not for firing bombs, rockets, mortars, etc. How much more basic can you get?”
“If the state renews the lease with the Army they’re just as guilty as the military for the destruction of the ʻāina,” Neff remarked. “They are entrusted to preserve and mālama the ʻāina, not destroy it.”
“They have to return that land. It was beautiful. Created by Ke Akua,” lamented Kahaulelio. “But it’s all damaged. The radiation is high. Bullets all over the place. It’s a wreck. How much more land do they want?”
“It’s important to get the word out, get people activated, and get our lāhui together to address this as a collective,” Busby-Neff said. “It’s not even a protestation. It’s more of an affirmation of the spaces that we hold and honor – and informing the entities that inhabit those spaces that we understand that what is happening there is unacceptable. That we understand the specialness of that place and that the bombing must stop.”
“I will fight this until I don’t have breath in my body,” vowed Kahaulelio. “Because they’ve got to be stopped. Enough already. And people have got to rise. They’ve got to kūʻē. They’ve got to stand up and fight.”
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