Kauai Expanding Military Role

SUBHEAD: A testing site for weapons systems, missiles, and rockets in the middle of the Pacific.

By John Letman on 4 May 2019 for The Diplomat-
(https://thediplomat.com/2017/05/kauais-quietly-expanding-military-role/)


Image above: An Aegis rocket is fired from a US Navy ship in test of defense patrols. The navy wants a for aggressive role for the Aegis system. See article (https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/06/16/the-us-navy-is-fed-up-with-ballistic-missile-defense-patrols/).


[IB Publisher's note: A former US Navy Commander of the Pacific Missile Range Facility on KauaiBruce Hay  said, "We’re in an isolated location. But, we’re doing big things for very important people all across the globe." (see https://www.thegardenisland.com/2013/09/22/lifestyles/talk-story-with-capt-bruce-hay-commanding-officer-of-pmrf/). Unfortunately that means endangering all life on Earth for the sake of American dominance of the world. We living on Kauai are temporarily in the eye of an apocalyptic storm that will likely devastate our island. Can we not turn towards life instead of away from it?]

In the 76 years since Pearl Harbor catapulted Hawaii onto center stage of America’s Pacific war efforts, the islands’ importance to the Pentagon have only grown. Today, Hawaii hosts 142 sites (military bases and facilities) and, from its headquarters at Camp H.M. Smith on Oahu, U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) oversees America’s military operations across half the planet. It’s difficult to overstate Hawaii’s importance to the military and increasingly, that includes the island of Kauai.

Since 1940, Kauai has been used as a military landing field, quietly cultivated as a site capable of hosting a broad range of military operations from aviation and underwater testing to amphibious and ground assault training, testing cluster bombs and drones, missile launches, telemetry, radar, and low orbit rocket launches.Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.

The Garden Island, as Kauai is known, is home to the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF), which describes itself as “the world’s largest instrumented multi-environment range, capable of providing complex and realistic training scenarios.” A spokesman for the naval base said, “PMRF is unique in that it can simultaneously support surface, subsurface, air, and space training scenarios.”

Every two years, PMRF plays a role in Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), the world’s largest maritime exercise. In 2016, U.S. Marines and three allied nations conducted a simulated helicopter raid in support of “amphibious, offensive, defensive, and stability operations” at PMRF and the base supported SINKEX, an exercise in which decommissioned naval ships are used for practicing live-fire sinking.
Doing Big Things for Important People
As a missile testing and training facility, PMRF is said to be admired in Israeli defense circles. It’s also valued by NASA, the University of Hawaii, and defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Atomics, and Northrop Grumman.

PMRF was critical in testing the Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense system as well as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), the mobile missile defense system deployed on Guam and now in South Korea. PMRF also served as the launching ground for the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon, a system designed to strike a 6,000 km range in 35 minutes with an accuracy of ten meters.

PMRF’s commanding officer declined to comment for this story but in 2013, PMRF’s former commanding officer told Kauai’s local newspaper, “We’re doing big things for very important people all across the globe.” Among those big things is providing a home to Sandia National Laboratories’ Kauai Test Facility (KTF) which was established in 1963 in support of the Atomic Energy Commission’s Operation Dominic series of 36 high-altitude nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific.

Since its founding, the 130-acre KTF has supported at least 443 launches and provided resources for assembling, testing, and launching test vehicles on Kauai and elsewhere. Sandia describes KTF as a national asset that offers a laundry list of services from weapons research and development, operational and missile defense testing, radar tracking, telemetry reception, and training and launch projects. Both Sandia and KTF declined to be interviewed for this story.

Combat Ready?
In 2016, PMRF made headlines when USPACOM’s Admiral Harry Harris said the military should consider transforming PMRF from a testing and training facility into a combat ready missile defense base. At that time, PMRF dismissed the idea of serving as an operational facility. When asked again in April, a PMRF spokesman responded: “[PMRF] has not changed and… continues to test technology and train the fleet. The Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex is a test asset and not an operational facility.”

But testifying before Congress on April 26, Harris said North Korea posed an immediate threat to Hawaii, again calling for a defensive radar system and missile interceptors in Hawaii. Kauai’s Congressional Representative Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02) has also been a vocal advocate for introducing a combat ready missile defense system in Hawaii but her fellow congresswoman, Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (HI-01), questioned the need, calling North Korean threats to Hawaii overstated.

‘Bird’ Watching on Kauai
The U.S. Marine Corps is also eyeing Kauai for testing and training CH-53 and H-1 helicopters and the MV-22 Osprey hybrid tilt-rotor aircraft. If approved, additional training would involve low altitude flights in the rugged mountains of west Kauai and the neighboring privately owned island of Niihau.

In an October 6, 2016 email, a Marine spokesman wrote, “No final decision has been made by the U.S. Marine Corps with respect to any new or additional aviation training to be conducted at Kauai or Niihau. The Marine Corps is completing an Environmental Assessment… before making a decision to carry out new or additional aviation training… ”

Despite this, at least four Osprey were filmed flying and landing at or near PMRF ten days earlier. Then, in January 2017, a Kauai resident recounted the surprise appearance of Osprey flying over a public beach some ten miles east of PMRF. He described the incident and uploaded a short clip here.

Previously a Marine spokesman said Kauai was selected, in part, based on past training conducted at these locations and the proximity to PMRF. However, a PMRF spokesman stated, “PMRF is not involved in testing of the MV-22 Osprey. In reference to MV-22 Osprey activities on Kauai, we recommend that you contact the U.S. Marine Corps…”

In September 2016, when the Marines published notification of the proposed increase in training, there was almost no awareness by local government officials. Six months later, in April, when asked about Osprey training, Hawaii State Rep. Daynette Morikawa, who represents west Kauai and Niihau, said she hadn’t heard any news and declined to comment.

Deadly crashes in Hawaii involving both the Osprey and CH-53E heavy-lift helicopters in 2015 and 2016, along with an Osprey crash in Okinawa last December, have raised concern among some, but many Kauai residents remain unaware of the aircraft’s presence. The Marine Corps plans to deploy an additional Osprey squadron (12 aircraft) to Hawaii in 2018.

Dolphins, Whales, and Long Range Strike Weapons
The waters northwest of Kauai include the Barking Sands Underwater Range Extension (BSURE), where the U.S. Air Force has announced a five-year plan (September 2017-August 2022) to test the Long Range Strike Weapons Systems Evaluation Program.

That plan calls for the use of multiple types of inert and live bombs and missiles delivered by bombers and fighter aircraft and requests authorization to take marine mammals incidental to conducting munitions testing.

In an email, a spokeswoman for the 53rd Wing Public Affairs Office cited the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA)’s definition of take marine mammals as “to harass, hunt, capture, or kill, or attempt to harass, hunt, capture, or kill any marine mammal.” Incidental is defined as “unintentional, but not unexpected.”

The Air Force’s 86 Fighter Weapons Squadron’s request for a letter of authorization states that the proposed Long Range Strike Weapons and other munitions operations off Kauai could expose marine mammals to sound levels associated with Level A and B harassment.

Level A means “any act that injures or has the significant potential to injure a marine mammal.” Level B is described as “any act[s] that disturb… by causing disruption of natural behavioral patterns including, but not limited to, migration, surfacing, nursing, breeding, feeding, [etc.]…”

A total of nine species of whales, including humpback, melon-headed, and minke, and seven species of dolphins, including bottlenose, spinner, and striped, could be taken.

According to a NOAA spokeswoman, under the MMPA, NOAA Fisheries can “authorize impacts to marine mammals… provided [they] can ensure that the activity will have negligible impact on the affected species…” The Air Force has said, “No mortality is expected.”

Multiple requests for comment from the University of Hawaii Marine Mammal Research Program went unanswered.

A Shield or a Target?
Despite the breadth and frequency of military activities, most tourists on Kauai, and even many local residents, are scarcely aware of the military presence. Driving west toward PMRF along Kauai’s two-lane highway, a hand-painted wooden sign announces Hanapepe as “Kauai’s biggest little town.”

The sleepy community, better known as the fictitious setting for the Disney animated film Lilo & Stitch, is also home to a Hawaii Army National Guard (HIANG) Armory and the 299th Cavalry Regiment Combat Team Troop C.

It’s here, along the shoreline and by the mouth of the Hanapepe River that the 29th Infantry Brigade carries out monthly reconnaissance and infantry tactics training, preparing for the kind of battles they’ve faced in past deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here on Kauai, PMRF employs around 1,000 people (mostly Department of Defense and contract civilians) along with 90 active duty sailors. As one of Kauai’s top employers, the military is warmly regarded and touted as a way for the island’s youth to access high-tech and government employment.

It’s one reason why most residents (but not all) see nothing untoward when Kauai’s civilian airport is used for periodic touch and go exercises by the Hawaii Air National Guard’s F-22 Raptors or HIANG training in public, with camouflage-painted faces and firearms at the ready.

Kauai remains synonymous with beautiful beaches, dense tropical forests, and a laid-back island culture. But far from a sleepy Polynesian backwater removed from a troubled world, Kauai is an understated defense juggernaut with a growing role that leaves some wondering if all this weaponry serves more as a shield or a target.


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Marshall Islanders H-Bomb Victims

SUBHEAD: The Bravo H-bomb test had an unexpected wind shift heavily contaminating many populated atolls.

By Dahr Jamail on 24 October 2018 for TruthOut -
(https://truthout.org/articles/the-us-tested-bombs-on-the-marshall-islands-now-victims-are-seeking-justice/)


Image above: Islanders from nuclear weapons test-damaged Rongelap Atoll march on 1 March 2014 while holding banners marking the 60th anniversary of the Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll in Majuro. Photo by Isaac Marty.From original article.

A dozen years before Jiji Jally was born in the Marshall Islands, the US conducted the Bravo test, the single largest above-ground nuclear detonation in the world.

The US’s nuclear bomb testing in the Marshall Islands amounted to the equivalent of detonating 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every single day for 12 years. The Bravo test on Bikini Atoll alone was the nuclear equivalent of more than 1,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs.

Jally’s family, like hundreds of others, has lived with the scars of this ever since.

“Everybody I know in the Marshall Islands has stories of cancer in their families,” Jally, who lives in Tumwater, Washington where she works as a court and medical interpreter, told Truthout.

Her brother died in 2012, leaving behind his wife and two young boys. Given that he died in the Marshall Islands, which lacks any facilities to diagnose and treat cancer, the cause of his death is unknown. But Jally explained that he had a tumor, and believes it was from cancer.

“Then my cousin passed a few years ago, who was in her mid-thirties,” she added. “And she died of breast cancer, and left three boys and a girl behind.”

For Jally, working as a medical interpreter highlighted the health care disparity her Marshall Islands community faces, even here in the US. She has therefore become an advocate for their right to health care.

“People from the Marshall Islands are moving out of there looking for healthcare,” Jally said. “But some of them come to Washington and are told they don’t qualify for health insurance or health care.

A Marshallese man in our community is undergoing chemo from his cancer that he got from the bombings, and now he has to stop his chemo because he can’t afford to continue the treatment. It’s really sad to me what we are having to go through just to get health care now, given what happened.”

The injustice of this is not lost on her or on others in her immediate community. However, most Americans have little understanding of what the US government has inflicted on the Marshallese people.

“The Cold War was not ‘cold’ for the Marshallese…it was hot,” Holly Barker, who is a professor at the University of Washington and a commissioner on the Republic of Marshall Islands National Nuclear Commission (a three-person commission with the goal of advancing nuclear justice for the Marshallese people), told Truthout.

“‘Cold’ communicates the privilege of being far from the testing locations and not having to live with firsthand experiences with nuclear weapons.”

President Donald Trump recently announced plans to remove the US from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, a move which many fear could ignite a new nuclear arms race. The INF had banned all short and mid-rang nuclear and non-nuclear missiles, and helped to eliminate thousands of land-based missiles. Trump has also promised to build new nuclear weapons.

As a deadly reminder of the lingering health impacts from nuclear weapons testing during the Cold War, untold numbers of Marshall Islands residents continue to seek healthcare, and justice, for having unwittingly been made human test subjects to nuclear tests.

According to Barker, multiple types of cancer continue to beset the Marshallese. Adequate healthcare might be a first step toward justice – but so far, that step is far from realized.

Marshall Islands' Cancer Rate "Extreme"
In 1947 the US made an agreement with the UN to create a strategic trusteeship territory across islands of Micronesia, an area covering three million square miles comprised of two thousand islands.

Just five days after obtaining the agreement with the UN, the US Atomic Energy Commission established what it called the Pacific Proving Grounds and shortly thereafter began testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere and underwater across the region.

One-hundred-and-six tests over a dozen years were conducted, many of them extremely high yield. While the Marshall Islands testing were only 14% of all US nuclear tests, they comprised nearly 80% of the total nuclear yields detonated by the US.

Many Marshall Islands residents were exposed to radiation and nuclear fallout, and many of the islands remain contaminated to this day. Through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990, money was paid to the Marshal Islanders as compensation for their exposure to the testing, but generations later the problem persists.

There are no exact numbers regarding how many people across the Marshall Islands were impacted, directly or indirectly, by the nuclear tests. Although the US government — like the governments of so many colonial powers — has minimized the consequences of its testing, its effects continue to this day.

“Does ‘affected’ mean those exposed to radioactive fallout, those whose land was vaporized and no longer exists on this planet?” Barker asked. “Is it people whose land will be contaminated for thousands of years into the future, is it the people whose chromosomes/DNA are mutated by the mutagenic properties of radiation?”

Barker, who has been studying the plight of the Marshallese for decades, admits that coming up with exact numbers is difficult and the numbers remain unknown.

“It is difficult because it plays into US efforts to minimize the numbers of people and islands whose health and land were damaged and injured by the testing program,” she said. “It is not just health and environmental damage, however. The political system was altered, the culture, the economy, and the language, among other things.”

In the late 1990s, a study published in Cancer, the journal of the American Cancer Society, found that cancer rates in the Marshall Islands, caused by the combination of exposure to nuclear test fallout, malnutrition, and other factors associated with the rapid westernization of their society, were “alarming,” according to the study.

Neal Palafox with the University of Hawaii’s John A. Burns Medical School, who authored the study along with four colleagues, told the media at the time the study was released that the incidence of cancer in the Marshall Islands was “extreme.”

The study compared the rate of various cancers found in the Marshallese to rates in the US. “Cancer incidence rates were higher in virtually every category in the Marshall Islands compared with the United States for the period 1985-1994,” the study said.

As just one example, the study found liver cancer rates in the Islands to be 15 times higher in males and 40 times higher in females compared to rates for those cancers in the US.

The study referenced the 67 nuclear tests conducted across the islands, and added that “increases in leukemia, breast cancer and thyroid cancer after radiation exposure have been well established, especially in childhood exposures.”
 
Erasing History
Rachael Hoffman, a Marshallese woman living in Everett, Washington, works with Barker in educating the public and younger generations about what the US government did in the Marshall Islands.

Every year she helps organize a Remembrance Day ceremony marking the March 1, 1954, detonation of the Bravo Bomb.

Her grandmother developed thyroid cancer that she attributes to the nuclear tests, and received some compensation from the government for it. With that money, she was able to move to the US, along with some of her relatives, during the 1980s.

“67 nuclear bombs were tested in the Marshall Islands in a 12-year span,” Hoffman told Truthout. “People were relocated from island to island, and to this day people remain displaced from nuclear testing.”

Hoffman discussed how the rapid westernization of the culture led to a poor diet taking a toll on the health of the Marshallese.

“During the testing a lot of the food was imported because people were overcrowded on these islands they were relocated to,” she explained. “The crops and fish were poisoned, so people couldn’t eat off the land, so they had to rely on canned food which caused high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.”

There were four main coral atolls of the Marshall Islands that were primarily impacted, and the people living on those have the highest numbers of cancer cases.

“These are the people who own the nuclear story because they are the ones facing the radiation directed illnesses and diseases and death that has come from all of this,” Hoffman said.

Today she works towards engaging younger people in the Marshallese community, both in the US and on the islands, “so they can know their story, know their history, otherwise that story will be lost.”

Hoffman said that is one of the main reasons she works annually to organize the Remembrance Day, so that these stories are not lost.

“The young people have no idea how bad the nuclear testing was that was done to our people,” Hoffman said, “because it’s definitely not taught in schools.”

Lack of Care
In the Marshall Islands, there is practically no medical diagnostic ability, no forensics, and not even an oncologist, according to Jally, Hoffman and Barker. This makes it challenging to find accurate numbers of cancer incidence.

“We know that many people died on the outer islands, for instance, with symptoms that sound like cancer,” Barker said. “Thyroid cancer, cervical cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer are all issues.”

Thomas Hamilton is an endocrinologist and thyroid disease specialist who did groundbreaking research on the impacts of the nuclear testing on the Marshall Islands community.

In a 1991 report he produced for Physicians for Social Responsibility, Hamilton stated, “The testing of nuclear weapons on these islands…has had profound direct and indirect effects on the health of the Marshall Islands residents as well as on their environment and culture.”

Hamilton concluded that the initial exposure of the Marshallese from the 1954 Bravo test “could probably have been prevented entirely or significantly reduced” by evacuating the residents prior to the test, as had been done prior to other tests; evacuating them immediately after the test; or at least postponing the detonation for when it was known the winds would not bring the fallout atop the Marshallese people.

The report points out that additional exposure could have been prevented by postponing the return of people who had been evacuated to the islands, or evacuating them again “when it was known that their body burdens of radionuclides were steadily increasing.”

Needless to say, the just, humanitarian and ethical thing for the US government to do would have been not to conduct nuclear testing in the region in the first place, let alone in an area where people lived.

The report was also critical of the US Department of Energy’s studies of the health impacts of the nuclear tests on the Marshallese, saying the DOE’s studies had “significant limitations.”

Hamilton told Truthout that his work studying the health impacts on the Marshallese from the nuclear tests “was not welcomed by the US government,” and pointed to the fact that as recently as 2013 a government study on the topic went to great lengths to invalidate the results of some his work.

While it has now been decades since Hamilton was deeply engaged in his studies of the testing’s health impacts on the Marshallese, he told Truthout that the findings of one of his studies, published in 1987, showed that the nuclear fallout went “quite a bit further” than the DOE had acknowledged.

“The Bravo test had an unexpected wind shift that caused heavy contamination in many atolls, but certainly on Rongelap Island, so those folks were allowed to stay where the fallout, which was like snow on the ground and kids were playing in it,” Hamilton said. “And it was two to three days before those people were evacuated.”

Hamilton added, “I was surprised in 2013 that they [US Government] mentioned my study, so they are somehow still concerned there’s an article out there saying their studies weren’t as complete as they should be.”

Meanwhile, Barker argues that, since the Marshall Islands was a US territory when the testing occurred, the Marshallese deserve the same standard of cancer care as Americans (at least those who can afford decent health insurance).

“But as it is, people have to leave the country and all that is familiar and comfortable to them at the time when they need the most support and comfort,” Barker said.

Meanwhile, like so many other Marshallese, Jally struggles to live with what was done to her people.

“I grew up there not knowing the history of our country,” she said. “I graduated high school and became a parent and didn’t really know the history until I started working with the community as a medical interpreter.”

Jally explained that her elders have spoken very emotionally of the bombings, telling her, “Yes, that happened to us and we lived through it.”

“The old folks watch these films about what happened and they tear up, and a lot of their families have died from cancer or because they are diabetic,” she concluded. “There is a lot of trauma in our community from this.”

.

The Militarized Pacific

SUBHEAD: American military excess in a region scarred by militarism and an ongoing legacy of war without end.

By Jon Letman on 14 May 2017 for Truth Out -
(http://www.truth-out.org/op-ed/item/23688-the-militarized-pacific-an-anniversary-without-end)


Image above: Marshallese children swim and play amongst a junk heap on the shore of tiny Ebeye island, one of the most densely populated places on earth. Some 11-12,000 people are packed onto the 80 acre island. Photo by Richard Ross. From original article.

March 1, the 60th anniversary of the Castle Bravo test - a nuclear detonation over a thousand times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima - has come and gone.

Predictably, major decadal events, like a 15-megaton explosion over a Micronesian atoll, garner fleeting attention, but it's all the days between the anniversaries that tell the real story of those who live with the impacts.

For the people of the Marshall Islands, where Enewetak, Bikini and neighboring atolls were irradiated and rendered uninhabitable by 67 nuclear tests between 1946 and 1958, the brief anniversary recognition only underscores what little attention the Marshallese and, in a broader sense, millions of peoples of the Asia-Pacific are given by the US government and public.

The Marshallese, like people across the Pacific, live with impacts of plans devised at the United States Pacific Command (USPACOM) headquarters in Hawaii. After the Pentagon, PACOM is one of the world's most far-reaching military command centers.

With a self-proclaimed "Area of Responsibility" that absorbs half the world's population and covers roughly half the planet from the Arctic to the Antarctic, across the Indian Ocean and from Central Asia to the Central Pacific, it gives new meaning to the word "vast."

Generally, the US public gives little, if any, thought to the impact their military has on entire societies, economies and the natural environments that sustain them - as they pursue "American interests" and "national security" under America's self-dubbed first Pacific president.

Many Americans are aware of the US military presence in Hawaii, Okinawa, Guam and throughout Japan and South Korea. Those old enough may recall the now-closed naval base at Subic Bay in the Philippines and might have noticed President Obama's 2011 announcement of an Asia-Pacific pivot.

Part of the pivot includes the deployment of up to 2,500 Marines, along with B52 bombers, FA18s, C17 transport aircraft and other military hardware, to Northern Australia and a naval base in Western Australia.

However, places like the US-backed naval base being built on South Korea's Jeju island and the enormous military testing and training ranges in the Northern Mariana Islands (larger than much of the western United States) receive almost no attention. Names like Pagan, Rongelap and Kwajalein are scarcely known in the country that uses these islands for its own military testing.

Something to Prove
Nowhere are the costs of a militarized Pacific better illustrated than in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). The tiny Micronesian nation, located between Hawaii and Guam, has just 53,000 people. The Marshallese are a young population - the median age is just over 19 years old - yet the country is burdened with some of the highest cancer rates in the Pacific following 12 years of US nuclear tests in what was called "the Pacific Proving Grounds."

Dr. Neal Palafox of the John Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii has been working in the RMI on and off since the 1980s. Palafox says health impacts are not limited to elevated cancer rates (especially cervical, breast and liver) and birth defects, but include heart disease, diabetes, stroke, hepatitis, obesity and substance abuse that stem from the dramatic changes the country has undergone since the 1950s.

"The rapidness at which [Marshall Islanders] had to enter Westernization is a large part of the cause of the non-communicable diseases which are lifestyle and diet [related]," Palafox says, adding that increased levels and types of cancers in the Marshall Islands, based on National Cancer Institute (NCI) research and firsthand accounts by Marshallese, are the result of nuclear testing.

In a series of eight papers published in the journal Health Physics, the NCI found average thyroid radiation doses in the southern Marshall Islands ranged from 12 to 34 megarays (mGy), in the mid-latitudes from 67 to 160 mGy and in the northern inhabited atolls (closest to the nuclear tests) from 760 to 7,600 mGy. In the mainland United States, the report notes, exposure to natural radiation in the environment is 1 mGy.

The militarization that continued after World War II led to sweeping societal changes for the Marshallese as the combination of forced evacuations and relocations due to nuclear testing and the lure of jobs at the military base on Kwajalein Atoll led to rapid urbanization.

Today three-quarters of the country's people live on just two tiny islands - the capital Majuro and Ebeye Island, part of Kwajalein Atoll, home to the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site (RTS), one of the premier missile testing facilities in the Pacific.

Founded in the 1960s, RTS supports the US Space Surveillance Network, the Missile Defense Agency and AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense testing which contributes to the land-based missile systems the US is preparing to deploy in Poland and Romania.

"Slum of the Pacific"
Three miles north of Kwajalein's main island is Ebeye. At 80 acres, it's little more than a speck of dry land but it's home to an estimated 11,000-12,000 Marshallese, making it one of the most densely populate places on Earth. Over half the population is under 18 years old, largely supported by adults who commute daily to work at RTS as groundskeepers, kitchen workers, custodians or in clerical positions.

Noda Lojkar, who was born on Ebeye says, "The living conditions are really hard - it's bad, especially with power and water [shortages]." Lojkar is the consul general at the RMI's consulate in Honolulu, but has family on Ebeye and still regularly visits.

He says some 800 Marshallese work at RTS, each of them supporting around 14 people on Ebeye. Lojkar remembers less crowded times and a friendlier relationship with military personnel but says conditions have grown more rigid in recent years. "The base became stricter and stricter, and it changed people's mentality and how they looked at the Americans," he says.

After 9/11, Kwajalein island access for Marshallese grew tighter even when visiting in search of potable water. "On Ebeye, there's not enough water," Lojkar says, explaining that the military has multiple sources of water.

With almost no space to grow or raise food, Ebeye residents live mostly on imported rice, flour, canned meats and fish from the US or Australia. The tropical bounty found on other Pacific islands is in short supply on Ebeye, and simply traveling to another island to harvest food is impractical or impossible for those who don't have a boat, can't afford the expensive gas and don't own land on other islands.

A Life Changed
Life on Ebeye wasn't always like this. Giff Johnson, editor of RMI's sole newspaper, the Marshall Islands Journal, has been visiting Ebeye since 1976. He's spent close to a year on the island and has watched as various bodies - the US military, the RMI and US governments, and most recently Australia - have tried to improve basic water, power and hygiene infrastructure.

The urbanization of not just Ebeye but the entire country, which began in the 1950s and 60s, saw people come from as far away as the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and Palau to work at "Kwaj." As outsiders converged on Ebeye, families grew, and conditions became what they are today.

Johnson, who lives on Majuro, describes how Marshallese visiting Kwajalein, have to go through gratuitous security checks that include multiple identification passes, X-rays, fingerprinting and even confiscation of possessions as innocuous as candy bars.

This treatment is disturbing to Marshallese inside their own country. "We're your allies, [we] vote with the US at the UN. We support you and work on the base. We're not al Qaeda. We are your partners," Johnson says, repeating the sentiment of many Marshallese.

RTS did not respond to a request for comment.

By hosting RTS, Marshallese must also submit to restricted access to Kwajalein lagoon before, during and after range operations - that is, when missiles armed with dummy warheads are being fired from or into the lagoon.

Besides poor infrastructure, overcrowding and few job opportunities, Johnson says life is hard in the RMI's crowded urban centers, citing alcohol abuse, dropping out of school, high suicide rates and chronic health problems as contributing factors to RMI's high outward migration and disproportionately high rate of enlistment in the US military.

"Our industry here is government grants from the United States," Johnson says wryly. "That's our economy."

"Safe" Is a Relative Term
In the northern Marshall Islands, 150 miles east of Bikini, is Rongelap Atoll. Today, the main island is mostly empty, the majority of its population having been removed, relocated and then evacuated with the help of Greenpeace in 1985. The Rongelapese community is divided between remote Mejatto Island and Majuro.

Senator Kenneth Kedi represents Rongelap - his home community - in the RMI's parliament. Kedi describes how, following the nuclear tests, women on Rongelap began having "very unnatural babies - octopus-looking, grape-looking." He says a 1982 report by the US Department of Energy (DOE) confirmed that parts of Rongelap were as contaminated as Bikini.

In 1996, the US provided $45 million to the Rongelap local government for "environmental remediation and resettlement," but today less than $10 million remains and, according to Kedi, "we are not even close to ten percent of decontaminating our islands." A Nuclear Claims Tribunal awarded $1 billion for cleanup and compensation, but Kedi says, "[they] did not have the money. It did not even pay us a penny for that."

Despite this, in 2010 the US Department of Interior began pressuring Rongelapese to return to the island or face cuts in financial support. When Kedi asked a DOE official and scientist if it was safe to return to Rongelap they told him "safe is a relative term." That, Kedi says, sounds more like an environment for animals, not humans.

Kedi describes an ongoing health and environmental crisis that is the direct result of the United States but says, "a lot of our leaders in the [US] Congress have no understanding whatsoever of what took place in the Marshall Islands...they have no idea how grave the situation is..." He adds the same is true for the American public.

"There are still outstanding issues with this unique and great relationship that we have. The United States government needs to address the issue of the radiation legacy. We need to bring this to a closure."

Kedi spoke to Truthout by Skype from Majuro hours after the surprise announcement of a lawsuit that RMI filed against the nine nuclear nations at the International Court of Justice on April 24. Kedi likens the filing to David vs. Goliath but criticizes the lawsuit for its failure to address compensation.

"If [the lawsuit] were to include the issues of the Marshall Islands for compensation and health care and rehabilitation...then I would support that. Shouldn't we be focusing on our own issues that we are actually struggling with today - health care and contaminated land?" Kedi asks.

Resolving these outstanding issues, Kedi says, is not just a matter of dollars. "It's about doing the right thing...We just want peace and harmony like we used to have before the testing time."

"More Like Us Than Mice"
Today the Rongelap local government is working with Julian Aguon, a human rights lawyer in Guam. Aguon says too many people consider America's nuclear legacy in the Marshall Islands "a chapter that is closed in a book that has ended, it's relegated to the past."

"Oh, this was so tragic... and we're so sorry it happened but it's over," Aguon says, in a voice feigning concern. He says the US ignores a range of big issues and arguments and relied on a faulty study about limited radioactive contamination. "It's very clear that everywhere in the Marshalls was contaminated - not just four atolls."

The ongoing fear of radiation, Aguon says, is part of the reason why so many people have left the RMI, taking advantage of a special agreement that allows visa-free US residence for nationals of the RMI, FSM and Palau. These compacts of free association (COFA) are full of major shortcomings, not the least of which is the requirement to be taxed like a US citizen but with the burden of heavily restricted health care access. COFA has led to sizeable Marshallese communities in Hawaii and places like Salem, Oregon, and Springdale, Arkansas.

"To put it in historical context, these people aren't able to trust anything that the US says only because in 1957 they were moved back with a very clear plan that they were going to be purposefully exposed to long-term low-level radiation. Not the acute exposure right after the bomb but the inhalation and the consumption of the food," Aguon says.

Aguon describes the Marshallese as having been "corralled together and made the unwitting subjects of non-consensual medical experimentation after the Bravo nuclear test."

In a 1956 Atomic Energy Commission meeting, Merril Eisenbud, director of the AEC Health and Safety Laboratory, described the Marshallese thus: "While it is true that these people do not live, I would say, the way Westerners do, civilized people, it is nevertheless also true that these people are more like us than the mice."

"We, in these far-flung places," Aguon says, "[have] a sense that American civil society really bears a greater responsibility for trying to arrest the spread of certain juggernaut forces like militarism that is being perpetuated in their name by their government for their safety."

(Another) Asia-Pacific Pivot
The plight of the Marshall Islands is the back-story of today's increasingly militarized Asia-Pacific, but David Vine, associate professor of anthropology at American University, sees nothing particularly new about Obama's Asia-Pacific pivot.

"Very early on islands were identified as playing a very important role in expanding the reach of the United States, and US commerce in particular," Vine says, citing early US military forays into Okinawa and the tiny Bonin (Ogasawara) Islands southeast of Japan. In the 1960s US nuclear weapons were kept in Okinawan ports and have been documented as passing through Japanese islands despite Japan's stated opposition to introducing and storing nuclear weapons.

Similarly, in 1987, the nation of Palau, under pressure from the US, dropped its opposition to the entry of US nuclear armed and powered vessels into its territory.

Vine talks about the post-World War II "forward posture" of creating a wall of Pacific islands as close as possible to Asia for its own strategic interests. He describes Pacific island nations like the RMI, Palau and FSM as being technically sovereign but, like American Samoa, Guam, Saipan and the Northern Mariana Islands, effectively run as colonies.

Vine says these islands exist under conditions that overwhelmingly benefit US military interests, perhaps best illustrated by the US insisting on the "right of strategic denial." This "right," claimed under COFA, grants the US exclusive military control over half a million square miles of the Pacific and includes provisions allowing for the use of RTS on Kwajalein through 2066 with the option to extend to 2086.

Pointing to small Pacific outposts that lack "Burger King bases" (sprawling military bases loaded with recreational and other amenities), Vine says, "while sometimes military facilities might be quite limited, they often can form the nucleus for what could be a much larger base." He says austere bases with small numbers of personnel or "temporarily embedding" US forces within another nation's military base (Australia, Singapore, the Philippines), are part of the "lily pad strategy." Vine says what constitutes a US military base in name is often subject to semantic games, using words like "military place" instead of "military base."

According to the Department of Defense 2013 Base Structure Report, the US has just one military base in the Marshall Islands: RTS at Kwajalein. However, it also controls 10 other sites in the RMI which are not counted as bases because they don't meet the criteria of at least ten acres and $10 million PRV ("plant replacement value"). Regardless of the true number, in a country made up of just 70 square miles, every foot of dry land counts.

Vine has thoroughly documented the displacement of Chagos Islanders to make way for the US military base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in his book Island of Shame: The Secret History of the US Military Base on Diego Garcia. He says the patterns of displacement in the Pacific, specifically the Marshall Islands, are similar to what happened at Diego Garcia.

Anniversaries Without End
According to Vine, this is a very dangerous time in the Asia-Pacific and the US is playing a largely unproductive role that is increasing danger and heightening tension between China and other nations. "The presence and build-up of US bases," he says, "is not the way to ensure peace and security in the region."

In the coming months, the world will mark the 70th anniversary of Pacific battles in Saipan, Guam, the Mariana Islands, New Guinea, Palau, the Philippines and Burma.

More anniversaries will be recognized next year to commemorate battles in Bataan, Manila and Iwo Jima, followed by anniversaries of the firebombing of Tokyo, the battle of Okinawa and then, in August 2015, the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Each event represents death and destruction of the past in a region scarred by militarism and an ongoing legacy of war without end.

• Jon Letman is a freelance journalist on Kauai. He writes about politics, people and the environment in the Asia-Pacific region. Follow him on Twitter: @jonletman.
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Northern Marianas yet to be trashed

SUBHEAD: Military training plans for Pagan and Tinian islands are still in the works, despite a lawsuit and islanders’ opposition.

By Anita Hofschneider on 9 March 2017 for Civil Beat -
(http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/03/the-u-s-military-wont-bomb-pagan-or-tinian-just-yet/)


Image above: U.S. military trucks that were driven on North Field in Tinian during training exercises in the Fall of 2016. From original article.

The U.S. Department of Defense is slowing the process of establishing live-fire training ranges on Pagan and Tinian in the Mariana Islands in response to widespread community concerns.

But under a new presidential administration, the U.S. military hasn’t lost its resolve to move ahead with the project affecting a small U.S. territory north of Guam that is home to about 50,000 people.

The DOD published a draft study in 2015 analyzing the impacts of using the western Pacific islands for training Marines who are moving to Guam from Okinawa and as part of a broader strategic focus on the Asia-Pacific region. The plans sparked a sparked a backlash from residents who fear the destruction of the islands’ fragile environment and tourism-based economy.

U.S. military trucks drive on North Field in Tinian during training exercises last fall.

After receiving more than 27,000 comments on its initial proposal, the DOD planned to issue a revised environmental analysis this month and publish a final decision next summer. But now the revised study won’t be published until late next year, and a final decision isn’t expected until approximately 2020.

“In order to fully address the concerns raised and provide a better proposed action, the draft EIS is being substantially rewritten,” DOD spokesman Chuck Little wrote in an email to Civil Beat.

“The new schedule provides adequate time to complete new studies and analysis, conduct additional consultations with regulatory agencies, and inform the public of the proposed action as it evolves.”

In December, Civil Beat published Pacific Outpost, a series detailing the military expansion plans in the Northern Marianas and Guam.

Top national security officials already spent the past several months discussing the training plans with political leaders from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which is made up of 14 islands, including Tinian and Pagan. It is about a three-hour flight from Tokyo.

The discussions led by the Department of Interior didn’t resolve any issues or result in any agreement between the DOD and local officials. In a report summarizing the consultations sent to Congress in January, the DOD agreed to set up a “coordinating council” to continue the conversation.

The Department of Justice defended the training plans in federal court in Saipan last month after the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice and local community groups filed a lawsuit challenging the plans.

Chief Judge Ramona Manglona, who leads the U.S. District Court of the Northern Mariana Islands and heard the case, has scheduled another hearing April 6.

Meanwhile, local activists are dealing with the loss of Jerome Aldan, a staunch opponent of bombing Pagan. The mayor of a group of sparsely inhabited islands that included Pagan died last month after suffering an apparent heart attack.

Aldan, 43, was known as a vocal advocate of establishing homesteads on Pagan, once home to a village of indigenous people. Residents were evacuated in 1981 following a volcanic eruption, but a handful of people have been living there periodically for the past decade and hoping for eventual construction of homes and utility lines.
Esther Kia’aina, the former U.S. assistant secretary for insular areas, said Aldan participated in the Department of Interior-led consultations.
“He encapsulated the will of the people, for the people of Pagan,” she said.

Are Residents Being Heard?

The consultations between the commonwealth government and top defense officials may never have occurred if not for Kia’aina, a Native Hawaiian who was born on Guam.

President Barack Obama appointed Kia’aina in May to lead the discussions and they started in June.

Three rounds took place in Washington, Honolulu and Saipan. DOD officials even flew to Tinian and Pagan to conduct site visits as part of the discussions.

Kia’aina said she urged the White House to hold the consultations because she felt there was a disconnect between the Navy’s attempts to get the training plans approved through the environmental law process and the concerns of residents.

In exchange for U.S. citizenship, the islanders leased land to the military for training decades ago, including the entire island of Farallon de Medinilla for bombing practice.

Kia’aina said the DOD should move slowly on the expansion, in part because of how social media can fuel opposition.

“If the world starts hearing that after the pleas of the people you ramrodded something through, you’ll get an army,” she said. “In the case of Pagan, you’ll get a flotilla. The Mauna Kea movement is something that could be replicated across the whole region.”

While the final report resulting from the talks makes recommendations to address labor and immigration issues, its only recommendation regarding the military plans is to keep talking.

Kia’aina said the discussions were successful because the report crystallized the issues and the process facilitated conversations about the role of the U.S. in the commonwealth and its commitment to respecting the scarcity of land.

“It shifted the dialogue of DOD to the larger picture of why is the relationship important,” Kia’aina said, noting that the discussions showed “we are talking about a people, a future, limited land mass.”

 “I think the message was, ‘No longer just treat us like an outpost, as part of your outpost for western Pacific strategy,'” she said. “There’s this underlying relationship that’s critically important that doesn’t have to do with the Department of Defense. It has to do with, does the U.S. care about the will of a people?”

Trump Enters The Picture

It remains to be seen whether that position that will be maintained under President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress.

The commonwealth’s Gov. Ralph Torres is a Republican Trump supporter, and its delegates backed Trump during the Republican National Convention. The president promised during the campaign not to ignore the territory.

While he hasn’t said anything specifically about expanding military training in the commonwealth, a campaign spokesman said last year that Trump supports a military buildup and as president, he has called for increasing defense spending and strengthening the military’s presence in the Asia-Pacific. The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Kia’aina said she hopes the Trump administration will use the report as a resource when forming its position.

Wes Bogdan, an attorney for Torres, said in an email that the commonwealth is talking to the DOD to enact the report’s recommendation to create a forum for more discussions.

“The CNMI hopes and expects that the Final Report will continue to serve as a current and authoritative resource the new Administration and Congress can use to better understand immigration and military issues affecting the relationship between the NMI and United States,” Bogdan wrote.

Representatives from the Office of the Secretary of Defense didn’t respond to requests for comment, but said in the report that the department will “redouble its efforts to be transparent and consult with the CNMI political leadership on all issues of concern.”

Court Case Ongoing

Department of Justice attorneys are defending the training proposals against a lawsuit filed last year by EarthJustice and community organizations.

The suit contends that the Navy should have evaluated the impacts of adding large-scale training ranges on Tinian and Pagan when it reviewed the proposal to move 5,000 Marines to Guam. The move isn’t expected to be completed until 2026.

DOJ Attorney Joshua Wilson said during a hearing on Saipan last month that the decision to move Marines to Guam was a political issue that the court shouldn’t interfere with.

Attorney David Henkin, who works at the Honolulu Earthjustice office, argued that the DOD presented its training plans in segments and denied people the opportunity to see the full implications of moving 5,000 Marines to Guam.

But the DOJ’s Wilson said that “it’s just an allegation” that the proposed large-scale live-fire training ranges on Pagan and Tinian are “what’s needed to train Marines” moving to Guam. Wilson said that instead, the ranges would address training deficiencies affecting multiple branches of the military.

Craig Whelden, executive director of Marine Corps Forces Pacific, has previously said that the ranges would alleviate training deficiencies in the region, but were particularly needed because 5,000 Marines were moving to Guam, and it would be expensive to train them elsewhere.

[IB Publisher's comment: "Fuck the US Navy! They are about the most dangerous organization to planet Earth today"]

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: US taking on Pacific wars 1/31/17
Ea O Ka Aina: MV-22 Osprey landing at Salt Pond 2/5/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai and Niihau endangered 9/24/16 
Ea O Ka Aina: DLNR responsibility on RIMPAC 7/6/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Oceans4Peace Pacific Pivot Panel 6/18/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Ocean 4 Peace Events 6/11/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Prepare for RIMPAC 2016 War in Hawaii 5/22/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Navy to "take" millions of mammals 5/17/16
Ea O Ka Aina: US court RIMPAC Impact decision 4/3/15
Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC 2014 Impact Postmortem 10/22/1
Ea O Ka Aina: Marines backing off 8/24/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Unproved Osprey on Kauai 8/21/12
Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC 2014 in Full March 7/16/14
Ea O Ka Aina: 21st Century Energy Wars 7/10/14
Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC War on the Ocean 7/3/14
Ea O Ka Aina: Voila - World War Three 7/1/14
Ea O Ka Aina: The Pacific Pivot 6/28/14
Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC IMPACT 6/8/14
Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC Then and Now 5/16/14
Ea O Ka Aina: Earthday TPP Fukushima RIMPAC 4/22/14
Ea O Ka Aina: The Asian Pivot - An ugly dance 12/5/13
Ea O Ka Aina: Help save Mariana Islands 11/13/13
Ea O Ka Aina: End RimPac destruction of Pacific 11/1/13 
Ea O Ka Aina: Moana Nui Confereence 11/1/13
Ea O Ka Aina: Navy to conquer Marianas again  9/3/13
Ea O Ka Aina: Pagan Island beauty threatened 10/26/13
Ea O Ka Aina: Navy license to kill 10/27/12 
Ea O Ka Aina: Sleepwalking through destruction 7/16/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Okinawa breathes easier 4/27/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Navy Next-War-Itis 4/13/12
Ea O Ka Aina: America bullies Koreans 4/13/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Despoiling Jeju island coast begins 3/7/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Jeju Islanders protests Navy Base 2/29/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Hawaii - Start of American Empire 2/26/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Korean Island of Peace 2/26/12   
Ea O Ka Aina: Military schmoozes Guam & Hawaii 3/17/11
Ea O Ka Aina: In Search of Real Security - One 8/31/10
Ea O Ka Aina: Peace for the Blue Continent 8/10/10
Ea O Ka Aina: Shift in Pacific Power Balance 8/5/10
Ea O Ka Aina: RimPac to expand activities 6/29/10
Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC War Games here in July 6/20/10
Ea O Ka Aina: Pacific Resistance to U.S. Military 5/24/10
Ea O Ka Aina: De-colonizing the Pacific 5/21/10
Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC to Return in 2010 5/2/10
Ea O Ka Aina: Living at the Tip of the Spear 4/5/10
Ea O Ka Aina: Living at the Tip of the Spear 4/15/10
Ea O Ka Aina: Guam Land Grab 11/30/09
Ea O Ka Aina: Guam as a modern Bikini Atoll 12/25/09
Ea O Ka Aina: GUAM - Another Strategic Island 11/8/09
Ea O Ka Aina: Diego Garcia - Another stolen island 11/6/09
Ea O Ka Aina: DARPA & Super-Cavitation on Kauai 3/24/09
Island Breath: RIMPAC 2008 - Navy fired up in Hawaii 7/2/08
Island Breath: RIMPAC 2008 uses destructive sonar 4/22/08
Island Breath: Navy Plans for the Pacific 9/3/07
Island Breath: Judge restricts sonar off California 08/07/07
Island Breath: RIMPAC 2006 sonar compromise 7/9/06
Island Breath: RIMPAC 2006 - Impact on Ocean 5/23/06
Island Breath: RIMPAC 2004 - Whale strandings on Kauai 9/2/04
Island Breath: PMRF Land Grab 3/15/04  

.
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Air Force plans to bomb whales

SUBHEAD: USAF asks NOAA for permission to take lives on sea mammals while testing weapons in ocean.

By Juan Wilson on 6 February 2017 in Island Breath - 
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2017/02/air-force-plans-to-bomb-whales.html)


Image above: Squadron of F-16s at Elgin Air Force Base during exercise Combat Hammer. From (http://www.eglin.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/391730/combat-hammer-on-the-ground).

Note, Katherine Muzik PHD emailed us  2/9/17 the following "Weapons testing would happen for five straight days every summer, in an area approxmately 50 miles north of the island.The permit asks for permission to launch nearly 100 missiles each year.Within the request, the military said it was possible that the following species of marine mammals could be effected by the explosions:

1. Humpback whale
2. Sei whale
3. Minke whale
4. Pygmy sperm whale
5. Dwarf sperm whale
6. Pygmy killer whale
7. Short-finned pilot whale
8. Melon headed whale
9. Bottlenose dolphin
10. Pantropical spotted dolphin
11. Striped dolphin
12. Spinner dolphin
13. Rough-toothed dolphin
14. Fraser's dolphin
15. Risso's dolphin
16. Longman's beaked whale

While the Air Force says no animals are expected to be killed, officials estimate that at least 219 animals were likely to experience a significant change in behavioral patterns, including those involving migration, surfacing, nursing, breeding and feeding.

Military estimates indicate that 382 animals could suffer temporary hearing loss, with roughly 36 permanently losing their hearing.

Humpback whales, Minke whales, Pygmy sperm whales and Dwarf sperm whales are at greatest risk of injury, the military says.

"They rely on their hearing to find food. They also rely on their hearing to avoid predators, said Henkin. "They rely on their hearing to find mates and rear their young. So any time a marine mammal permanently loses its hearing those individuals would be at greater risk of dying."

Source: http://www.k5thehometeam.com/story/34436638/air-force-looks-to-start-testing-weapons-in-kauai-waters

---

 The 86th Fighter Weapons Squadron, based in Elgin Air Force Base, Florida, submitted request with the National Marine Fisheries Service of the NOAA for authorization to harm the hearing of 637 whales and dolphins from September 2017 through August 2022 while testing ordinance in the ocean range operated by the pacific Missle Range Facility on Kauai. See pdf of Star Bulletin article here (www.islandbreath.org/2017Year/02/170206bombplan.pdf)

The Air Force is applying to NOAA, at the National Marine Fisheries office within the Office of Protected Resources for a permit authorizing the Air Force to do "incidental takes" of marine mammals.

A "take" is when you harass, maim, or kill. The Marine Mammal Protection Act requires that applicants engaging in dangerous actions apply for such authorization permit.

The comment period, which ended today, is to comment on the application in terms of omissions or inaccuracies.

There are two comment periods. This is the first one. After receiving all "relevant" comments (those regarding omissions and inaccuracies), the Fisheries Service will integrate them into a report that will be published, and which will then trigger the second comment period, which will invite comments that are broader than just those for omissions and/or inaccuracies.

The purpose of this report will be to give an overview of the proposed action and its effects on marine mammals, and to set rules that the air force would have to follow in order to minimize the number of allowed "takes."

By the way, this proposed action has nothing to do with sonar. It has nothing to do with the navy. This is about bombing and missiles conducted by the air force above, at and below the surface of the water.

One thing we do know, though, is that cetaceans need a peaceful environment, and that sound travels very very far and is very disruptive to their breeding, feeding, socializing etc. So these explosions would have dramatic detrimental impact.

The proposed action is to take place for five years, between 2017-2022.

Here is a link to the application:

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/permits/incidental/military/usaf86fws_2017loa_app.pdf

Today is the deadline for comment on this plan.

Email:
 ITP.McCue@noaa.gov

Traditional mail address is:
Jolie Harrison, Chief Perimts and Conservation Division
Office of Protected Resources National Marines Fisheries Service
1315 East-West Highway
Silver Spring MD 20910

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USAF to start weapons tests near Kauai

By Associated Press on 6 February 2017 in the Garden Island News
(http://thegardenisland.com/news/state-and-regional/air-force-looks-to-start-testing-weapons-in-kauai-waters/article_8c89a869-0a0f-5f0b-9b45-4fda1e4da1c3.html)

The Air Force wants to resume its weapons testing program at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, but some are concerned about the potential impacts on marine animals.

The Air Force in December filed a request seeking authorization for the testing from the National Marine Fisheries Service. A public comment period on the request ends Monday, The Garden Island reported (http://bit.ly/2le1erh ).

The five-year testing of mainly bombers and fighter aircraft would start in September. It would involve the detonation of a variety of missiles and other weapons about 50 miles offshore of Kauai.

The testing could cause sound or pressure-related problems for whales, dolphins and other marine mammals in the area.

Gordon LaBedz of Kauai's whale education group Kohola Leo said the fight to prevent the Army from getting a federal permit will likely end up in court.

"The only way to stop them from getting permits to kill whales and dolphins is to sue them," LaBedz said. "When we do, we usually win, but the conservation community only has so much money for attorneys."

Whitlow Au, who studies the behavior of marine life, said determining the effects of the sounds from weapons testing on marine animals is a complicated process.

"We don't even know the intensity of the sound that reaches an animal caused by a missile launch," said Au, chief scientist of the Marine Mammal Research Program at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology at the University of Hawaii.

If a whale in the area dives when a missile is being launched, that could be interpreted as a reaction to the launch, or it could just be natural behavior, he explained.

Au and his students have applied for their own five-year permit with the NMFS to study the effects of noise behavior on whales and dolphins.

While Au is not convinced weapons testing negatively impacts marine animals, he said it is important for the Army to conduct its training without harming sea life.

"These groups of people have to learn how to work together in a collaborative-type relationship," Au said.

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: PMRF injuring marine mammals 10/9/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai and Niihau endangered 9/23/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Oceans 4 Peace Pacific Pivot Panel 6/18/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Federal Court slams Navy Sonar 7/16/16
Ea O Ka Aina: DLNR responsibility for RIMPAC 7/5/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai's PMRF is bang out of sight 6/28/14
Ea O Ka Aina: Oceans4Peace Pacific Pivot Panel 6/18/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Ocean 4 Peace Events 6/11/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Prepare for RIMPAC War in Hawaii 5/22/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Navy to "take" millions of mammals 5/17/16
Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC 2014 in Full March 7/16/14
Ea O Ka Aina: 21st Century Energy Wars 7/10/14
Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC War on the Ocean 7/3/14
Ea O Ka Aina: Voila - World War Three 7/1/14
Ea O Ka Aina: The Pacific Pivot 6/28/14
Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC IMPACT 6/8/14
Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC Then and Now 5/16/14
Ea O Ka Aina: Earthday TPP Fukushima RIMPAC 4/22/14
Ea O Ka Aina: The Asian Pivot - An ugly dance 12/5/13
Ea O Ka Aina: Help save Mariana Islands 11/13/13
Ea O Ka Aina: End RimPac destruction of Pacific 11/1/13 
Ea O Ka Aina: Moana Nui Confereence 11/1/13
Ea O Ka Aina: Pagan Island beauty threatened 10/26/13
Ea O Ka Aina: Navy to conquer Marianas again  9/3/13
Ea O Ka Aina: Navy license to kill 10/27/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Unproved Osprey on Kauai 8/21/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Sleepwalking through destruction 7/16/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Okinawa breathes easier 4/27/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Navy Next-War-Itis 4/13/12
Ea O Ka Aina: America bullies Koreans 4/13/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Despoiling Jeju island coast begins 3/7/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Jeju Islanders protests Navy Base 2/29/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Hawaii - Start of American Empire 2/26/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Korean Island of Peace 2/26/12   
Ea O Ka Aina: PMRF missiles destroying us 2/4/12
Ea O Ka Aina: PMRF tests new weapon system 11/18/11
Ea O Ka Aina: Military schmoozes Guam & Hawaii 3/17/11
Ea O Ka Aina: In Search of Real Security - One 8/31/10
Ea O Ka Aina: Peace for the Blue Continent 8/10/10
Ea O Ka Aina: Shift in Pacific Power Balance 8/5/10
Ea O Ka Aina: RimPac to expand activities 6/29/10
Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC War Games here in July 6/20/10
Ea O Ka Aina: Pacific Resistance to U.S. Military 5/24/10

Ea O Ka Aina: De-colonizing the Pacific 5/21/10

Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC to Return in 2010 5/2/10
Ea O Ka Aina: Living at the Tip of the Spear 4/5/10

Ea O Ka Aina: Living at the Tip of the Spear 4/15/10

Ea O Ka Aina: Guam Land Grab 11/30/09
Ea O Ka Aina: Guam as a modern Bikini Atoll 12/25/09
Ea O Ka Aina: GUAM - Another Strategic Island 11/8/09
Ea O Ka Aina: Diego Garcia - Another stolen island 11/6/09
Ea O Ka Aina: DARPA & Super-Cavitation on Kauai 3/24/09
Island Breath: RIMPAC 2008 - Navy fired up in Hawaii 7/2/08
Island Breath: RIMPAC 2008 uses destructive sonar 4/22/08
Island Breath: Navy Plans for the Pacific 9/3/07
Island Breath: Judge restricts sonar off California 08/07/07
Island Breath: RIMPAC 2006 sonar compromise 7/9/06
Island Breath: RIMPAC 2006 - Impact on Ocean 5/23/06
Island Breath: RIMPAC 2004 - Whale strandings on Kauai 9/2/04
Island Breath: PMRF Land Grab 3/15/04

MV-22 Osprey landing at Salt Pond

SUBHEAD: Multiple landings and takeoffs of controversial aircraft at Kauai public beach.

By Juan Wilson on 5 February 2017 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2017/02/mv-22-oprey-landings-at-salt-pond.html)


Image above: Photo for this article by Juan Wilson of Osprey aircraft landing over Salt Pond Beach Park.

Last Tuesday, January 31st, I was at the beach with my wife Linda and granddaughter Ruby. We were at the kiddy beach at the west end of Salt Pond Park in Hanapepe, Kauai, Hawaii. It was a pleasant sunny day and there were several locals and tourists on the beach and in the water.

At four-thirty in the afternoon a deep guttural growl could be heard coming from the east. In moments the sound amped up as a strange looking "plane" flew past going west offshore of the southern extremity of nearby Puolo Point. The profile was that of uniquely odd MV-22 Osprey helicopter/plane that was developed primarily for the US Marine Corps.

The Osprey has rotational wings that old two turbine propeller engines that allow it to fly much faster than a conventional helicopter yet rotate its engines and land vertically.

"The best of both world's?" Not exactly! I knew from previous reporting that the Marine Corps had been having performance issues with the Osprey.

It was found that the Osprey is quite sensititve to dust entering its turbine engines when landing in sandy and dusty conditions. It has experienced crashes. Hovering for even a short while over dusty terrain had to be severely limited.

I had hard that the military had plans to do training for the Ospreys on Kauaiand be stationed out of the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF). I heard it involved difficult landings and takeoffs from narrow valleys on the Napali Coast. I assumed the passing Osprey was on its way west to land at the PMRF for that training.

But once shortly just past Kamakani near the old Gay & Robinson sugar mill the Osprey could be seen turning around. It approached Salt Pond Beach low and fast. As it past the sound of the rotors was quite load. The Osprey passed right over swimmers and people on the beach and slowed as it came to the runway near Puolo Point.

That's when the thing got really noisy. As it rotated its wings to vertical orientation it ceased traveling horizontal and the engines whined loudly. There must be some strange dynamic between the horizontal and vertical flight that causes chaotic and disturbing vibrations boomed across the water to where I stood a half a mile away. It sounded like a controlled crash.

The Osprey never shut down its engines after landing. In a moment it revved up the turbines and began a vertical take-off. Again chaotic and noisy at it made it transition to horizontal flight. Some people did not understand what was going on and seemed disturbed.

The Osprey took off going east and somewhere over Hanapepe Sound came around to west again and past again heading towards Kamakane. Once there it did a one-eighty and returned to land again. It seemed a little closer to where I stood in the kiddy pond.By this time I was shaking my fist at the Osprey.

Altogether there were three test landings over the public beach.

A a resident of Hanapepe, and a frequent user of Salt Pond Beach Park, I strongly request that the US military use its own 10,000 foot runways at the PMRF for this training activity and stay away from public recreational areas with this controversial aircraft.

The Japanese on Okinawa have had a long struggle with the US Marines and their Ospreys. This Janaury 9th there was a non-fatal crash of an Osprey in Okinawa that brought safety fears to the fore. See (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/01/09/reference/nonfatal-osprey-crash-okinawa-brings-safety-fears-fore/#.WJe8rRAnr6g).

Closer to home their has been a crash on Oahu.

After relating this encounter with the Marines to a friend he identified a valley on the Napali Coast where if one hikes these days you will be met with camouflaged armed soldiers coming from hidden structures who will frog-walk you out of the valley.


Visdeo above: Osprey aircraft takes of after passing over Salt Pond Beach Park and landing on tarmac of runaway near Puolo Point near Hanapepe, Kauai, on 31 January 2017. Filmed by Juan Wilson.  From (https://youtu.be/j6eAKPpbun8).


Image above: Two days before this landing on Kauai an Osprey crashed in burned in Yemen during the ill-fated Al Qaeda raid by Seal Team Six. From (https://theaviationist.com/2017/01/29/u-s-mv-22-osprey-tilt-rotor-aircraft-crash-lands-in-yemen-during-special-ops-raid-on-al-qaeda/).

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai and Niihau endangered 9/24/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Oceans 4 Peace Pacific Pivot Panel 6/18/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Judgement against RIMPAC 2016 5/29/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Okinawans wish US military gone 8/26/15
Ea O Ka Aina: RIMPAC 2014 in Full March 7/17/14
Ea O Ka Aina: Stop bombing Kaula Island! 10/8/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Marines backing off 8/24/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Unproved Osprey on Kauai 8/21/12