Voice of Stephanie Salazar
A U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission meeting will be held concerning Pohakuloa on Thursday, March 31st.
The purpose of the meeting will be to discuss the results of the NRC staff’s review of the Army’s revised Radiation Safety Plan, and also the Army’s request to continue operations at the Schofield Barracks and Pohakuloa Training Area during review of the Army’s license application.
The NRC meeting will be held in Rockville, MD.
The presence of depleted uranium, used in spotting rounds years ago and long denied by the Army – only to be confirmed in 2006 – has been a hot button issue on the both the Big Island and Oahu.
This is an important concern for Waianae for we are victums of ‘Downwinders of Depleted Uranium.”. The military knowingly trucked DU soil out of Schofield Barracks through civilian communities to Makua to create fire lanes. One such community was the length of Waianae from Nanakuli to Makua. Waianae is a heavily populated community with native Hawaiian families found no where else in the world. Secondly, our enviornment was once pristine before the trucking of contaminated soil with DU. Thirdly, our children were sponges for this ‘dust’ in the early morning before they caught their school buses and again when they returned in the afternoon from school. Truckers began their route early morning until early evening from 2009 Oct to 2010 May along Farrington Highway.
This soil was not construction debris it was contaminated soil from fireing ranges on Schofield Barracks an Army Base. What was said by Tad Davis of the Pentagon that this removal was important to the health of the military families. What’s to become of our children that were affected by this poision dust? And too, the truckers and their families? My complaint before Judge Barreta and Judge Kennedy of the Atomic Energy Commisiion that ‘truckers brought home some of the soil to do surface land filling near my home.
They actually created a fire lane at Makua in Waianae another complaint area of contentions: The military were without concern for the construction men that participated in transporting 900 tons of contaminated DU soil and both Federal and City and County of Honolulu Fire Departments that actually put out fires in Makua Valley on foot.
Starting the month of April the military will be cleaning up their WWII arsenal from off shore Maili Beach in Waianae. They will be using robots, that will stir up the surrounding area with these ‘hoppers.’ Another concern I have is the fact that they will shred the arsenal on board a boat and then empty the contents back into the waterways. Lastly, they will store the metal in a nearby landfill that has strong possiblitiy of returning to the ocean through natural storms. Recently, medical waste littered the ocean and shore lines of the Waianae Coast. I don’t understand theirs atrocities being done to our people and their pristine lands.