Hilo, Hawaii – Video by David Corrigan
For some Big Island residents, a busy week in protest of the Pohakuloa Training Area and the controversial issue of depleted uranium on Hawaii Island, has concluded with a litigious blow to their cause.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has denied a request for a hearing made by Cory Harden, Jim Albertini, Isaac D. Harp, and Oahu’s Luwella K. Leonardi, in a memorandum and order issued on Wednesday.
The NRC Administrative Judges found that Harden, Harp and Albertini, all vocal opponents of the military training on the Big Island, had failed to establish standing in the matter of the Army’s pending application for a request to possess depleted uranium on at Pohakuloa, as well as Schofield Barracks on Oahu.
The military request to the NRC comes from the army’s use of M101 “spotting rounds” in the 1960s on firing ranges on both islands. From the background summary written in the decision:
The M101 spotting rounds were used with the Davy Crockett Weapon System, which was a then-classified tactical nuclear weapon system produced from 1960 to 1968. The Army used the spotting rounds and non-nuclear practice projectiles for training purposes until 1968. The spotting rounds contained DU because its heavy weight enabled the rounds to imitate the trajectory of the non-nuclear practice projectiles. The spotting rounds held a small explosive charge that detonated on impact, allowing the weapon system operator to target the weapon accurately before firing practice projectiles. The practice projectiles purportedly had a range of approximately 1,000 to 1,500 yards. The Army states that, as the decades passed after 1968 during which the Davy Crockett Weapon System was no longer used, the DU fragments from the spotting rounds that were fired remained undetected at the Army installations. The Army further states, however, that in August 2005, personnel at Schofield discovered spotting round tail assemblies and other DU fragments while clearing former range areas of munitions. This discovery triggered an Armywide historical records search to identify other sites where M101 spotting rounds may have been used. In 2008, the Army confirmed the presence of DU from M101 spotting rounds at Pohakuloa.
Many island residents have objected to the testing methods employed to track any possible effects the DU may have had, or currently has, on the community.
Responding to the NRC decision, Albertini said “the NRC’s order denying us a hearing is not surprising. The NRC has never denied a license request. The NRC appears to be a rubber stamp for the military and the nuclear industry, much like the so-called Bank regulators are a rubber stamp for the Wall St. Banksters ongoing criminal enterprise. The deck is stacked against the citizen and taxpayer in challenging policies that favor special interests. The heart of the issues are ignored and the case is reduced to using procedural legal technicalities to deny citizens their rights and their voice. Legal bureaucrats in Rockville, Maryland , paid with our tax dollars, have determined that we who live here in Hawaii have no standing to challenging the military poisoning our island home with radiation. What kind of justice, freedom and democracy is that?”
“In plain language,” Albertini continued, “a military license to possess DU in the heart of our island is a license for a nuclear waste dump. The state of Hawaii (BLNR) that leases land to the military on its 133,000 acre PTA base for 65 years for a total of $1.00 should cancel the lease. We need to malama the aina not abuse it.”
On Tuesday, Albertini spoke to state government representatives during a public meeting in Hilo, when the above video was taken. The next day, Albertini says some 30 protestors picketed outside the gate of Pohakuloa as the military reportedly met with local officials behind closed doors. The substance of the meeting has not yet been made public.
On Monday, retired Army Colonel, Ann Wright, spoke about the adverse effects of DU at a meeting in Keaau. She reportedly joined Tuesday’s protest as well, after Albertini says she was denied the opportunity to represent the interests of Albertini’s Malu Aina peace organization at the meeting.
Very good quality video and as always, an excellent message of peace from Jim Albertini, President of Malu Aina!
Mahalo to the Big Island Video News for reporting on matters like this that threaten the well-being of our entire island population. The Depleted Uranium that Jim mentions has a radio-active half life of 4.5 BILLION years so we should all be concerned that this poisonous dust continues to be spread across our island by the occupying government’s military games.
Where are the terrorists? Right in our own back yard…
Paka
Before the protesters get too worked up, I would suggest they look closer to home. Do they have any smoke detectors in their houses? If so, they have brought Californium (a radiolactive trans-uranic element) to where they live. Of course, the risks of not having a smoke detector in their home far out weighs the risks of the radiolactive material. Depleted Uranium is essentially U238. Is it radioactive? Mildly. But you’ll get more radiation living in Denver, CO, just from the altitude. Or New York City? Stay away from Grand Central Station, because the naturally occuring radioactives in the granite the place is built from is considerably more radioactive than any risks from DU on the base. Get some perspective, people.
Not the same thing Spock, and Im sure you know it. 😉
Yes the militarization of big island is an issue, as well as DU.
Peace
😉
Spock …the name fits. You might as well go live on a space ship with that mentality.
I’ve seen video footage of the explosions on the Big Island, knowing immediately what I was seeing…Depleted Uranium.
If you’ve once, it’s not hard to recognize. When I saw the bombs being fired off. I became immediately disgusted.
I discovered in a recent report that the army admitted to firing off at least 2,000 DU munitions. (once dispensed, this nuclear waste can travel for miles- I’ve seen up to 26 miles away showing levels of contamination.
Heck, the military can call it vog, clueless people won’t pay attention to anything.
I shared a page of birth defects on one site directly resulting from exposure to DU. Children born with 1/2 a head, organs outside the body, massive tumors- horrific
I came to the Big Island in January in hopes of finding a new home where I could devote more time in a life of simplicity and agriculture…not find a new way to get cancer.
I live with Chronic pain 24/7, 365 days a year. Coming there for a month allowed me to do things in the “winter time” I never imagined I would do again.
I could have even worked around the extremely high price of food (grow my own)- but the Depleted uranium is unacceptable.
US citizens have been subject to deadly military experiments for 1/2 a century.
This is absolutely deplorable! Hawaii, and any other state should be ashamed. No wonder retirement is 55, and you don’t keep kids in school 5 days a week…people are going to die.
The leaders of the “DIVIDED states of amerika” DO NOT CARE.
Cheney was quoted as saying public safety is none of the people’s business.
Here we are, new president…who loves Hawaii…I’m waiting for a response to my first letter, but that won’t stop me from writing a 2nd or 3rd.
Residents of Hawaii (The Big Island) should be given free health care simply based on the fact the government and military is killing you!
Wake Up people!
~Kathy
Depleted uranium effects = I want you to follow this link http://tinyurl.com/yfv2ac4
Open the images of infants and children.
Make sure you take a good long, hard look at those photographs.
~kmw
When the US government is able to stop prosecution for its crimes by denying standing to claimants, it naturally seeks any advantage to protect its criminal syndicate, and controlling the agencies that hear these cases makes denial of standing automatic. These criminal hierarchies have existed throughout the last 6-7,000 years at the head of many failed states. In the end the hierarchy that produced DU and shot it all over the planet will poison its military personnel like it did to Doug Rokke and hundreds of thousands of others. In addition, the phony wars created especially for the dirty bombers will cause the US to run out of money. It has happened in every other failed regime and doomed ‘civilization’ when the desperate money lenders and high priests frantically tried to keep things together with their military and just plain overreached way beyond what nature will tolerate. You guys up at PTA are broke, go home. We are so sick of you! The only sad thing about seeing the US destroy itself from within is how many others in the world they have poisoned and radiated in their titanic agony as a failed nation.
Leave the kingdom the keys when you leave. Remember how you stole this place in broad daylight.
What Satanic activity is the U.S. “not” involved in? Pray tell?????