A clear example of disinformation
Pohakuloa Training Area now includes all of the Big Island.
The U.S. Navy announced they do not need a full Environmental Impact Statement for their special operation training of moving stealthily among the population for various exercises including apparent assassination or abduction training (WHT June 9, p. 6B). It believes there would be no significant human environmental impact as personnel will clean up after their maneuvers. We have all seen how such a commitment has not been honored at PTA and other sites with toxins, unexploded ordinance, and depleted uranium left to migrate into the pristine Hawaiian environment.
I think most reasonable people of this Earth would agree that humans are part of the total environment. Therefore, the basis of no significant impact is downright false and a clear example of disinformation. How can you move trainees among the general population with no impact? It is training, after all, and training by its very nature generates some failures. If it did not, then training would not be necessary. This cannot be dodged by broadly defining the word “significant.” Might that be one traumatic event, injury, or death; or perhaps two?
This is a situation that goes to the heart of Lorrin Pang’s personal research that the military needs to obtain informed consent from the general population for these experiments, as already much of PTA operations involve unwitting civilian exposures to known carcinogens. How would the tourist industry be impacted if to visit Hawaii, all people must sign a form acknowledging they and their families agree to be part of training exercises that involve military personnel moving unrecognized among them for lethal-activity training? Do you know who that person is sitting beside you?
In any case, the factual truth now is that the entire Big Island is a military training ground and a full environmental impact statement is required.
Michael Reimer, Ph.D.
Denver, Colorado
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Official business?
The other day I received a flyer from U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono via the Postal Service. Printed on the front of the mailing piece was “Official Business.”
I’m not going to make any comment regarding the content of this item. My intent was to show who funded this informational brochure, obviously it was you and I, the taxpayers.
Now, reviewing the mailed piece I recently received from state Rep. Jeanne Kapela, I find no statement as to who prepared, published, and mailed it, unlike that identified on Hirono’s item. Perhaps Kapela paid for it herself, or maybe her political party? Interesting to note that perhaps, just perhaps no taxpayer funds were used. But I doubt it.
Michael L. Last
Naalehu
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