Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 2, Number 9, 1 September 1985 — Keep Gases Out [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Keep Gases Out

By Hayden Burgess Trustee, Oahu

The sad and tragic history of one of our long lost Hawaiian islands is now coming to light over the issue of dumping poison gases at Johnston Atoll. Johnston or Kalama Island is located at the western end of our islands and has long been a traditional Hawaiian fishing ground. Hawaiians would sail to Kuai-he-lani whieh

includes Nihoa, Necker and other islands and lure 'opelu back to Kona, O'ahu, and Kona, Hawai'i. Knowing the land-grabbing nature of many foreigners, Kamehameha IV in 1858 officially put the atoll under the protective kapu of the Hawaiian nation. The main 60-acre island was named Kalama. Up to the time of the theft of Hawaii by the U.S. in 1893, Kalama was recognized as part of the Hawaiian Kingdom. In the early '60s, three accidental explosions contaminated the land and sea with plutonium. In the mid-70s, one of the world's most lethal chemicals, dioxin, from Agent Orange, was spilled on Kalama. In 1983, a federal government study belatedly criticized the destruction of the reef, limu and fish from 50 years of dredging and dumping raw sewage in the lagoon. All of this has happened on an atoll that in 1931 was declared by the American President Franklin Roosevelt as a Nahonal Wildlife Refuge. In 1972 when Hurricane Celeste hit Kalama, all personnel flew off the island to avoid the potential disaster from the poison nerve gases stored there. We ean not run away. Hawaii is our home. Again, the U.S. wants to use Hawaii as the refuse station, the keeper of American death weapons. Their latest plan is to build an incinerator on Kalama for the disposal of nerve gas from old missiles. They create the mess and look around for some other people's territory in whieh to dump it. They foul our nest and leave theirs intact. The U.S.'s Environmental Protection Agency has the duty to protect the U.S. environment. Their intention is to protect only the continental U.S. environment. The bottom line is "America, keep your rubbish in your own back yard." I had ari opportunity to bring this eoneem before the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva on July 30, 1985, pointing out examples of how indigenous territories continue to be polluted by foreigners "" who have no care or respect for our environment. But we ean not let only one or a few voices speak out against this threat to our future survival. We must all join in. If you are concerned about this matter as mueh as I am, please send your letters of protest to Hawaii's congressional delegation — Sens. Daniel K. Inouye and Spark M. Matsunaga and Reps. Daniel K. Akaka and Cecil Heftel — demanding that they make every effort to keep Hawaii's territories free from American or any other pollution.