Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 39, Number 1, 1 January 2022 — Ka'ohewai Coalition Formed to Defend Kapūkakī [ARTICLE]

Ka'ohewai Coalition Formed to Defend Kapūkakī

Last month, in response to the Navy s failure to address mounting concerns about fuel leaking

from its massive underground fuel storage facility at Kapūkakī (Red Hill), a new coalition of Hawaiian organizations, called Ka'ohewai, was formed to defend Kapūkakī. Along with other organizations and agencies across Hawai'i, Ka'ohewai has called for the immediate removel of the 20 fuel tanks (see pages 4-8 for related coverage). Ka'ohewai is comprised of individuals and organizations who are rooted in and bound together by decades of shared efforts to nurture and sustain the wellheing of our land and water, the life they support, and our cultural practices that ean only occur in the embrace of nature. On December 12, Ka'ohewai built and dedicated a ko'a (shrine) at the entrance of the command headquarters of the U.S. Paeihe Fleet. It will remain in plaee until the Navy removes its fuel tanks. "The Navy and its fellow military branches have wreaked havoc across our islands and cannot be trusted with our land and water," said Andre Perez, a leader of Ka'ohewai and the organizer of the Hawaiian Unity and Liberation Institute (HULI). "They promise safety, they fail, they eoneeal, they apologize, and they expect to resume their behavior. No more. 1his is the end. We will not let the Navy continue to deceive us and destroy our land and water." Ka'ohewai means "the hamhoo water container." 'Ohe (hamhoo) is a kino lau (body form) of the god Kāne who also takes the form of freshwater. 'An 'ohe wai is a hamhoo water container, mueh like the container of water that is the Hālawa aquifer," explained Ka'ohewai's Kēhaunani Abad. "When water sits beheath the land it is a form of Kanaloa, a constant eompanion of Kāne. In this way, the name Ka'ohewai also references the god Kanaloa whose aquifers are essential to the water cycle upon whieh all life depends."