Lawsuit: Army denies access to Hawaiian cultural sites

The U.S. Army is violating a court settlement by restricting access to cultural sites in a valley many Native Hawaiians consider sacred, a lawsuit filed today alleges.

Attorneys for environmental law organization Earthjustice filed the lawsuit in federal court in Honolulu on behalf of Malama Makua, a Native Hawaiian cultural group. It’s the latest action in a long-running legal dispute over Makua Valley, the site of decades of military training.

A 2001 settlement allows Malama Makua to access sacred sites twice a month, but the Army suddenly imposed a “blanket ban” in 2014 when it claimed it first needed to obtain clearance from historic preservations to cut grass on trails leading to cultural sites so that any unexploded ordnance could be avoided, the lawsuit said.

In September 2015, the Army obtained a grass-cutting agreement but said it then needed to investigate an accident that injured two contractors. The contractors were cutting grass for military training in April 2015 when unexploded ordnance exploded.

Read more: http://www.staradvertiser.com/2016/11/07/breaking-news/lawsuit-army-denies-access-to-hawaiian-cultural-sites/