Coalition working to preserve remains
Posted: Jan 19, 2010 8:55 PM PST
by Michele Catahay
Guam - With the upcoming military buildup, local residents are concerned about the protection of human remains as more construction is slated for the island. The Coalition for the Protection of Burial and Human Remains is crafting its own piece of legislation in hopes one senator will introduce it soon.
Former senator Hope Cristobal is from the Coalition, and says the organization's mission is to help preserve and help strengthen local laws. She says current laws do not provide constraints for developers. "The human remains can be considered property. It can even be bought, sold or transferred. And so at this point in time, we're very concerned especially with the upcoming militarization of the buildup of this island."
The group has been meeting to create a citizen-type approach in hopes to put in legislation before the military buildup occurs. In fact, what the group wants to see is a council that would include indigenous people to make decisions when discoveries of historic sites are made.
"We're really looking to strengthen even more of the local legislation that we have, because we have legislation. But it doesn't go as far as protecting these human remains and at the most, we really should be - they're in sacred sites. We should be protecting them at these sacred and ancient sites," said Cristobal.
Cristobal says a prime example of what the group is willing to prevent is the incident at the former Hotel Okura, now currently called the Aurora Resort. Here, more than 300 human remains were removed from the site. Today, construction has seized and work hasn't resumed in almost a year.
She said, "We are very concerned because we think that our ancestor's spirits are at work here. There is not one hotel developer in Tumon that has been able to keep our ancestors' burials intact."
With the Marines movement set to occur in the coming years, Cristobal is hoping this type of legislation would allow for the same rules to apply inside the bases. She continued, "I don't know how far and to what extent our local laws apply inside the bases but those are the kinds of things we're looking at with this legislation to make sure we protect these burial sites and everyone knows that burial sites are located along coastal areas."
For the time being, Cristobal says she is hoping to meet with senators to look into the issue and find at least one lawmaker who is willing to sponsor the bill.
Showing posts with label Human Remains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Human Remains. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Oahu Burial Council Won't Approve Rail Pact
Burial council won't sign rail pact
Honolulu Advertiser
By Sean Hao
10/20/09
A government panel charged with protecting Native Hawaiian burials is opposing plans to run Honolulu's $5.5 billion rail line through Kakaako via Halekauwila Street.
The Oahu Island Burial Council has decided not to join other parties — including the National Parks Service and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation — in signing an agreement on mitigating the rail project's impacts on historical, cultural and archaeological resources. The organizations are scheduled to sign the agreement tomorrow.
The burial council decision is largely symbolic and isn't expected to stop or delay the 20-mile elevated commuter train project, scheduled to break ground in December. But it does indicate the concern Native Hawaiians and others have that the rail project's current route will encounter problems with old burial sites.
"When it comes to the issue that we're concerned with, you picked one of the worst possible alignments," burial council member Kehau Abad told transit officials during a meeting last week.
Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann wrote to the burial council on Oct. 13 urging the group to concur with the agreement. The city worked with the council for months to address concerns about the project's potential impact on traditional Hawaiian burials, which are generally unmarked graves.
However, the administration was unwilling to alter the route from going through an area that sits on a band of sandy deposits that's expected to contain high concentrations of burials, according to the council. That route was chosen by the Honolulu City Council in early 2007 based on a study of various transit alternatives conducted a year earlier.
Some federal officials also have opposed a Halekauwila Street route, which passes the Prince Kuhio Federal Building, because of security concerns.
Burial council members said they should have been consulted and an archaeological inventory survey should have been conducted before selection of a route through Kakaako. The current route will almost certainly encounter buried human remains, which could delay the project and drive up costs, Abad said during last Wednesday's meeting.
"What we're concerned about is the public is going to turn around and point to us as the cause of those increases in costs (and) as the cause of delays," she said. "Beyond just us, they're going to turn to the whole Hawaiian community and say it's those Hawaiians who are increasing the costs of this project for everyone. It is the Hawaiians who are holding up progress .
"We're going to get blamed for something that we knew well in advance would have been coming, but nobody asked us," Abad said.
mauka route urged
The burial council is appointed by the governor and works to protect Hawaiian burial sites. The council maintains that a more mauka route for the rail line, along King or Beretania streets, would avoid subsurface sandy deposits likely to contain burials.
City officials said they considered but discounted alternatives because other routes wouldn't generate enough ridership or would have greater impacts on adjoining properties.
The issue of how to deal with the discovery of iwi, or burial remains, arose at the Kakaako Walmart and Ward Villages projects and likely could recur if the city proceeds with plans to build a 20-mile rapid transit system linking East Kapolei to Ala Moana.
According to the city's 2006 study, there is a high potential of encountering Native Hawaiian burials and other archaeological artifacts once construction enters urban Honolulu. Other portions of the route along Farrington and Kamehameha highways and the airport have a medium potential of encountering such sites.
In an effort to alleviate council concerns, the city agreed to conduct an archaeological inventory survey in the Kakaako area about two years earlier than planned, said Lawrence Spurgeon, supervising environmental engineer for New York-based project manager Parsons Brinckerhoff.
Such a survey is currently being conducted at the ewa side of the route, which will be built first, and includes tests at about 80 sites. So far no burials have been found.
survey set next year
The current plan is to conduct an archaeological survey for the Middle Street to Ala Moana Center segment next year, Spurgeon told the burial council last week. That will be before a final design is completed for that portion of the route, he said.
"If we have any substantial finds that will really require a redesign or anything of that type, we'll have a fair amount of time to look at what those options are," he said.
The city would consider moving train guideway footings and altering utility relocation plans to avoid iwi. However, it's unlikely that the discovery of human remains in Kakaako will cause the city to alter the route, Spurgeon said.
"From our point of view it's going to be a fairly high threshold to the point where the proposed alternative is essentially abandoned in favor of coming up with another alternative," he said. "The city would go through every design option first to be able to avoid those resources.
"Changing the entire project alignment in some area is a last resort."
The city also maintains that an elevated train will have less impact on human burials than an at-grade train.
"To the extent there are specific locations where you are likely to run into iwi, hopefully you can in fact engineer around it to avoid the situation" with an elevated train, said City Council Chairman Todd Apo.
inadvertent discoveries
According to a study commissioned by Kamehameha Schools and released earlier this year, at-grade and elevated train alternatives affect burials in different ways.
"Although at-grade construction results in a continuous disturbance to the ground beneath, throughout the length of the guideway, fortunately disruption can be limited to the first few feet of ground," according to the report by IBI Group in Irvine, Calif. "The aerial guideway design option will avoid constant disturbance along the transit alignment, limiting the disruption to the column foundation areas only."
The city said it is committed to working with the burial council even though the group won't sign the agreement.
"We need to ensure that any of those disturbances are eliminated or at a minium minimized," Apo said.
Despite those reassurances , several burial council members said it would be better for the city to avoid an area that's likely to encounter burials. Recent inadvertent discoveries of human remains in Kakaako include:
• About 42 sets of remains were found at the Keeaumoku Walmart site after construction began in late 2002.
• Separately, about 60 sets of remains were discovered at the site of General Growth's Ward Villages development, mauka of Ward Centre.
• Workers dug up 69 human remains at Kawaiahao Church during construction of a multipurpose center.
In each case building plans were delayed and human burials were removed.
"The council is absolutely right that you should expect to find burials on Halekauwila Street," said Thomas Dye, president for T.S. Dye & Colleagues Archaeologists. "There are burials all over Kakaako. If you go further mauka, you get off the sand, which is a good thing if you're trying to miss burials."
'something's got to give'
If the transit project encounters additional burials, there will be considerable pressure to move human remains rather than alter the train's route, burial council member Abad said.
"There's a critical difference between avoidance and mitigation," Abad said. "It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the solution that's going to allow for us to have our kupuna handled in a way that maintains the integrity of their sacred burial spots and for this project to go forward — all in that same corridor.
"Something's got to give. What we all know is ... that which gives is our concerns, our values (and) what we hold dear. That's what everybody asks us to give," Abad said.
Reach Sean Hao at shao@honoluluadvertiser.com.
Honolulu Advertiser
By Sean Hao
10/20/09
A government panel charged with protecting Native Hawaiian burials is opposing plans to run Honolulu's $5.5 billion rail line through Kakaako via Halekauwila Street.
The Oahu Island Burial Council has decided not to join other parties — including the National Parks Service and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation — in signing an agreement on mitigating the rail project's impacts on historical, cultural and archaeological resources. The organizations are scheduled to sign the agreement tomorrow.
The burial council decision is largely symbolic and isn't expected to stop or delay the 20-mile elevated commuter train project, scheduled to break ground in December. But it does indicate the concern Native Hawaiians and others have that the rail project's current route will encounter problems with old burial sites.
"When it comes to the issue that we're concerned with, you picked one of the worst possible alignments," burial council member Kehau Abad told transit officials during a meeting last week.
Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann wrote to the burial council on Oct. 13 urging the group to concur with the agreement. The city worked with the council for months to address concerns about the project's potential impact on traditional Hawaiian burials, which are generally unmarked graves.
However, the administration was unwilling to alter the route from going through an area that sits on a band of sandy deposits that's expected to contain high concentrations of burials, according to the council. That route was chosen by the Honolulu City Council in early 2007 based on a study of various transit alternatives conducted a year earlier.
Some federal officials also have opposed a Halekauwila Street route, which passes the Prince Kuhio Federal Building, because of security concerns.
Burial council members said they should have been consulted and an archaeological inventory survey should have been conducted before selection of a route through Kakaako. The current route will almost certainly encounter buried human remains, which could delay the project and drive up costs, Abad said during last Wednesday's meeting.
"What we're concerned about is the public is going to turn around and point to us as the cause of those increases in costs (and) as the cause of delays," she said. "Beyond just us, they're going to turn to the whole Hawaiian community and say it's those Hawaiians who are increasing the costs of this project for everyone. It is the Hawaiians who are holding up progress .
"We're going to get blamed for something that we knew well in advance would have been coming, but nobody asked us," Abad said.
mauka route urged
The burial council is appointed by the governor and works to protect Hawaiian burial sites. The council maintains that a more mauka route for the rail line, along King or Beretania streets, would avoid subsurface sandy deposits likely to contain burials.
City officials said they considered but discounted alternatives because other routes wouldn't generate enough ridership or would have greater impacts on adjoining properties.
The issue of how to deal with the discovery of iwi, or burial remains, arose at the Kakaako Walmart and Ward Villages projects and likely could recur if the city proceeds with plans to build a 20-mile rapid transit system linking East Kapolei to Ala Moana.
According to the city's 2006 study, there is a high potential of encountering Native Hawaiian burials and other archaeological artifacts once construction enters urban Honolulu. Other portions of the route along Farrington and Kamehameha highways and the airport have a medium potential of encountering such sites.
In an effort to alleviate council concerns, the city agreed to conduct an archaeological inventory survey in the Kakaako area about two years earlier than planned, said Lawrence Spurgeon, supervising environmental engineer for New York-based project manager Parsons Brinckerhoff.
Such a survey is currently being conducted at the ewa side of the route, which will be built first, and includes tests at about 80 sites. So far no burials have been found.
survey set next year
The current plan is to conduct an archaeological survey for the Middle Street to Ala Moana Center segment next year, Spurgeon told the burial council last week. That will be before a final design is completed for that portion of the route, he said.
"If we have any substantial finds that will really require a redesign or anything of that type, we'll have a fair amount of time to look at what those options are," he said.
The city would consider moving train guideway footings and altering utility relocation plans to avoid iwi. However, it's unlikely that the discovery of human remains in Kakaako will cause the city to alter the route, Spurgeon said.
"From our point of view it's going to be a fairly high threshold to the point where the proposed alternative is essentially abandoned in favor of coming up with another alternative," he said. "The city would go through every design option first to be able to avoid those resources.
"Changing the entire project alignment in some area is a last resort."
The city also maintains that an elevated train will have less impact on human burials than an at-grade train.
"To the extent there are specific locations where you are likely to run into iwi, hopefully you can in fact engineer around it to avoid the situation" with an elevated train, said City Council Chairman Todd Apo.
inadvertent discoveries
According to a study commissioned by Kamehameha Schools and released earlier this year, at-grade and elevated train alternatives affect burials in different ways.
"Although at-grade construction results in a continuous disturbance to the ground beneath, throughout the length of the guideway, fortunately disruption can be limited to the first few feet of ground," according to the report by IBI Group in Irvine, Calif. "The aerial guideway design option will avoid constant disturbance along the transit alignment, limiting the disruption to the column foundation areas only."
The city said it is committed to working with the burial council even though the group won't sign the agreement.
"We need to ensure that any of those disturbances are eliminated or at a minium minimized," Apo said.
Despite those reassurances , several burial council members said it would be better for the city to avoid an area that's likely to encounter burials. Recent inadvertent discoveries of human remains in Kakaako include:
• About 42 sets of remains were found at the Keeaumoku Walmart site after construction began in late 2002.
• Separately, about 60 sets of remains were discovered at the site of General Growth's Ward Villages development, mauka of Ward Centre.
• Workers dug up 69 human remains at Kawaiahao Church during construction of a multipurpose center.
In each case building plans were delayed and human burials were removed.
"The council is absolutely right that you should expect to find burials on Halekauwila Street," said Thomas Dye, president for T.S. Dye & Colleagues Archaeologists. "There are burials all over Kakaako. If you go further mauka, you get off the sand, which is a good thing if you're trying to miss burials."
'something's got to give'
If the transit project encounters additional burials, there will be considerable pressure to move human remains rather than alter the train's route, burial council member Abad said.
"There's a critical difference between avoidance and mitigation," Abad said. "It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the solution that's going to allow for us to have our kupuna handled in a way that maintains the integrity of their sacred burial spots and for this project to go forward — all in that same corridor.
"Something's got to give. What we all know is ... that which gives is our concerns, our values (and) what we hold dear. That's what everybody asks us to give," Abad said.
Reach Sean Hao at shao@honoluluadvertiser.com.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
More on Gun Beach
Former senator Nelson wants contractor off 'his' land at Gun Beach
by Michele Catahay, KUAM News
Monday, February 11, 2008
While contractor CoreTech International is working to move its Gun Beach twin tower project in Tumon forward, it looks like more road blocks are standing in the way. At around 6 this morning, right around sunup, former senator Ted Nelson protested in front of the Gun Beach property, prompting officers from the Guam Police Department to step in.
Nelson told the contractor that they were not allowed to set foot on the property, which he says belongs to his family. "This is really something I'm going to fight all the way," said Nelson, formerly legislative speaker. "The cops are here and I want my family here on Guam and in the States [to know] that we are still fighting [for] this land. It's our property."
According to Nelson, his family owns portions of the Gun Beach lot, as well as adjacent land near the Nikko Hotel. He says the two cases are currently being heard in court.
While Nelson claims the land is his, Michael Ysrael from Tanota Partners says Nelson started his attacks back in 2002 and continues to challenge the ownership of the property through this day, even after the cases have already been dismissed. Ysrael currently owns a lot in that same area, saying, "To date, we've had three different lawsuits involving different types of issues. All three judges have ruled effectively that the land is owned by what the Government of Guam says the land owns: the Nikko owns their land, we own our land, and Mr. Ho owns his land."
Added Ysrael, "Mr. Nelson, he doesn't file any lawsuits. What he does, is he causes a problem and forces us to go to court to put out the fire essentially."
Meanwhile, CoreTech CEO Ho Eun says this incident creates another setback for the project. This comes at a time when the contractor has recently obtained a clearing permit from the Department of Land Management in order for the Department of Agriculture and archeological firm PHRI to get involved. "He can stop us, as long as he has court order or proper documents that show that this is his property then we'll respect his opinion. At this point I really hope that he can stop doing these things so we can really start working on it, please," Eun said.
And it seems like there's more to the story as CoreTech had discovered that over the weekend that vandalism had occurred at the site. Tires on a backhoe had been slashed and likewise tampered with was the site where archeologists have found ancient remains, including human bone and pottery.
According to field archeologist for PHRI Dee Cruz, vandals ripped off the tarp and desecrated the area. She shared, "It's very hard to come back. It makes me sad. All the history that has been here, has been destroyed and we have to go back and re-salvage everything and see what's missing from here...we're talking about human beings - they're coming here and trampling, looking for information, that's not how you go about it. I'm here to collect the information."
by Michele Catahay, KUAM News
Monday, February 11, 2008
While contractor CoreTech International is working to move its Gun Beach twin tower project in Tumon forward, it looks like more road blocks are standing in the way. At around 6 this morning, right around sunup, former senator Ted Nelson protested in front of the Gun Beach property, prompting officers from the Guam Police Department to step in.
Nelson told the contractor that they were not allowed to set foot on the property, which he says belongs to his family. "This is really something I'm going to fight all the way," said Nelson, formerly legislative speaker. "The cops are here and I want my family here on Guam and in the States [to know] that we are still fighting [for] this land. It's our property."
According to Nelson, his family owns portions of the Gun Beach lot, as well as adjacent land near the Nikko Hotel. He says the two cases are currently being heard in court.
While Nelson claims the land is his, Michael Ysrael from Tanota Partners says Nelson started his attacks back in 2002 and continues to challenge the ownership of the property through this day, even after the cases have already been dismissed. Ysrael currently owns a lot in that same area, saying, "To date, we've had three different lawsuits involving different types of issues. All three judges have ruled effectively that the land is owned by what the Government of Guam says the land owns: the Nikko owns their land, we own our land, and Mr. Ho owns his land."
Added Ysrael, "Mr. Nelson, he doesn't file any lawsuits. What he does, is he causes a problem and forces us to go to court to put out the fire essentially."
Meanwhile, CoreTech CEO Ho Eun says this incident creates another setback for the project. This comes at a time when the contractor has recently obtained a clearing permit from the Department of Land Management in order for the Department of Agriculture and archeological firm PHRI to get involved. "He can stop us, as long as he has court order or proper documents that show that this is his property then we'll respect his opinion. At this point I really hope that he can stop doing these things so we can really start working on it, please," Eun said.
And it seems like there's more to the story as CoreTech had discovered that over the weekend that vandalism had occurred at the site. Tires on a backhoe had been slashed and likewise tampered with was the site where archeologists have found ancient remains, including human bone and pottery.
According to field archeologist for PHRI Dee Cruz, vandals ripped off the tarp and desecrated the area. She shared, "It's very hard to come back. It makes me sad. All the history that has been here, has been destroyed and we have to go back and re-salvage everything and see what's missing from here...we're talking about human beings - they're coming here and trampling, looking for information, that's not how you go about it. I'm here to collect the information."
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