Figure 4-17: Viewpoint 1—Farrington Highway near Waikele Road, looking 'Ewa. - Photo and simulated image courtesy of City and County of Honolulu

Burial council ramps up on
iwi protection along rail route

By Liza Simon / Ka Wai Ola Loa

Members of the O'ahu Island Burial Council recently took an archeological tour of Honolulu's planned elevated commuter line. Construction is not likely to begin until 2012, but the burial council's involvement at this early stage is seen as crucial for protecting Hawaiian iwi kūpuna from potentially adverse impacts of the largest ever public works project in Hawai'i's history.

"The collaboration at this stage promises good results, because so often we don't even hear from a project developer until the shovel goes in the ground and problems arise that are more difficult to deal with at that point," said Jace McQuivey, O'ahu Burial Council chairperson.

On Nov. 12, burial council members boarded a bus with project archeologists, engineers and government officials and spent the day stopping along the planned 28-mile route from Kapolei to Mānoa. They stopped to examine various sites where construction will take place for power substations, storage facilities, a maintenance building, support columns and other facilities. When complete, the project – known officially as the Honolulu High Capacity Transit Corridor Project, is expected to bring traffic relief to O'ahu at a cost of $3.9 billion.

Figure 4-19: Viewpoint 2—Kamehameha Highway near Acacia Street, looking 'Ewa. - Photo and simulated image courtesy of City and County of Honolulu

The magnitude of the project also poses a huge challenge for the burial council. The 12-member body of governor appointees, administratively attached to the State Historic Preservation Office, is named as special cultural consultant for the transit project. In order for the state to issue the city a construction permit, the OIBC is one of several parties that must first approve the transit project's environmental impact statement (EIS), released in November and available for public comment until Jan. 7.

This required study details the design and compliance of the project with iwi protection regulations. The traditional belief that ancestral remains empower descendents is protected by both state and federal regulations.

OIBC members previously criticized the city for designing the corridor in advance of completing an Archeological Inventory Study, another permitting requirement, which the city is proposing to do in phased segments once construction is underway.

"Usually an AIS is done first to determine the design," said OIBC member Kehau Abad. "This is in keeping with the spirit of the law and our commitment to protecting iwi, which can best be carried out by having the proper lead time to make meaningful decisions."

Abad also said the transit field trip yielded information that reassured OIBC members that the city and project contractor Parsons Brinckherhoff are proceeding cautiously. In particular, members were glad to hear the project designers describe their capacity to use a technology that allows for longer-than-average bridge spans to be built.

Figure 4-20: Viewpoint 3—Kamehameha Highway at Ka'ahumanu Street, looking Makai. - Photo and simulated image courtesy of City and County of Honolulu

The technology, similar to that used in the construction of the H-3, is costly, but it could provide flexibility should supportive columns need to be relocated to address concerns over iwi.

Although the supportive columns are only 6 feet in diameter, they will be sunk 120 feet into the soil, potentially requiring repositioning of water lines and other types of underground infrastructure – thus widening the area of potential impact. The conventional distance for relocating columns is up to 30 feet in a direction parallel to the rail track. Because that would not provide much flexibility for making alignment changes, news of the increased bridge span was well received by the OIBC. "We were glad that the tour helped us learn more about the engineering possibilities that can be used especially in cases where there is a large burial concentration," said Abad.

Larry Spurgeon of Parsons Brinckherhoff, the contracting firm for the transit project, said he was satisfied that the tour helped explain the purpose of a phased archeological inventory study.

"Our goal is all necessary work in advance of construction to avoid iwi altogether, but a comprehensive AIS along the entire corridor would involve extensive and intrusive excavation, which could be the cause of inadvertent iwi disturbance," said Spurgeon.

Spurgeon added that the bus tour visited sites that were the subject of completed studies used by project designers to minimize potential for impacts on iwi, as described in the EIS, which says the path of the corridor does not cross any burial grounds that are known to be intact. These studies include archeological survey information accumulated by the state since the 1970s and a 2008 city-funded cultural study, which interviewed kūpuna with knowledge of oral histories about burial sites on O'ahu.

Spurgeon told OIBC members on the tour that additional archeological inventory sampling would be done at specific transit-line construction sites, including the locales of the columns. This will be completed before work on the mid-corridor near Aloha Stadium begins, he said.

Along with excavation, a less invasive technology known as ground-penetrating radar will be used to detect burial ground sites. "We consider it of utmost importance to share information with the burial council at every step," said Spurgeon.

McQuivey, the burial council chairman, said there was frank and open discussion on the tour about the strong likelihood that in spite of all steps being taken there will be inadvertent discovery of new iwi discovery in Kaka'ako, where the transit will cut a sizeable swath.

Once the site of dense ancient Hawaiian settlement, Kaka'ako has seen iwi disturbed during several recent construction projects. Construction projects are required under law to halt work while awaiting assessment by the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) on how to proceed.

Under normal circumstances, the burial council serves in an advisory capacity to SHPO and is only required to approve a contractor's mitigation plans if disturbance of a burial ground involves a location already registered with the state by Native Hawaiian descendents. But the transit line corridor's crisscrossing of state and federal land has meant heightened involvement of the burial council.

Subsequent to the bus tour, the city responded to OIBC concerns about Kaka'ako by agreeing to do an intensive archaeological survey of the soil there.

"The advance collaboration with the city is giving us time to work out memoranda of agreement to anticipate different situations and the proper protocols and policies for addressing them," said McQuivey. "This was evident on the bus tour, where we set the agenda and had all our questions answered."

The EIS for the transit corridor project is available online at honolulutransit.org. It may also be reviewed at the following locations: the Municipal Library near Honolulu Hale, all O'ahu public libraries, the city Department of Transportation Services, 650 S. King St., Third Floor, and the city DTS, Rapid Transit Division, 1099 Alakea St., 17th Floor.

Comments may be sent through Jan. 7 to two individuals: Wayne Yoshioka, Department of Transportation Services, City and County of Honolulu, 650 S. King St., 3rd Floor, Honolulu, HI 96813; and Ted Matley, FTA Region IX, 201 Mission St., Suite 1650, San Francisco, CA 94105.

For more information on the EIS, call Yoshioka at 768-8303 or Matley at 415-744-3133. A DVD of the document is available at no cost.