Radiation Highway?
Protestors closed out of Saddle Road opening

by Alan D. McNarie

It's interesting that the taxpayers can pay for this ceremony, but we aren't allowed over there," remarked a protestor standing behind a temporary barricade at Mauna Loa State Park. About 120 yards away, dignitaries from the government, the army and various business groups, plus an invited Hawaiian kupuna from each district, were gathered under a tent shelter to celebrate the opening of the first 6 1/2 miles of the redesigned Saddle Road.
About 40-50 anti-war and Native Hawaiian protesters stood in the sun behind the barricade. The immediate reason for their action was the fact that the new road was funded, in large part, with money from a federal defense appropriation engineered by Sen. Daniel Inouye. Fueling the protest, though, were disclosures that the army had found spent ordinance casings containing depleted uranium on O'ahu, and suspicions that ordinance containing DU might also have been fired at PTA- suspicions boosted by a mysterious spike in radioactivity that a Geiger-counter-armed activist recorded in South Kona on April 23.
Before the day was over, the protesters had more possible evidence. An activist named Gunter Monkowski brought a radiation meter to the protest, and recorded five spikes of abnormally high radiation, ranging from 40 counts per minute to 75 cpm, over a 3 1/2-hour period. The island's normal background radiation is about 5-25 cpm.
Depleted uranium, or DU, comes from the spent fuel rods of nuclear reactors, and is used in military ordinance such as antitank rounds and "bunker buster" bombs. The hazards of DU are hotly debated, but it allegedly has been linked to diseases ranging from cancer and birth defects to "Gulf War Syndrome," which has afflicted thousands of returning vets.
The army has repeatedly denied using ordnance containing DU at Pohakuloa. But the Army also denied using DU on O'ahu-until it announced last January that 15 DU tailfins and exploded shell fragments were found at Schofield Barracks. According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, those shells were probably spotter rounds from a "Davy Crockett," a 1960s-vintage gun designed to throw tactical nuclear shells.
Last April, a visiting anti-DU activist recorded a 95 cpm radiation reading on the farm of South Kona resident Doug Fox.
"There was this gusty wind blowing right off the saddle, and we knew they were doing active maneuvers with Strykers, because the red warning flag was out up there," on the day of the reading, Fox told the Journal.
The army claims that no maneuvers or live firing happened that day.
The dignitaries on the Saddle Road had mixed reactions to the protestor's message.
"I hate uranium. I hate it. It's not that I disagree with you," Kona Councilmember Brenda Ford told one protestor. But she refused a proffered booklet on the effects of DU.
Mayor Harry Kim also spoke briefly with the activists. He told the Journal that a protestor had asked him if he knew the area was contaminated with radiation.
"I said, 'You don't know me very well, or you'd know that I wouldn't let that happen," Kim recounted. He praised the new road, which he believes would eventually cut commuting time between East and West Hawai'i to 1 1/2 hours
Skylark Rosetti, the ceremony's organizer, told the Journal the general public was kept out because the area was still a construction zone. Asked why the zone was considered safe enough for Senator Inouye but not the public, she said that the purpose of the ceremony was to thank "all the people involved."
"If [the activists] were protesting the road, I could understand it, but they're protesting other things," remarked Rosetti. "They are intruding on my right to ask my kupuna to help bless this road, so that all will be safe."
"I've been called many names, and this is almost like sainthood to me," remarked Inouye in the ceremony's keynote address. He defended his use of defense money for the project:"[The road] has to be for the national good. Otherwise, the state and the county pick up the tab."
He called Pohakuloa "the most important training site in the Pacific."
Some protestors maintained that the road was less about commuter convenience than about keeping people out of Pohakuloa. They noted that this first section to be completed replaced a stretch that crossed the training area's firing range, where DU contamination, if it existed, was likely to be.
Some activists also decried Inouye's recent support of a bill to finance the war in Iraq.
"I was one for the 23 in the Senate who voted against the war when it wasn't easy," Inouye countered.
Shannon Monkowski had a different take on Inouye's record.
"He gets his support from Lockheed Martin, which manufactures depleted uranium ammunition; General Dynamics, which manufactures the Stryker vehicle; Raytheon and Boeing, Northrup Grumman," she said. "When I read stories about Daniel Inouye, it's always about how he's bringing home the pork, but never that he's giving the taxpayers' money to these corporations and then they give part of it back to him."
Asked about the DU controversy, Inouye told the Journal, "We've been checking out everything that the people are concerned about... This is a highway where the community was involved."

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