They had arrived in a caravan of 20 vehicles driving along Oahu’s coastal highway. The men, many of them wearing traditional malo loincloths, passed the lava rocks hand to hand and began forming a structure in front of the Navy’s sign: a ko’a (a traditional shrine) to bring in resources for healing the people and the water. When finished, a kiʻi (a traditional carving) of Kaneikawaiola, the god of life and fresh water, would be placed on top.
How do ordinary people stop the biggest military on the planet from poisoning their land and water? For the Indigenous people of Hawaii, this is not a new question. Their action that morning in December 2021 was only the most recent in over a century of attempts to answer it, dating back to 1893, when the U.S. Navy overthrew their Queen Liliʻuokalani[i]. That coup paved the way for Hawaii to become the most militarized state in the U.S., with the most personnel per capita, 11 active bases, and control of more than 200,000 acres of land.
One key fight has been over Oahu’s Red Hill, where the Navy constructed 20 massive tanks inside of a mountain after WWII. Now old and corroding, the tanks have a combined capacity to hold 250 million gallons of jet fuel and sit just 100 feet above the underground aquifer that is Oahu’s sole source of freshwater.
For decades, locals and environmental groups have protested unsuccessfully for the Navy to shut it down, warning that a major leak would be impossible to clean, leave the island permanently without water, and go down as one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in U.S. history.
You can’t outmatch an opponent of this size with brute force. You have to out-navigate it.
In strategy, as in navigation, one’s location - in time, place, and history - matters. Organizers chose the location of the Ahu carefully. Every military leader who entered that base would have to drive past it, as would thousands of commuters who could see it from the highway. The timing chose them. It was roughly a year and a half after the historic occupation of Mauna Kea halted construction of a massive telescope on the Big Island, demonstrating to the world, and to Indigenous Hawaiians themselves, the power of their organizing.
The completed shrine, built by community members, as part of their campaign to demand that the Navy shut down the facility, which posed a threat to the water. Photo credit: Andre Perez
The Mauna also changed the narrative about protestors. They shifted the Hawaiian public’s negative perception of protestors from pesky “activists”, to revered, heroic “protectors” (Kia’i). 2021 was close enough to 2029, when the military’s 65-year leases with the state of Hawaii begin to expire, that negative publicity was something the Navy wanted to avoid. Years of organizing had also made the political landscape more favorable, with several Native Hawaiians and allies serving in elected office. Most importantly, their action took place during a time of crisis, one month after the people near Red Hill – including many military families - had turned on their faucets to find so much gasoline in their water that some could even light it on fire.
There was no warning from the Navy about the 14,000 gallons of jet fuel that had leaked into the drinking water. Left to their own devices, at least 90,000 people in the affected area either figured it out quickly from the smell, or too late, after they had bathed in it, drank it, mixed it with formula and given it to their babies. In the end, five thousand people, including many children, were sickened.
Ernie won the hearts of the public when he was moved to tears during a press conference and shared that he had been awakened at 2am by the sound of the water in the aquifer crying out for an end to the pollution. The Navy was forced to admit that the leak had happened. Rage exploded across nearly every demographic and organizers stepped up to harness that anger for change.
Ko’ihonua, a non-profit focused on transforming the lives of Native Hawaiians through land reclamation and restoration, revitalizing cultural practices, and investing in social justice movements, is home to an organizing program called HULI (which spells Hawaiian Unity Liberation Initiative and is also the word for the root cutting that is replanted to grow a new taro plant). Says Camille Kalama, Executive Director of Koʻihonua, “HULI was the slogan of our mentors who were inspired by the Black Panthers and AIM (the American Indian Movement). One of them asked us to carry on the name.”
HULI spearheaded the formation of Kaohewai, a coalition of more than a dozen local organizations including the Hawaiian Council, Oahu Water Protectors, Kanaeokana, and the among others. The coalition didn’t agree on everything, but they were united on a single demand: to shut down the facility completely and permanently. The water was just too precious.
Community members gather for the ceremony to pour water as hookupu (offering). Photo credit: Andre Perez
The day after the shrine was completed, coalition leaders met with Admiral Samuel J. Paparo Jr.. He said they needed the facility for national security, but organizers were undeterred. They spoke about the destructive history of the military in Hawaii and reiterated that they would keep the shrine in place and continue having ceremony until the Red Hill facility was closed. U.S. Congressman Kai Kahele, who is Native Hawaiian, a member of the airforce reserves, and Chairperson of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, could speak the language of both the community and the military, and coordinated meetings between grassroots organizers and undersecretaries of the Navy and defense in Washington DC.
Today the fuel has been drained from all 20 tanks, and remediation has begun. Momentum is strong. Organizers are now focused on the historic window of opportunity that opens once every 65 years: the renegotiation of the military’s lease on land in Hawaii. Already, in an unprecedented act, Hawaii’s Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) has rejected two environmental impact statements submitted by the military for large portions of the leased land, because they lacked the required disclosures about the condition of the land. There is a chance to return significant acreage that is now being polluted by the military, to the Hawaiian people to steward and safeguard for future generations. The wayfinders are skilled, the window of opportunity to protect the people and the planet is open, and resources will help them move through it.
By: Vanessa Priya Daniel, Author/Donor Advisor and Dara Cooper, Senior Advisor, National Black Food and Justice Alliance
Learn more about HULI.
[i] In 1993 President Bill Clinton passed a resolution recognizing that the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii was illegal.