Compiled by Ewa Historian John Bond
Why Is Army And Navy Moving All Their Bombs And Missiles To Ewa Beach?
The early 1990's Ewa by Gentry land development over former Ewa Plantation sugar cane lands
Above, West Loch Estates and West Loch Fairway also developed in the early 1990's
Above, Iroquois Point Navy housing given away in the Ford Island land deal. Hunt Development Corp of Texas sold it off for over $300 million. The homes are right next to West Loch.
In the near distance, looking towards Pearl Harbor, will be a major weapons storage complex
End of the road, lots still available for those who don't mind living close to bombs and missiles
Ewa By Gentry North Park, being constructed right near a major new Army Munition Complex
Cost of Compliance on Graduate School of Business & Public Policy
Thesis, December 2017, Naval Postgraduate School, Munitions Consolidation from Lualualei to West Loch
The 1995 Hawaii Military Land Use Master Plan (HMLUMP)
recognized the importance of Hawaii’s strategic location as a “bridge to Asia”
and, as a result, recommended the release of the Lualualei Annex due to its
aging magazines and its consolidation with West Loch pending construction of
new facilities.
(It is NOT CLEAR WHY being a "bridge to Asia" results in closing Lualualei Annex, as well as Waikele, etc., and then packing all the ammunition and new missile weapons into West Loch.)
The 2002 Commander, Navy Region Hawaii (CNRH) Ordnance
Facilities Plan, proposed a significant investment in new ordnance
infrastructure for new magazines near West Loch. Additionally, in 2003, PACFLT
identified that only four out of 299 magazines in Hawaii are capable of storing
modern missiles for naval destroyers and submarines.
(The Navy Inspector General and Congressional GAO reports have strongly indicated that the Navy and military in general, as well as our Congressional representatives in Washington, DC, prefer new MILCON construction projects to show they are bringing in the bacon for their campaign contributors.)
And THIS also led the Navy in 1995 to assume that the early 1940's West Loch blast arc (ESQD) was sufficient because at the time West Loch bordered on large sugar cane fields, and so Navy planners did not anticipate the major "Second City" home construction that came in the 1990's.
The Navy has rejected Option 2:
Option 2. Current magazines at Lualualei are upgraded to NOSSA standards and current operations remain the same for Navy and Army.
The Facts Are The Navy And Army Need To Reassess Their Munitions Storage Plans
Rising tensions in the Pacific with China, North Korea, and Russia are leading to new military combat operations in the Pacific. What is happening now is very similar to the lead up to the Pearl Harbor attack and war with Japan in December, 1941
The Navy and Army now want West Loch to store new prepositioned munitions, hold ordnance for ships undergoing repairs, and resupply deploying ships to the Pacific.
The West Loch channel has already been expanded to handle large newer Navy ammunition ships, such as is handled by the Army MOTSU site in North Carolina which has a 3.5 mile ESQD safety arc, compared to West Loch which has a very much smaller ESQD and is located right next to many suburban homes in Ewa West Oahu.
Local North Carolina news coverage about MOTSU:
Public community meetings revealed that at roughly twice the size of the Inhabited Building Distance (IBD), the K88 quantity-distance arc includes areas with a high probability of glass breakage in the event of a terminal explosion. According to its former commander, Col. Marc Mueller, the K88 has remained unchanged for MOTSU, but the distance was new to the public when the military released it in 2018.
Cape Fear: Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point Joint Land Use Study
https://capefearcog.org/sunnypoint/
See: GENERAL DOCUMENTS
This is the type of study that should be done in Hawaii if the City, State and Federal government are actually concerned about the health, safety and welfare of the local West Oahu communities.
· COL Mueller's presentation (PDF)
JLUS Overview (PDF)
JLUS Executive Summary (PDF)
JLUS Final Document (PDF)
JLUS Data Management Plan and Technical Addendum (PDF)
JLUS Public Participation Plan (PDF)
MOTSU Provides Important Clues About Planned Army West Loch Munitions Storage Complex Near Homes
