This week, the state land board will take up the final environmental impact statement on the proposed leases at the Army's Pōhakuloa Training Area on Hawaiʻi Island.
The military’s 65-year land lease is coming up, and the EIS is up for a vote by the Board of Land and Natural Resources on Friday.
The Army pays a dollar a year for the lease on land it considers critical to its national security readiness mission. It is proposing that it retain a smaller training footprint.
But the lease is complicated. The lands covered under the lease are not only ceded lands but also conservation land, which is not compatible with military training. The fixes could take a much longer process than the lease deadline allows.
The Conversation spoke to Alice Roberts, manager for the U.S. Army Pacific Training Land Retention program, about the details.
“What our EIS focuses on is how much land to retain, not how to retain it, and as we've moved through the process, we've discovered that the retention methods, which would be a lease or fee simple acquisition, both of those have very high administrative hurdles,” Roberts said.
The majority of the state land at Pōhakuloa Training Area is zoned conservation district, Roberts added, so a new lease would be difficult because military training is not an authorized use of conservation district lands.
The other path is fee simple retention, but that would require a two-thirds majority of the state Legislature because the area is ceded lands.
“We have brought the concept of a land exchange up, and any further discussion on that will be once we get through the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) process. We cannot enter any kind of formal negotiation until the NEPA Record of Decision is signed, and that will be later this summer.”
Roberts said the Pōhakuloa Training Area is important to the Army because it is the only area in Hawaiʻi that supports larger unit training.
The state land board votes on whether to accept or reject the EIS for Pōhakuloa at its Friday meeting.
This interview aired on The Conversation on May 5, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m.
