Hawaii Kai Heiau Partially Buried

Hawaii Kai Heiau Partially Buried Why???

I am a Developer and I do not care?
Greed, no care, profit, what a wetland, petroglyphs what that?

Reported by: Ron Mizutani Email: rmizutani@khon.com Last Update: 6/12 8:36 pm

Video

http://www.khon2.com/news/local/story/Hawaii-Kai-Heiau-Partially-Buried/J6mirtzzOkKmN1QgVI61BA.cspx

A luxury condominium project in Hawaii Kai has the attention of concerned citizens after construction crews buried a section of a sacred heiau and bulldozed portions of an archaeological site. The Hale Ali'i project is at the foot of Mariner's Ridge and a stone's throw from the Hawea Heiau.

Just off Hawaii Kai Drive sits bulldozed land that was once home to kiawe trees and an ancient Hawaiian fishing village.

"There's no buffer to even save the wetland, they just pushed right in," said Ann Marie Kirk of Livable Hawaii Kai Hui. Last week Ann Marie Kirk and several others made some painful discoveries. "It's a death in the family that's what this is."

Construction crews had buried a portion of the Hawea Heiau.

"There were stone walls here - they've pushed through this platform and pushed into the stone walls," said Kirk. "We're trying to save this area and look at the respect the community gets, we get plowed right into the walls of Hawea."

Kirk isn't trying to halt the entire project being built by 21st Century Homes but she and others are trying to preserve the area.

"I mean look at all this -- this is crazy, I mean look at this," said Kirk.

The heiau once contained numerous petroglyphs.

"There were three rocks in here that had petroglyphs we can't find them now," said Kirk. "Could be buried under all this debris."

Several steps off the newly paved path appeared to be another burial site.

"The coconut tree you can see the remains of it wrapped by the rocks, which we've been told over and over again this signifies some kind of burial," said Kirk. "And 15 feet away we have bulldozers going through."

Kirk finds an untouched petroglyph.

"You rarely see these kind of fish petroglyphs it's right here."

And points to an old water well.

"And again it about 20-feet away from being bulldozed."

We made several calls to the developer but they weren't returned.

"You hope people do the right thing and they have a social conscience but then when you see that -- it's really saddening," said historian Chris Cramer. "Once its been bulldozed you can't bring it back."

In 1994, the state halted work due to a large amount of artifacts found in the area.

Mr Aloha -This kind of desecration is horrendous! The lack of respect is appalling. As a Hawaiians, we know what happens in situations such as this......Would you want to be the guy who drove the bulldozer? Would you want your family to live there? I want to Century 21 explain their actions.

doolittle -This is a result of a broken promise- It should not have to be so hard to hold on to such little remaining important places. It would be nice to pause long enough to figure out how to "up the standard" and combine total cultural plan (TCP)intelligence with future land plan practices. Why are we so afraid to bring the two together? Our Legislatures need to give rise to this type of collaboration and our City Council should stand behind this too.