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By William Cole, Honolulu Advertiser
A return to company-size live-fire training at Makua Valley — prohibited by court order for the past three years — is "absolutely critical" to the Army's training strategy and requirements in Hawai'i, the service said in a new report to Congress.
The only theoretically possible alternative would be to spend up to $600 million to build up similar training capabilities at Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island, an effort that would take seven to 12 years, the Army said.
The report, which was issued in response to a congressional mandate for the Army to study alternatives to using the Wai'anae Coast valley, drew a sharp rebuke from U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai'i, and is sure to ratchet up a decade's worth of tensions over Makua's use. [...]
Army commanders in recent years had broached the possibility of getting out of the 4,190-acre Makua Valley as additional training ranges and facilities were planned for the $1.5 billion Stryker brigade based in Hawai'i. But the report to Congress stakes a renewed claim on the range.
"(Makua) is an essential home-station facility necessary to maintain training readiness of O'ahu-based units," the report states.
Schofield Barracks is considered too small to construct a combined arms, company-size live-fire facility, the Army said, and the nearly 33,000-acre swath of land leased or owned by the Army at Kahuku and Kawailoa training areas extending to the North Shore is not used for live-fire.
Although the Army's eight-wheeled Stryker vehicles are now rotating through Pohakuloa Training Area in preparation for a deployment later this year to Iraq, the Army report said the facility can't meet near-term requirements for company-size exercises, and modifications would be time-consuming and unfeasible due to expense and environmental factors.