[CPEO-MEF] Navy plan restricts access to shoreline

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Navy plan restricts access to shoreline 

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau

WAIMEA, Kaua'i ? Navy officials are planning permanent restrictions to 
public shoreline access at the Pacific Missile Range Facility, to the 
dismay of residents and in apparent violation of the agreement under 
which the military got the land. 

A Navy spokeswoman said the service has no intention of re-establishing 
the kind of wide-open access that has been in place for most of the past 
50 years for fishing, camping, surfing and other beach activities.

"I don't think we're ever going back to what we had at Sept. 10," Lt. 
Cmdr. Jane Campbell said. "There are a couple of plans in review right 
now to try to do the best that we can to do a workable, feasible" 
solution.

While the Navy will not release complete plan details until it has met 
privately with the mayor and County Council on Tuesday evening, she said 
one plan goes this way: The beaches would be entirely closed on 
weekdays. On weekends and holidays, people who have passed background 
checks would be able to arrive at the front gate, and take a county bus 
? if the county agrees to provide it ? to specific shoreline areas.

There would be quotas for "safe and allowable numbers for being on the 
beach at any one time," Campbell said.

She said the Navy does not foresee opening lateral beach access ? that 
is, letting people gain access from the beaches on both sides of the 
base, without needing to cross base property.

The proposed restrictions may violate the agreements under which the 
military gained access to the land from the Territory of Hawai'i. One 
requirement, dating back to the 1940s, is that fishing access could only 
be restricted when bombing was under way or about to commence, said 
Debbie Ward, of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

This article can be viewed in its entirety at:
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2002/May/26/ln/ln07a.html

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