Naue house nearly completed without an approved plan for 31 burials on site

KAUAI—The Kauai-Niihau Island Burial Council voted on Thursday to reject the 16th incarnation of a burial treatment plan for a house Joe Brescia is building atop an ancient cemetery at Naue.

Some 31 burials, or iwi, have been found on the North Shore Kauai property. In September 2008, Kauai Circuit Court Judge Kathleen Watanabe found the State Historic Preservation Division had improperly approved a burial treatment plan (BTP) for the site and ordered the process re-done, with more consultation. Since then, numerous versions of the BTP have been proposed and rejected. In the meantime, seven burials were capped with cement and construction commenced on the house, which is now nearly finished.

In making the motion to recommend rejection, Council Vice Chair Keith Yap said, ?Caps are not appropriate, and we?re still very much against any kind of building over the graves. We don?t feel good about building over the iwi, especially the caps. We don?t know what the solution is, but we think the solution should come from the owner.?

Brescia?s attorney, Calvert Chipchase, declined to comment on what sort of solution might be proposed.

It?s unclear how the Council?s action will affect the project. The county Planning Commission recently rejected two requests to revoke Brescia?s permit on the grounds that he hasn?t met Condition No. 5 of the design review commission, which states: ?No building permit shall be issued until requirements of the State Historic Preservation Division and the Burial Council have been met.?

Still, the vote does send a clear message that capping burials in concrete and building a house atop them does not conform with the Council?s vision of ?preservation in place.?

The Council also expressed concern about the concept of ?vertical buffers,? which references the space between the house and some seven burials beneath it, as well as Brescia?s landscape plan, which calls for coconut trees on the makai side of the lot. The Council members said they were worried that burials would be disturbed during the planting process, as well as by tree roots.

The Council further directed state archaeologist Nancy McMahon to have Brescia provide more details about his septic system and how the leach-field could impact burials, as well as to disclose his plans for providing access to the iwi by lineal descendants.

Jeff Chandler, who is a descendant, asked the Council during his testimony: ?What am I supposed to do? Toss a flower over the fence??

During public testimony, Kumu Kehau Kekua said ?the house that is built there is one of the highest forms of desecration, with those caps there.? She explained that ?our kupuna need to huaka?i [travel] into higher and different realms of life ? . This movement cannot occur if there are cement caps restricting movement.? Kekua also noted that Naue means ?to move, to tremble,? and it, like Wailua, was specifically chosen by the Hawaiians as a burial area because it facilitates such movement.

?You need to revisit this and put into priority what is most important here, and that is the iwi kupuna,? she said.

Uncle Nathan Kalama offered what he termed a “cowboy hat,” or Western, solution: Allow Brescia to build atop the bones, but require him to post a sign out front welcoming people to a cemetery, and mark all the locations of the 31 known burials on the lot, so that it would be clear to anyone on the property that they were walking on graves.

He then went on to say that ?a Hawaiian problem can only have a Hawaiian solution and the Hawaiian answer is a`ole [no]!?

Five state DOCARE officers were stationed in front of the historic County Building in Lihue, where the meeting was held. About 40 persons attended and provided some three and a half hours of testimony, including a group of Kauai Community College students and Charlie Maxwell, chair of the Maui burials council, who testified via cell phone.

?This desecration is very, very eha to us; it?s painful and it stings,? Aikane Alapai said. ?Haena has already had one tidal wave. This hewa, this desecration, is the recipe to one more happening.?

Alapai said the Council should keep rejecting the BTPs: ?The one you approve is the one where the house disappears.?

?I?m from Michigan, but my stomach hurts badly thinking about these things,? Leslie Lang said. ?I would like to see these bones rest in peace. It?s what?s right. It?s what?s pono.?

?Those are my tutus up there,? said one young man. ?Please make that house go away and make it back into a cemetery. Just leave the bones alone. Leave ?em alone already.?

Aukai Peter, testifying from his wheelchair, agreed.  ?When I close my eyes at night, I try to imagine that immaculate place, perfect, as it was. Now all I hear is screaming, intense pain. I have nightmares. You need to correct the wrongs, leave the bones alone. That?s all I have to say.?

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs, in written testimony to SHPD, noted: ?Not only has the process been short-circuited apparently to ease legalities required of developers, its implementation seemed antagonistic toward Native Hawaiian Organizations and individuals genuinely interested in Hawaii?s historic preservation affairs.?

Several speakers also expressed frustration with the process.

?They [SHPD and Brescia] have yet to consult with me,? said Chandler, reminding the Council that he brought the lawsuit that resulted in the previous BTP being thrown out because of inadequate consultation. ?We haven?t been consulted, you haven?t been consulted.?

?Culturally, you don?t have a voice in the process because it?s already rubber-stamped through,? Rupert Rowe said. ?We have a process, but we don?t have a voice.?

?Our government has thrown us under the bus,? said Louise Sausen, who is among numerous Kauai residents named in a civil suit that Brescia filed against project opponents. ?They don?t want to get sued, but let the citizens get sued.?

Cheryl Lovell-Obatake noted that SHPD had failed to prepare minutes from the last several meetings, leaving new members without any record of past meetings and forcing continuing members to rely on memory or hearsay. “As a former Burial Council member, I relied on minutes,” Lovell-Obatake said. “Information should be given to you ahead of time, before the meeting.?

OHA?s letter also pointed out discrepancies about the depth of various burials that could be found between previous versions of the BTP as well as within the text and table of the current version.

Caren Diamond wondered how Brescia was able to get a building permit before his septic tank plans were complete and said, ?I?m not sure how this got so far along without an approved burial treatment plan. I think it happened with complicity with the county, the state, everyone.?

She also drew attention to the landscaping plan, saying 22 burials are located right in front of the house and no archaeological survey had been conducted on land seaward of the house. ?There will be more problems in the future if this plan is approved,” Diamond said. “I don?t think there?s any Good Housekeeping seal of approval that deserves to be put on this.?