The state Board of Land and Natural Resources has again rejected the U.S. Army’s assessment of its impacts on the Hawaiʻi environment, this time for Oʻahu. 

The Friday decision to reject the Army’s environmental analysis for three training areas covers 6,322 acres of state land. The board’s verdict comes less than two months after it rejected a similar assessment for the Pōhakuloa Training Area on the Big Island. 

The land board considered the Army’s environmental assessments at a hearing Friday, where public testimony lasted about five hours, as part of the state’s consideration of renewing the Army’s tenancy when it expires in August 2029.

The three Oʻahu leases comprise about a third of the Army’s almost 29,000 acres of state-owned land across Hawaiʻi. The Army also trains on more than 120,000 acres of federal land in the islands.

The rejections do not necessarily mean the board will reject the Army’s applications to stay on state land. But the board will have to accept an environmental impact statement before the Army can apply to remain, according to state law.

“Realistically, they will be pushing it” for time, board chair Dawn Chang told reporters after the meeting, as the assessment process is typically lengthy.

Army officials have shown a willingness to reduce their footprint on Oʻahu, offering to relinquish about 90% of their state land leases on the island while retaining 450 acres at the Kahuku Training Area.

The Army’s shortcomings included insufficient accounting for potentially impacted archaeological sites and a lack of consideration for biological resources, concerns that were raised in previous steps of the environmental assessment process.

“I think there’s an implicit expectation on the Army’s behalf that if they prefer to relinquish some lands, they will get a pass on a sub-par EIS,” Wayne Tanaka, president of the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi, told the board.

Even if the Army gives up about 5,800 acres of state-owned land, it would retain more than 12,000 acres of federal land at Kahuku Training Area and Mākua Military Reservation.

“I support that, it’s a good start,” said William Aila, of Hui Mālama o Mākua, a group advocating for the return of the Army’s leases and Army-owned land in Mākua Valley. “The training that goes on, on those lands, are a want. Not a need.”

The Army has said those sites are critical to national security to ensure soldiers are well-trained as the nation works to counter China’s increasing influence across the Indo-Pacific region.

Gov. Josh Green reiterated that sentiment in a statement released soon after the board’s decision was made.

“As global threats grow more complex and regional stability becomes more fragile, Hawai‘i’s unique position at the heart of the Indo-Pacific makes it vital to the defense of both our islands and the nation,” Green said.

But Aila, formerly chair of the state land board, said the Army’s training can be done elsewhere, on existing sites in Hawaiʻi, such as the 17,000 acres the Army holds at Schofield Barracks in Central Oʻahu.

Members of Hawaiʻi’s congressional delegation released a joint statement Friday underscoring the importance of compromise that recognizes the need to support national security and readiness, “particularly in the Indo-Pacific region,” while also protecting the state’s natural resources.

Nevertheless, the testifiers Friday were overwhelmingly in favor of rejecting the Army’s analysis.

“This rejection affirms that these lands are not empty spaces to be trashed for military target practice, but a home to iwi kūpuna, cultural memory and endangered life,” said Maxx Phillips of the Center for Biological Diversity. “This is exactly what Native Hawaiian communities have said for decades. The Army once again ignored its obligations under Hawai‘i law, and the board was right to reject that failure.”

The Army will need to make a decision about what lands it seeks to retain, which it says will be published in its not-yet finalized record of decision.

The method of retention — whether it buys state land or leases it — will be negotiated with the state, according to a U.S. Army Garrison press release.