EDITORIAL
New 'buffer' zone for Kaua'i facility sensible

The Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands on Kaua'i is a major high-tech employer for Hawai'i with close to 900 employees (mostly civilian) and a business relationship with hundreds of companies on the Garden Island.

And the base is shifting focus to all manner of high-technology research work, much of it with "dual use" possibilities.

The base is unquestionably a major economic force in Hawai'i.

But it is not without its share of critics, who object variously to the defense research that occurs there, to the potential environmental threat it might pose and to its impact on Hawaiian cultural and historic sites.

These conflicts occur wherever the military has operations and usually they can be resolved.

One particular stressor is when the military operations are conducted cheek by jowl with civilian activities such as housing.

To head off such conflicts, the Navy has asked the state for an additional 270 acres at the facility for expansion, as well as an additional 5,371 acres of buffer zone, which would be put into permanent agricultural and preservation use.

A formal hearing on this request goes before the state Land Board Monday on Kaua'i at the War Memorial Convention Hall.

The request deserves serious consideration by the state. Issues of guaranteed public access to the buffer zone will have to be worked out. But under the right circumstances, the request is a win-win situation for the Navy's mission as well as for the Hawai'i economy.