Posted on: Saturday, November 20, 2004
Exhibits tell Army Corps of Engineers' story
By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
With new interpretive displays, a documentary video and topographic model showing its Kane'ohe Flood Control Project, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers yesterday opened its newly renovated Pacific Regional Visitor Center.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser Battery Randolph is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is one of 16 coastal fortifications built by the corps between 1906 and 1917 for the protection of Honolulu and Pearl Harbor.
"These new state-of-the-art exhibits help tell our story," said Lt. Col. David E. Anderson, commander of the corps' Honolulu District. "It is here for outreach, for education and for the community."
The staff members plan and coordinate educational and outreach programs including interpretive tours for school and community groups. WHAT: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers newly renovated Pacific Regional Visitor Center
HOURS: 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays INFORMATION: 438-2815 "We are trying to spark the interest in kids, to start to build an awareness of the environment, which is an integral part of stewardship," Sato said.
A wall chart traces the Honolulu Engineer District's beginnings to the turn of the 20th century, when Lt. John Slattery established the corps' first office in Honolulu in 1905.
The corps' first harbor project in Hawai'i was dredging the entrance to Pearl Harbor. Over the years, it has built many important structures and sites in Hawai'i, including the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl, the Hale Koa Hotel, Tripler Army Medical Center, and coastal lighthouses and fortifications. The district's area of operations stretches from Hawai'i to Micronesia, Guam, Palau and throughout South Asia to the coast of Africa. It performs design, construction and real-estate management for the Army and Air Force and for all Department of Defense agencies.
The $227,000 project, on the second floor of historic Battery Randolph at Fort DeRussy in Waikiki, updates the exhibits in the visitor center, which first opened in 1983.
James Pennaz, of the Army Corps of Engineers, points to a model of a Windward dam project at the Pacific Regional Visitor Center.
Park ranger Iwalani Sato said the exhibit includes plasma screen TVs with video tests that are an opportunity to assess how much the students learn while visiting.
IF YOU GO
