Posted on: Sunday, June 12, 2005

USS Arizona Memorial effort may get $1.7M lift

By Dennis Camire
Advertiser Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The effort to build a new USS Arizona Memorial visitors center and headquarters would get a $1.7 million boost under a spending bill awaiting Senate floor action.

The money for the USS Arizona center is part of $20.4 million for Hawai'i projects included in the $28.3 billion spending bill for the Interior Department, National Park Service, American Indian programs and other agencies next year.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the bill Thursday on a 28-0 vote.

The USS Arizona Memorial visitors center, built in 1980 on fill dredged from Pearl Harbor, is slowly sinking, and engineers have said occupancy must end in four to nine years, said Douglas Lentz, the National Park Service superintendent for the memorial.

The memorial, with 1.5 million visitors a year, is the most visited National Park Service site in the Pacific, Lentz said.

"The new visitors center is going to be a legacy for future generations," he said. "What we do at the Arizona Memorial is tell the story of the attack on Oahu on Dec. 7, 1941 — what led up to the attack, the attack itself and the aftermath."

To tell the total story of the attack in which 2,390 people were killed, the memorial's visitors center has to be a good structure, Lentz said.

"It's a wonderful effort," said Lentz of getting the support for a new center. "I'm exuberated."

The plan calls for building a new center at a cost of $34 million and a new headquarters, costing about $5 million.

The center will be a 23,600-square-foot, single-story building with a museum, two theaters, a bookstore, a classroom and security. A separate 10,700-square-foot administration building will house the staff and storage.

Lentz said there are three alternatives for locating the new building on the memorial's 11-acre site.

"We are going to be awarding an architect and engineering firm the contract of designing the facility within the next six weeks," Lentz said.

The $34 million for the new visitors center is being raised by a public and private venture spearheaded by the Pearl Harbor Memorial Fund.

"We're doing very well," said Matthew Sgan, senior vice president for the fund. "We've raised close to $9 million in private funds."

Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hawai'i, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the spending bill also includes language to allow parking fees to be charged to be used for leasing administrative buildings to support the memorial.

The USS Arizona Memorial visitor center represents the nation's commitment to always honoring those special Americans, said Inouye, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions while serving with the Army's famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II.

Other money slated for Hawai'i would expand national parks, protect the environment and native species and combat the brown tree snake.

The bill also includes another $30 million for Hawai'i, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands for social services provided to citizens from the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and Palau.

The bill's Hawai'i spending includes:

• $4.05 million to expand Haleakala National Park with land from the Estate of James Campbell that could be restored to high-conservation-value koa forest land. Another parcel, owned by the Estate of Cordelia May, may hold Hawaiian archaeological sites.

• $3.8 million to replace cesspools in Kalaupapa Historic Park.

• $3.4 million for land in the Wao Kele O Puna tract on Big Island.

• $2.7 million for combating the brown tree snake by the Agriculture, Defense, Transportation and Interior Departments in cooperation with agencies in the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam and Hawai'i.

• $1.1 million for alala recovery and restoration efforts in the Hakalau National Wildlife Refuge.

• $1 million for programs to replace cesspools with septic systems in Honolulu, Hawai'i and Kaua'i counties.

• $750,000 for a partnership between Bishop Museum and Honolulu Symphony to create a music program for Native Hawaiian children.

• $550,000 for the Hawai'i endangered-bird conservation program.

• $500,000 for the Hawai'i Island Economic Development Board to continue developing a waste recycling and reuse system on the Big Island.

• $450,000 for the U.S. Geological Survey's exploratory well drilling and hydrological data-collection program in Hawai'i.

• $450,000 for the volcanic-processes study being conducted by the University of Hawai'i Center for Study of Active Volcanoes and the Hawai'i Volcanoes Observatory.