MOKAUEA ISLAND — Each month, volunteers remove a little of the considerable flotsam, jetsam and household trash that accumulates on one of the state's last fishing village islands.

Yesterday morning, the Army removed a lot.

It helps, of course, when you can pull up to the beach in a 272-foot logistics support vessel that features a work deck the size of a tennis court.

Some of the 65 soldiers with the 545th Transportation Company wasted little time in chainsawing a derelict 20-foot boat on the tiny island, which has just five houses and no electrical service.

Rotting timber, a rusty red grill, an old barrel, a white dresser, a water ski and lots of cut-down mangrove went into a trailer towed behind a Humvee.

A 56,000-pound bucket loader dragged a wrecked blue speedboat across the island like a toy.

The cleanup done in one morning brought some on the island, population eight, to tears.

"It's amazing what they are doing — so overwhelming," said Joni Bagood, 49, whose family has lived on Mokauea since the 1970s.

"There's a lot of negative out there (with the military), but with the Army here, it's a total positive."

Volunteers with the nonprofit group Kai Makana, which is trying to make Mokauea Island a self-sustaining fishing village again, were equally impressed.

"What they can do in a day would take us a year at least, if not 10," said Donna Kahakui, who founded the ocean education group.

'SQUATTER'S ISLAND'

The 10-acre spit of land between Sand Island and Honolulu International Airport's reef runway isn't a place time has forgotten. But a unique arrangement with the state dating to the 1970s has kept time at bay.

Although the island once was self-sustaining with a fishpond, taro, green onions, eggplant and limu, by 1975 it was known as "Squatter's Island."

The state ordered 14 fishing families off the island and the Mokauea shacks were torched.

The fishermen, with the help of John Kelly of Save Our Surf, organized the Mokauea Fishermen's Association, and entered into a 65-year lease with the state. The island was declared a "living park" for the perpetuation of a Hawaiian fishing village.

Kahakui said the island in 1800s also was home to a master sailing canoe builder, and a wooden canoe found buried there was dated to 1877 by Bishop Museum.

Today, the two-acre fishpond on the island remains silted in and is unusable, but the long-term plan is to bring it back along with sustainable fishing.

Residents have cell phones and take boats across the harbor to work and shop, but have to rely on generators for electricity. Water is piped in.

Because it is close to O'ahu's crowded shores, everybody's trash washes up on Mokauea.

"People don't realize, the little trash that they throw in the ocean — we're the catch-all island," Bagood said.

Mattresses, TVs, bicycles — you name it — end up here.

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Scott Titus, 36, chief engineer for the ship Harold C. Clinger, heard about the island's plight and told his unit, which reports to the 8th Theater Sustainment Command.

The Clinger looked overwhelming next to Mokauea. Its draft is more than 9 feet, while the channel is only 14 feet deep.

"I have very good navigators aboard the vessel," said Capt. Odalis Marte, 33, the 545th Transportation Company's commander.

'THIS IS LIKE A DREAM'

Onshore, the incongruity of Army operations and laid-back island living were apparent as Spc. Justin Miller, 23, from Amarillo, Texas, struggled to jam a junk green surfboard into the backseat of a camouflage Humvee.

In a trailer behind him was a white spiral children's play slide and other rubbish.

Spc. Justin Shreve, 25, of Pittsburgh, was one of the soldiers getting an education while working up a sweat amid the island's sand, pickleweed, mangrove and occasional ironwood or other tree.

"I didn't even know this island was here. It's good keeping things clean. How else are they going to get it off this little island?" he said. "We live here. Might as well help out."

The Clinger is between missions. It just took Humvees, generators and other supplies to the Big Island for upcoming training at Pohakuloa Training Area.

Lei Kellogg, 63, lives on Mokauea with her mother, 83, son, 49, and granddaughter, 19. She grew up there in the 1940s and 1950s, and remembers subsisting off the ocean and selling lobster, fish and limu in town.

Residents who live there now must be descended from the 14 families involved in the "struggle," as Kellogg puts the 1970s conflict with the state.

Schoolchildren come to help remove mangrove, and there are hopes for a community hall.

A separate army of about 250 civilian volunteers is expected to be on the island today for a cleanup tied to Earth Day on Tuesday, but the U.S. Army help came on a different scale.

"This is like a dream. We're a 100 percent volunteer organization, and we have limited funds," said Kai Makana's Kahakui. "To be able to get this kind of help from the Army is immeasurable."