page_title: Ford Island
section_title: Rebirth
hierarchical_section_title: Ford Island / Naval Auxiliary Landing Field Ford Island / Rebirth
caption_attribution_description: English: Conceptual design for photovoltaic panels covering the historic runway on Ford Island.
context_page_description: Ford Island is an islet in the center of Pearl Harbor, Oahu, in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It has been known as Rabbit Island, Marín's Island, and Little Goats Island, and its native Hawaiian name is Mokuʻumeʻume. The island had an area of 334 acres when it was surveyed in 1825, which was increased during the 1930s to 441 acres with fill dredged out of Pearl Harbor by the United States Navy to accommodate battleships.
  It was the site of an ancient Hawaiian fertility ritual, which was stopped by Christian missionaries during the 1830s. The island was given by Kamehameha I to Spanish deserter Francisco de Paula Marín, and later returned to the monarchy. After the island was bought at auction by James Isaac Dowsett and sold to Caroline Jackson, it became the property of Dr. Seth Porter Ford by marriage and was renamed Ford Island. After Ford's death, his son sold the island to the John Papa ʻĪʻī estate and it was converted into a sugarcane plantation.
  In 1916, part of Ford Island was sold to the U.S. Army for use by an aviation division in Hawaii, and by 1939 it was taken over by the U.S. Navy as a station for battleship and submarine maintenance.
context_section_description: Initially called "the bridge to nowhere", the Admiral Clarey Bridge was instrumental in Senator Daniel Inouye's "rebirth" of Ford Island and enabled over $500 million in development with special legislation (2814 US Code). It connected 45 families and 3,000 civilian workers to Kamehameha Highway, and visitor access enabled construction of the $50 million 16-acre (6.5 ha) Pacific Aviation Museum. Plans included 500 homes for Navy personnel, a child-development center and a Navy lodge.
  In planning the island's development, the Navy considered its operational needs and the island's historic value. However, the National Trust for Historic Preservation considered the Navy's communication style more directive rather than collaborative, restricting the NTHP's ability to share their concerns, and in 2001 designated Ford Island one of its 11 most-endangered sites. Although the Navy's plans included preserving important hangars, the control tower and seaplane ramps, they failed to protect the existing runway and 1920s housing and did not address preserving bullet holes on the seaplane ramps.  As hoped by the Trust, after the designation the Navy agreed to delay development of some of these items until an agreement could be reached.
  To accommodate additional facilities and housing, the Navy needed to upgrade the island's infrastructure. Its sewage system was upgraded with the 2001 installation of a 6,000-foot (1,800 m), 20-inch (510 mm) sewage main from the island to Pearl Harbor and improvements to the sewage-pumping station. Due to the bridge's unique design, which includes a floating section, it was impossible to use it to transit cable across the loch. In 2005, the Navy contracted drilling for primary and auxiliary conduits 20 feet (6.1 m) apart and parallel to the bridge from Halawa Landing to the Ford Island golf course. The contractor installed 5,045-foot (1,538 m)-long, 24-inch (610 mm)-thick carbon-steel high-magnetic casing conduits, and fiber-optic communications cables and 46kV power lines were fed through them.
  In June 2013 the Navy planned to install 60,000 photovoltaic panels over 28 acres (11 ha) on the Ford Island runway, to comply with Congressional and Defense Department mandates to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and offset the cost of Hawaiian energy (the highest in the United States). This plan deviated from a 2009 proposal (using the panels to define the runway) in favor of panels producing twice the power. The Navy offered the Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor $250,000 toward renovation of the control tower's elevator in exchange for its support of the plan. The museum declined, organizing an internet campaign opposing the plan based on the runway's historic significance and highlighting Ford Island's role in the attack on Pearl Harbor and Amelia Earhart's visit. In response, the Navy decided to install the panels on existing structures around Pearl Harbor.
caption: Conceptual design for photovoltaic panels covering the Ford Island runway
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