KAILUA-KONA — The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is sending nearly $1 million to the state of Hawaii for expansion of the West Hawaii Veterans Cemetery in Kailua-Kona.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) officially announced the funding on Wednesday, which veterans and their families say is sorely needed.
Bob Strickland, vice president of the West Hawaii Veterans Cemetery Development and Expansion Association and president of the West Hawaii Veterans Council, said local veterans groups put in the request for the money between two to three years ago.
The process is complicated, he explained, because West Hawaii’s is a federal cemetery owned by the state and maintained by the county.
“We’re excited about the money because we have run out of space in the columbariums to bury people,” Strickland said. “And at the rate (veterans) are dying, in 10 years we’re going to probably bury a couple hundred more people up there.”
Strickland called the cemetery “the best on the Big Island, without a doubt,” adding this funding will help keep it that way. Columbariums are above-ground, locker-like structures that house the cremated remains of veterans.
Part of the reason the current columbarium space is filling up so quickly is that they end up the final resting place for ashes of homeless veterans and/or veterans for whom no family members can be contacted to make other arrangements.
According to the release in which Schatz announced the funding, the $934,398 in federal funds will develop roughly 1 acre for construction of 480 columbarium niches. The money will also be used for landscaping, irrigation and support infrastructure, the release read.
“These federal funds will help us honor the legacies of thousands of brave service members who put their lives on the line to serve our country,” Schatz said in the release.
The expansion project at the cemetery isn’t the only veterans-centric work planned for West Hawaii, Strickland added.
A piece of land off Kaiminani Drive near the Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keahole has been identified as a potential site for what Strickland described as an “all-in-one veterans center.” Local veterans organizations have long stressed the need for such a site in West Hawaii.
Strickland said an environmental assessment is underway on a plot located near the volunteer fire station on Kaiminani Drive. Once completed, and assuming no issues, the state has allocated $850,000 for the design of the center.