BRIEF: Makawao Grave Restoration Meeting Planned

The Hawai’i Army National Guard Funeral Honors Team at the Makawao Veterans Cemetery. File photo by Wendy Osher.

By Wendy Osher

A public meeting is scheduled for Monday, March 31, 2014, from 9 to 10:30 a.m. at the Maui Veterans Cemetery shelter in Makawao to discuss the start of a grave restoration project at the facility.

The announcement was issued by the state Department of Defense, and comes as the agency prepares for construction to get underway on the one-year project.

The project includes the raising, realigning, and cleaning of approximately 1,554 headstones, rehabilitation of 132,000 square-feet of turf, and infrastructure improvements on the northern portion of the cemetery.

Department officials note that the project will reinstall only one vase per grave, except for grave markers that have cemented vases around the marker itself and were created many decades ago.  This guideline is in compliance with Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration standards.

When complete, department officials say the project, “will enhance approximately three acres of the seven-acre cemetery.”

Additional federal funds are being requested in 2014 and 2015 to complete work affecting the rest of the cemetery.

During construction, crews will cordon off quadrants, precluding family members and friends from visiting loved ones is specific quadrants until work in the particular section is complete.

More than $1 million in a federal grant award was secured for the project last year.

Also last year, the state filed a Draft Environmental Assessment, proposing expansion at the facility as it nears capacity for interment.