An archeologist doing work for Haseko challenges claims made by Michael Lee in the below blog post.

Thomas Dye says that Lee’s claim that there is a fishing shrine on the property that Haseko is developing into a lagoon appears to be false.

Dye also says that Lee refuses to disclose where he believes royal burial remains are located, despite tracking them through a GPS device. 

Lee, a resident of Ewa Beach, has been an ardent opponent of Haseko’s plans to build a marina for its master-planned communities in Ocean Pointe and Hoakalei. The company recently said that instead of a marina it would build a lagoon. 

In an email to Civil Beat, Dye wrote the following:

I am an archaeologist with more than 40 years of field experience in
Hawai`i.  Haseko contracts with my firm to provide archaeological
consulting services.  In Councilman Berg’s video, I am the older haole
man with a black baseball cap behind Michael Lee.

I was at Oneula Beach Park because my staff and I look into Lee’s
various claims.  Lee’s interests range widely, as the video makes clear,
and he sometimes makes claims about historic sites.  The archaeological
work completed on Haseko’s property in the 1990s was thorough and
completely reviewed by the State, but we recognize the possibility that
historic sites might be found inadvertently.  If Lee’s claims hold any
truth, we want to know so our client can be a good steward and take
action as appropriate.

We did investigate Lee’s claim that he found historic features that show
on an “1873 map of the site”.  I was one of the archaeologists
“scrambling into the bushes” to find a structure that Lee claimed was a
fishing shrine.  We did find the remains of a structure hidden by the
bushes, but the feature we found was a steel-reinforced concrete wall
that was built well after 1873.  We didn’t find anything that resembled
the remains of an old fishing shrine.

When we returned to the office, we found a copy of the 1873 map and
plotted the location of the supposed fishing shrine (I use the word
“supposed” because the map only shows a square and does not indicate
what the square represents).  We found that the supposed fishing shrine
plots about 2 miles east of Oneula Beach Park in the neighboring land of
Pu`uloa.

In this case, Lee’s claim to have identified a fishing shrine that shows
on an 1873 map appears to be mistaken.

Lee has claimed many times that there are royal family burials on
Haseko’s property.  I won’t go into this claim in detail, but do want to
point out that Lee steadfastly refuses to tell us the locations of the
burials.  Lee claims to have fixed the locations of the burials with a
GPS unit and the help of an OHA employee, and he claims to have
identified the locations to the O`ahu Island Burial Council during an
executive session.  We have asked Lee repeatedly in public and in
private to share this information with us.  We hoped that the site visit
to Oneula Beach Park would include information on possible burial
locations, but Lee once again declined to share that information.

We respect Lee’s decision to keep information to himself.  

In the meantime, please be assured that, should human remains be found
on Haseko’s property, they will be treated with the utmost respect and
according to State law.