As I reported yesterday evening, the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. was unable to secure a temporary restraining order to halt construction of Joe Brescia’s house atop some 30 burials at Naue.

However, the NHLC also has filed a motion for a preliminary injunction on behalf of Jeff Chandler, a fisherman whose family goes way back in the Wainiha-Haena area. That hearing is set for Aug. 12.

The memorandum in support of that motion states:

Initially, Brescia’s contracted archaeologists produced an incomplete and misleading description of the affected burial site, leaving the Kaua`i/Ni`ihau Island Burial Council (KNIBC) with an incomplete picture of the extent of burials his luxury home construction would impact. In addition, following the KNIBC’s determination to preserve the thirty individual burials comprising the burial site located on the Brescia parcel in place, the State defendants failed to uphold their obligations pursuant to the State Constitution, Hawai`i Revised Statutes and the public trust doctrine to preserve the burial site. Instead, they improperly assented to county permitting and unilaterally usurped the Burial Council’s role, by approving a revised burial mitigation plan that allowed construction of yet another of a string of Brescia’s luxury residential investment property developments to commence.

In arguing that irreparable harm will be done if construction is allowed, NHLC cites OHA’s Kai Markell and Dr. K’haunani Cachola-Abad as saying construction of a home or any other substantive structure on the cemetery at the Brescia parcel is “’an extreme cultural affront’ and a profound desecration of a sacred place, a wahi kapu, of the Hawaiian people…”

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(Source: KauaiEclectic)