The Army's manager for the Stryker brigade said last night there are no plans to move the combat vehicles between O'ahu and the Big Island on Hawaii Superferry but said the Army could consider the ferry as a commercial contractor in the future.

Ron Borne, transformation manager for U.S. Army Garrison, Hawai'i, said combat vehicles would be moved from O'ahu to the Big Island for training primarily on military transport vessels or commercial barges such as Young Brothers. He said the Superferry could conceivably bid for such work if it becomes available but is not now part of the Stryker brigade operations.

"We have no overarching plan to use the Superferry. Our presence here does not depend on it," Borne said before a public meeting last night at Kawananakoa Middle School on an environmental impact statement for the Stryker brigade.

NEWS REPORTS CITED

More than a dozen activists held a news conference before the meeting and, among other things, questioned why the Superferry was not included in the Army's environmental review of the Stryker brigade.

The activists cited a Pacific Business News article in March 2005 where John Lehman, a former Secretary of the Navy and a Superferry investor, and a Superferry executive discussed using the ferry to move the Stryker brigade and other military equipment between O'ahu and the Big Island.

The Advertiser reported last month that Sean Connaughton, administrator of the federal Maritime Administration, had told a Maui court of the military utility of the ferry and its inclusion in the government's Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement program, which provides the military with access to commercial sealift capacity during war or national emergency.

OPPONENTS DOUBTFUL

The Maritime Administration approved $140 million in federal loan guarantees for the ferry project. Ferry service between O'ahu, Maui and Kaua'i has been held up in court by environmentalists after the state Supreme Court ruled in August that an environmental assessment is necessary. Ferry service to the Big Island is scheduled for 2009.

"The intent to use the Superferry for military purposes is quite clear," said Andrea Brower, an activist from Anahola who has been involved with Superferry protests on Kaua'i.

The activists, who oppose the increased militarization of the Islands, linked the Stryker brigade, the Superferry and a research partnership between the Navy and the University of Hawai'i as examples of dealmaking between politicians, the military and corporations over the objections of opposition voices.

"In the last four years, literally thousands of people have publicly voiced their opposition to a planned Stryker brigade military expansion. We have not given our consent to this project, nor to the Superferry or the University Affiliated Research Center," said Ikaika Hussey, one of the activists. "It has been our observation that the people who support these projects will be paid, and those who will be affected most will pay the price."

Borne said he had heard comments that Superferry would like to move the Stryker brigade, which he believed were made in the context of strengthening the Superferry's perceived value and utility.

"I won't say that we would never use it, if it was available, but the Stryker issue doesn't depend on it," Borne said.

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com.