The National Park Service (NPS) told a Senate panel last week that the agency backs the concept of a memorial to Hansen's disease patients exiled on the Kalaupapa Peninsula.

The House approved legislation supporting the monument Feb. 14. U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, D-Hawai'i, said he hopes to move the bill through the full committee quickly.

The memorial, to be in the Kalaupapa National Historical Park, would list the names of about 8,000 people who were taken from their families between 1866 and 1969 and isolated on the peninsula because of fear of leprosy, now known as Hansen's disease.

About 6,700 of them were buried in unmarked graves there.

A U.S. Dept. of the Interior spokesperson said the agency preferred the memorial be in the Kalaupapa settlement, instead of at Kalawao, a more remote location in the park where the first exiles were sent.

But Akaka, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources National Parks Subcommittee, asked if the park service had made a firm decision on the memorial's location.

The NPS said it is still open to discussion about the location, although it believes the interior secretary should have final approval on the monument site.

The NPS also wants the Ka 'Ohana O Kalaupapa, a group of Hansen's Disease patients, relatives and friends, to be responsible for the memorial's cost. The service also wants the interior secretary to have final approval of the monument's design, size and inscriptions.

http://www.molokaitimes.com/articles/842816957.asp