Threat

Minidoka Internment Camp faces a number of threats. Although the camp was disassembled after the war, the National Monument and adjoining properties include a broad collection of buildings and structures from the internment camp period. The Monument contains remnants of the Military Police guard house, the visitor reception building, a rock garden constructed by internees for display of the camp honor roll, and a large, hand-dug root cellar constructed by internees to store the crops grown at the camp. Unfortunately, while the National Monument was designated over seven years ago, limited funds and staff mean that there are no visitor services at the site, and most interpretation takes place many miles away through a temporary exhibit at Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument. Furthermore, many significant resources lie outside of the current National Monument boundary. Nearby properties include camp supply warehouses, numerous barracks reused as farm buildings, an intact camp fire station, foundations and footprints of staff housing areas, and hundreds of archaeological features related to the camp.

An additional significant threat is posed by the 13,000-head dairy heifer replacement facility proposed just upwind of the site. Industrial agriculture at this scale has enormous environmental consequences, yet when this animal production facility was initially proposed last year, county land use regulations did not permit the National Park Service, the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), the non-profit Friends of Minidoka, Idaho Concerned Area Residents for the Environment (ICARE), the former internees and their families, or anyone else that lived more than one mile from the proposed CAFO to comment on the plan.  The first application for this CAFO was withdrawn, but it has since been resubmitted. It is still unclear whether anyone whose primary residence is outside a one-mile radius from the proposed facility will be allowed to testify at public hearings or submit written comments.