Boat Mechanic Gets Permit to Fill Acre Of Submerged Lands at Ke`ehi Lagoon

Because the boat building and repair shop of Honolulu Marine, LLC (HM), doesn’t conform to the Hawai`i Community Development Corporation’s plans for Kaka`ako, the agency is kicking the company off the Kewalo basin property it has leased from the state since 1986. HM, according to a report by the Department of Land and Natural Resources, builds, repairs and maintains vessels owned by P&R Water Taxi, Ltd., the U.S. Navy, and “other government and private parties involved in marine research, fishing and commercial tugboat and barge services.”

On May 8, the state Board of Land and Natural Resources unanimously approved a new home for the company when it granted it a Conservation District Use Permit for 40,300 square feet of submerged land at the south end of Ke`ehi Small Boat Harbor along the Kalihi Channel. The board also approved an extension to an approval in principal for a limited right-of-entry and a direct lease to HM for 1.11 acres of fast land, 0.53 acres of fill land, and 0.48 acres of submerged land.

“This is a substantial project in the Conservation District,” Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands administrator Sam Lemmo told the Land Board. A report by OCCL planner K. Tiger Mills states that the company plans to fill 23,000 square feet of the permit area to provide space for boat construction and to allow boats to move from a 120-foot long floating dry dock onto the facility. HM also plans to build a 135-foot long pier and a two-story building. The entire project will cover about 2.2 acres.

Although fishing in the area would need to be prohibited, Mills stated, a shoreline access easement will be maintained. Mills added that because the project will probably impact live coral colonies, the DLNR’s Division of Aquatic Resources is requiring a coral protection plan.

Lemmo told the Land Board that, in this case, filling submerged lands in the Conservation District land was acceptable because they are located in the heavily industrialized Sand Island area.

“We’re okay with it from that perspective,” he said, adding that the federal permits HM will need to obtain will have stringent water quality guidelines and that any effects the work will have on natural resources and uses in the area can be mitigated.

Although the DAR and the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs both expressed concern about how a sea level rise of three to five feet might affect the facility once it is built, HM noted that sea level rise estimates vary widely and “there are no public policy guidelines or regulations that have been put into place to assist industry or to guide the development of coastal dependent facilities. Therefore, Honolulu Marine has planned for the use of the site based on the existing regulatory framework for uses within the Honolulu Harbor.”

Under the approved CDUP, HM has 18 months from the May 8 approval to begin construction. The City and County of Honolulu granted HM a Special Management Area use permit for the project in November and a final environmental assessment for the project was accepted by the Department of Land and Natural Resources in February 2008.

When cowboys built a boundary fence separating Parker Ranch land from the state’s Hilo Forest Reserve many decades ago, they strayed from the actual property boundary, which crossed steep terrain, and took an easier route. And because the fence was mislaid, a Mountain View, Hawai`i, company salvaging koa from the ranch accidentally took 32 trees from about 50 acres of the reserve in September 2005.

Steve Bergfeld, a forester with the DLNR’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife, discovered the infraction in June 2007 while he and colleague Bob Otomo were inspecting the old boundary fence with Parker Ranch’s Brandy Beaudet. At the Land Board’s April 24 meeting, DOFAW staff recommended that Jay Warner of Awapuhi Farms and Mill of Mountain View pay a fine of $57,946, which includes $4,300 in administrative costs and, based on the commercial value of the wood taken, $53,648 in damages.

Although DOFAW proposed a large cash fine, it also recommended that in lieu of paying that fine in full, Warner could conduct site maintenance and construction work equivalent to a discounted fine value of $26,000. In addition, DOFAW directed Warner to conduct koa reforestation on about 25 acres within the affected area.

Maui Board member Jerry Edlao said he was disappointed that Parker Ranch had mislaid the fence and encroached state land, but was not being penalized. DOFAW’s Michael Constantinides said that, with regard to the koa logging, his office had discussed the matter with the Department of the Attorney General and, “they said that the recourse must be with the actual party that did the on the ground work.” When Big Island board member Rob Pacheco asked whether the fence would be removed, Constantinides said that it is in a “pretty broken-down state,” and that he would not recommend removal. In any case, board member Sam Gon said, the fence was not the main issue before the board and would have to be taken up later with Parker Ranch.

In the end, Warner, who said he was “just as surprised as anybody” that he was logging state land, did not contest the penalties proposed and approved by the board. Board member Tim Johns, who sits on Parker Ranch’s board of directors, recused himself from voting on the matter.

At its May 8 meeting, the Land Board approved the renewal of Natural Area Partnership Program (NAPP) funding for The Nature Conservancy of Hawai`i’s Kapunakea preserve in the West Maui mountains. It also approved a Conservation District Use Permit to TNCH for various protection activities within the 1,264-acre preserve. The board agreed to provide the preserve with $781,880 in NAPP funds for fiscal years 2010 to 2015 and also authorized board chair Laura Thielen to negotiate and enter into a NAPP contract for TNCH’s Pelekunu preserve, with funding to be provided “subject to annual availability of funding and annual budget execution procedures and approvals.”

At the same meeting, the Land Board approved an agreement giving the Waikoloa Village Outdoor Circle $465,381 in state Forest Stewardship funds over ten years to conduct dry forest restoration on 275 acres in Waikoloa.

In April, the state Senate confirmed two new Land Board members to replace outgoing O`ahu representative Taryn Schuman and at-large member and former board chair Tim Johns, who had been on the Land Board for nearly ten years and served the maximum number of consecutive years (eight) a board member can serve.

Kualoa Ranch Hawai`i president John Morgan will fill Schuman’s seat after her last meeting in June, while David Goode, a former director of Maui County’s Department of Public Works and Waste Management, will finish the rest of Johns’ term, which ends next June. Goode, who is currently president of real estate development firm KSD Hawai`i, attended his first Land Board meeting May 8.

— Teresa Dawson

Volume 19, Number 12 June 2009