Board Talk

With Reservations, Land Board Approves Rock Revetment Along Maui Coastal Road

The exasperation was evident in Tim Johns’ voice. “Resources continue to take a backseat to DOT, tourism, whatever is next,” Johns said, commenting on the request of the Highways Division of the state Department of Tourism to harden the shoreline along West Maui to protect Maui’s belt road.

Nonetheless, the Board of Land and Natural Resources voted unanimously on February 11 to give the Highways Division the permit it sought to build two loose rock revetments to protect the Honoapi`ilani Highway at Launiupoko.

The DOT has been seeking permits to fortify the coast in that area for the last six years. The request considered at the February meeting was the most recent. The Highways Division claimed Honoapi`ilani was in imminent danger of collapse, with waves and currents having eroded the area and threatening to undermine the road itself. The revetment is intended to reduce wave damage to the highway.

But Johns was clearly unhappy with the proposal and expressed his view that the request had put the Land Board “in a box”: The Land Board could approve the project and perhaps degrade the resource, or it could deny the request and perhaps endanger public health if the highway eroded into the sea.

“While the project does have negative impacts to natural resources, other mitigating factors and special circumstances must be considered,” planner Samuel Lemmo wrote in the staff report to the Land Board on the DOT request. “For instance, ‘no action’ could result in a serious threat to public safety. Second, the DOT/HD will be required to propose long-term solutions such as highway relocation, which if implemented would result in new positive impacts… And third, the beach resources and public access in the immediate project vicinity are not of superior quality,” Lemmo wrote.

He added that relocation of Honoapi`ilani Highway was the most “environmentally preferable alternative. However, this alternative is unpopular due to costs projections. The cost of highway relocation would be about $10 million, whereas the revetment alternative would cost less than $1 million.”

The DOT has wanted to fortify that section of the highway with a revetment since 1994, but failed to get a valid Special Management Area (SMA) Permit from Maui County to build the revetment. Last December, the DOT obtained that permit, but it still needed a Conservation District Use Permit (CDUP) from the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) to proceed.

At the February 11 Land Board meeting, the DOT sought and received the board’s approval, but on the condition that it present a Highway Shoreline Protection report to the Land Board in three years.

This summer, the DOT will begin a study of highway shorelines throughout the state. The study will look at alternatives to shoreline hardening and is to include a policy for the department to use when faced with eroding coastal highways.

The Hilton Hawaiian Village has pulled out of a joint venture with developer EnterOcean Group to build an underwater tourist attraction in Duke Kahanamoku Lagoon in Waikiki. A few years ago, Hilton’s manager Peter Schall told the Land Board that the facility would be of great public benefit. Bus loads of children would come to the underwater facility to learn about marine life, he once told the board. Today, it seems, Hilton has no wish to move forward with the project.

“The project has gone way over budget. I’m not sure if Hilton wants to participate,” EnterOcean’s chief executive officer Richard Heaton told the Land Board at its February 11 meeting. Heaton appeared before the board in hopes of being allowed to develop the project without Hilton’s involvement and of receiving a time extension on the Conservation District Use Permit that the board issued for the project three years ago.

Under the permit, work was to have begun by January 10, 1998, and the project was to be completed within two years – i.e., by January 2000. The Hilton-EnterOcean partnership was unable to start the project in time because of design and technical problems, Heaton said. Now he needed more time to pull together independent financing and make a new lease arrangement with the state and with the Ilikai Hotel, which adjoins the lagoon.

Heaton said he had not been in touch with Schall or the Hilton since March 1999. But while Heaton may be eager to get the project going, the staff had reservations about his doing it on his own. The permit was issued jointly to EnterOcean and the Hilton, the staff noted. Excluding Hilton might violate the permit.

“The whole deal shifts without the Hilton,” said DLNR Land Division administrator Dean Uchida. Heeding Uchida’s advice, the Land Board voted to defer action on the time extension until Hilton’s position could be determined.

Kaua`i Mountain Tours (KMT) has conducted four-wheel drive excursions through Kaua`i’s Na Pali-Kona forest reserve since 1983, when it received a permit from the BLNR to do so. KMT has a fleet of six 15-passenger vans and in 1998 reported gross income of $730,000.

That same year, Na Ala Hele, the state trail management program run by the Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW), made a list of roads and trails that would be available for commercial tour operators, including KMT, upon their making proper application. Once the new permits were issued, DOFAW said, all other commercial permits would be canceled.

KMT decided not to apply for permits to use roads on the DOFAW list, regarding them as less appealing than the roads they were already using.

In addition, KMT found itself up against a new Department of Land and Natural Resources’ management policy that establishes a hierarchy of protection of resources under the agency’s control. Under that hierarchy, needs of natural resource comes first, followed by those of the public, then by those of commercial operators. The roads that KMT used required continuous maintenance, which cost the DLNR hundreds of thousands of dollars. Although the company had no serious permit violations, Land Division administrator Dean Uchida told the board that his office had received complaints of “close calls’ with hikers on the narrow roads.

For these reasons, on January 28, the DLNR staff asked the Land Board to cancel the company’s permit.

While the Land Board wanted to protect the roads and trails, it did not want to kill a thriving operation. Mike Hopkins, owner of KMT told the Land Board that he wished to contribute to road maintenance, but wanted to explore options other than using the roads in Na Ala Hele’s program. The Land Board had also received several letters from Kaua`i business supporting the company.

In the end, the Land Board approved the cancellation, but let operations continue until September 30, allowing eight months for staff and the company to work together to find alternative sites for KMT’s operations.

The archaeological and cultural complex at Nu`alalo Kai at the Na Pali Coast State Park and the lo`i kalo [taro patches] at Ha`ena State Park on Kaua`i’s North Shore are now being cared for by community groups instead of state park staff.

Two new curatorship agreements for these historic were approved at the Land Board’s January 28 meeting. The Curator Program, initiated in 1998, “is a joint effort of the Historic Preservation Division and State Parks to encourage community involvement in the care and management of historic sites on State-owned properties,” in the words of the staff report to the board.

The Na Pali Coast `Ohana, a non-profit organization formed in 1995, will assist with trail maintenance, archaeological mapping, and the care of archaeological sites for the sites at Nu`alolo Kai for five years. Hui Maka`ainana `o Makana will maintain Ha`ena’s State Park’s taro patches for the next two years. Over the past 30 years, Java plum and guava trees had grown over the lo`i. Last year, Hui Maka`ainana cleared about four and a half acres of the area to allow the state to map archaeological sites and do test excavations. “Draft park plans recommend the restoration of a portion of this field system as an interpretive feature of the park,” the submittal states.

With the addition of these two agreements, there are now nine curator agreements within the state parks system.

— Teresa Dawson

Volume 10, Number 9 March 2000