The County of Kaua`i Department of Public Works has been stopped short — twice — in its efforts to build a seawall at Wailua. The seawall, which the county says is needed to protect its public golf course there, far exceeded the repair and maintenance job that the Army Corps of Engineers had approved, resulting in the Corps issuing a cease-and-desist order to the county in late August. That was followed in September by a cease-and-desist order from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, which determined that the wall was being built on state-owned land in the Conservation District.
Since then, the county has claimed its efforts to get work on the wall under way again have been frustrated by a bureaucratic maze. Four specific hurdles were cited by the county to a sympathetic reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser:1
First, the Board of Land and Natural Resources was requiring the county to apply for a Conservation District Use Permit by the end of January 1997. Second, the Corps of Engineers informed the county that “it can’t remove any part of the walls in the wash of the waves without obtaining two separate federal permits.”
Third, the state Office of Environmental Quality Control rejected as inadequate the county’s draft environmental assessment, prepared in anticipation of its application for a CDUA. Fourth, county engineer Steve Oliver reportedly told the Honolulu Advertiser, the county was up against a deadline from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA had pledged roughly $1 million to pay for the work, based on the county’s contention that the wall had been taken out by Hurricane `Iniki.
A Different Spin
The notion that the county has been impeded in its work by state and federal bureaucracies is not shared by Kurt Bosshard, an attorney who lives near Wailua and who regularly uses the beach. Bosshard began complaining county in March 1995 about the project, but was not granted the favor of a response for nearly 18 months. By that time, the Corps of Engineers had issued its cease-and-desist order, stating that the county had misrepresented to the Corps the scope of work anticipated. Far from the project merely replacing the previously existing seawall, the Corps determined, the county was undertaking a substantially different project.
“The scope, the character (including the size of rock used), and the size of the wall are significantly different than what was approved by the Corps in 1995,” Rosemary Hargrave, acting chief of the Corps’ operations branch, wrote Oliver in the cease-and-desist order dated August 29, 1996.
As files in the DLNR show, Hargrave’s order set off a series of phone calls and letters among the DLNR’s Kaua`i land office, the county Planning Department, DLNR staff in Honolulu, the county Public Works Department, and the member of the Board of Land and Natural Resources representing Kaua`i.
And, at long last, Bosshard got the county’s attention. Bosshard told Environment Hawai`i that when he encountered county engineers at Wailua on August 30, they offered to cut a deal with him. Bosshard was dumbstruck by the county’s apparent belief that he would stop objecting to the project if the county aligned about a third of the 3,000-foot-long wall to a position more mauka by about 12 to 20 feet. (Bosshard’s account is confirmed by a memo in DLNR files. According to that memo, written August 30 by Kaua`i land agent Sam Lee to DLNR’s Land Division administrator Dean Uchida, even if Bosshard had accepted the deal, “we reiterated to [the county] that whatever agreement was offered at that time would not be binding on the state.”
Still, the state was anything but hard-nosed in its dealings with the county. Throughout September and most of October, the county Public Works Department, DLNR, and Kaua`i board member Lynn McCrory attempted to fashion a resolution to the issue that would allow the county to finish the seawall by the March 1997 deadline established by FEMA.
Indeed, on several occasions, McCrory and Uchida informed the county of the DLNR’s support for the project and pledged their assistance — to the point that the county was promised at one point that the DLNR would “expedite the processing of the CDUA permit as an ‘Emergency Permit’.”
As it turned out, the six-member Board of Land and Natural Resources, the agency that issues the Conservation District permits, was less eager to run to the county’s side when, on October 25, 1996, a fuller picture of the county’s project emerged. At the board’s meeting of that date, Bosshard was finally able to present to the board a packet of documents and pictures that cast the county’s actions in a less favorable light.
At that meeting, the Land Board decided to find the county in violation of state Conservation District rules and to impose a fine, although it held off until a later date setting a value to the fine. In addition, the board ordered the county to apply for a Conservation District Use Permit within 90 days (i.e., by January 23) or, should it decide against going forward with the application, to remove the rubble on the beach by that same date. In any case, the board ordered the county to take away the more hazardous debris — including broken concrete pieces with rebar reinforcement jutting out of them.
But since then, the county has claimed it can do no work whatsoever, including removing hazards to beach users, until the Army Corps of Engineers gives it the go-ahead. By mid-November, following high waves and heavy rains earlier in the month, the beach and shallow water areas remain littered with construction debris from the revetment. Toe stones buried the month before were once again exposed. And the county has yet to apply to either the state of the Army Corps for the permits it needs to move forward with clean-up or rebuilding of the revetment.
The Wall That Wasn’t
In 1986, the County of Kaua`i Department of Public Works first sought permits from the county Planning Commission to build a revetment at Wailua. The wall was needed, the county claimed, because “the ongoing erosion process has created wave scarps up to 15 feet high along the shoreline of the property.”
Plans for the 3,100-foot-long revetment called for placing the toe stones “seaward of the edge of vegetation or high-water mark, but above mean sea level,” according to the report of the county Planning Department to the Planning Commission. At the time, no one appears to have asked for the location of the seaward boundary of the land under the county’s jurisdiction. According to the executive order assigning the land to the county for park purposes, the seaward boundary was defined not by the high water mark or vegetation line, but by a metes-and-bounds description inland of the shoreline, which at the time coincided with the high-water mark. Nonetheless, in the permit for the revetment that the Planning Commission issued on December 18, 1986, the “certified shoreline” was established as the outer limit of the county’s permitted work.
Among other things, the Planning Department accepted its staff recommendation that described “the sloping rock revetment [as] the surest time proven shore protection measure, as it is durable, flexible, highly resistant to wave damage and prevents sand loss.”
In February 1987, the Public Works Department sought and received the shoreline certification from the state. Eight months later, on October 26, 1987, work began on the revetment and on a road running just inside the wall around the edge of the golf course.
Immediately, the state Division of Conservation and Resource Enforcement suspected something was amiss. In a memo dated October 27, 1987, the Kaua`i land agent, Sam Lee, notified the Honolulu chief of the Division of Land Management that a DOCARE officer had “observed and photographed equipment owned by Louis Rego working for the County of Kaua`i, pushing sand from near the water’s edge landward where it was being picked up by a power shovel and deposited up on golf course property.
“The beach sand is being used to create a road bed along the seaward edge of the golf course ostensibly to provide a roadway for activity to follow in connection with construction of the revetment.
“The area of the beach seaward of the shoreline certified on February 25, 1987, is unencumbered state property zoned Conservation Resource Subzone.”
The DOCARE officer, Lee went on to say, had been informed by a county employee on the site that the county had a permit authorizing work on the beach. But, Lee added, “Our local files indicated an absence of such approval… No CDUA [Conservation District Use Permit] or other DLNR permit had been issued to allow the work on the beach, nor had a permit been approved allowing construction of the revetment itself.”
A quick call to then-Deputy DLNR Director Libert Landgraf confirmed the unauthorized nature of the work. In the same memo, Lee stated, “We learned by establishing contact with Mr. Landgraf … that no CDUA … had been issued… Consequently, we were instructed to contact the county engineer to request that all work cease and that the county of Kaua`i file an immediate CDUA for emergency work purposes. Contact with Engineer Kyono was made and Mr. Landgraf’s instructions conveyed.”
Back-Pedaling
The Kaua`i mayor at the time, Tony Kunimura, called Landgraf as well. Lee’s memo goes on to state that “the mayor had contacted Mr. Landgraf the evening of October 26, 1987, and apparently straightened things out.”
On October 29, 1987, Landgraf himself wrote the county engineer, in a “follow-up to our discussion of October 27.” “Insofar as the proposed maintenance and repair activities are consistent with the purpose and intent of the … Executive Orders, we find that no Conservation District Use Application is required.”
“Be advised,” Landgraf continued, “that this applies only to work which occurs within the property boundary. Should you desire to conduct work makai of the property boundary and/or shoreline, we may consider issuing an emergency authorization permit given the immediate nature of the proposed work.” Of course, had Landgraf looked at the county Planning Commission’s terms of its Special Management Area permit for the revetment, it would have been apparent that the county intended to build well makai of the limit of the land set aside to the county in the executive order for the park.
Post-`Iniki
The revetment was not built as planned. The large armor stones were put in, but the underlying ground preparation was not undertaken. As a consequence, over the next several years, surf and rain took their toll, washing out the sand behind the boulders. With no support, the boulders forming the face of the revetment slumped onto the beach, as did the fill that the county would, from time to time, dump along the top of the revetment. Photographs taken by Bosshard and others in the late 1980s show an eroded, unprotected scarp along the seaward edge of the golf course and fringing road, with the boulders from the revetment littering the beach. In addition, what appears to have been debris from construction or demolition sites is intermixed with the boulders.
By the time Hurricane `Iniki hit in September 1992, the revetment had already crumbled in most places. For nearly three years after the hurricane, the county made no mention of any hurricane damage to the revetment.
Between 1992 and 1995, the only work in the area that was brought to the attention of the Department of Land and Natural Resources was limited to the area of the driving range. The need for the work was not related to Hurricane `Iniki, but was rather said to be “high wave action.”
The DLNR was apprised of this work in a letter from Eldon Franklin, then county engineer, to then DLNR director Keith Ahue, dated August 25, 1994. “This is to inform you,” Franklin wrote, “that we will be proceeding with protective work along the shoreline boundary of our Wailua Golf Course … to stop severe erosion of the golf course driving range caused by high wave action.” The work was to consist of “placement of boulders and concrete pile buffs on the beach fronting the eroded sections and backfilling the area behind the boulders and pile buffs with sand from the surrounding beach area.”
No response from Ahue could be found in the files, nor, apparently, did the county wait for one. Franklin’s letter was not a permit request and was not brought before the Board of Land and Natural Resources for action. The work was completed by the end of 1994.
At the time, Bosshard informed the county attorney Hartwell Blake of problems associated with the project. In a follow-up letter to Blake in March 1995, Bosshard repeated his concerns that “the county was placing fill directly onto the beach in front of the Wailua Golf Course driving range.”
“I questioned whether the county had a permit to place fill on the beach and advised that inevitably the fill would end up in the ocean. In fact, the process has started with the recent heavy rains washing the fill closer to the surf. Recently, the county employees brought more fill in and dumped the fill into areas that had eroded from their earlier dumping. All of this fill has been placed directly on the beach. Does the county have a permit?
“This is not a new problem. Over the years the county has sought to maintain a road on the ocean side of the golf course. The county has brought in dirt, concrete with exposed rebar and other fill materials to shore up the road. Periodically the road washes into the ocean and the concrete and rebar wash onto the beach and create a public hazard. I doubt if the county has obtained a permit for these activities either.”
Bosshard has yet to receive a response.
Emergency Relief?
By October 1994, the county began preliminary planning work for replacement of the larger revetment fronting the golf course. In a memo for the record from county DPW engineer Bill Eddy on a conversation with Army engineer Stan Boc, Eddy discusses the mechanics of designing a new revetment. “It would be best to get the toe all the way down to bed rock,” Eddy wrote. Boc “said the original revetment probably failed because the toe was floating on the sand,” he continued. “A good elevation for the toe is at -3 feet to -4 feet MWL [mean water level].”
In February 1995, the county appears to have decided to seek funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for rebuilding the revetment. On the 17th of that month, Rudy L. Raralio, damage survey report project manager for county, wrote the Corps of Engineers, explaining the county’s position. “County of Kaua`i’s Engineering Division believes that no permit is required due to the wall’s location above the high water mark.”
Raralio went on to address the lengthy delay between the hurricane and the county’s request for funds for rebuilding the revetment. “This delay was due to the county of Kaua`i & FEMA’s prioritizing other recovery projects. The revetment wall was previously given a low priority due to the low threat to life and property; and at that time there was no adverse economic impact,” Raralio told Terrell Kelley, engineer with the Army Corps. “However, this has changed due to continuous erosion of the shoreline at the golf course.”
After a visit to the site by Kelley and other Corps of Engineers personnel, county engineer Steve Oliver forwarded to the Corps final plans. “It is our opinion,” Oliver wrote, “that we are not doing work in the waters of the United States, since the majority of the work is to be performed at or above elevation +4.0 MSL.” Attached calculations indicated that the county would be placing some 8,200 cubic yards of stone along the eroded scarp of the back beach.
On July 13, 1995, the Corps of Engineers gave the county the go-ahead it sought. “Based on the information you provided, and as shown in the attached plans, a Department of the Army permit is not required for your proposed project,” wrote James L. Bersson, chief of the Corps’ Operations Division, to county engineer Oliver. Bersson added, however, that, “as the regulation states, ‘Maintenance does not include any modification that changes the character, scope, or size of the original fill design.'”
Stone Supplies
The DSR narrative states that much of the material to be used in the revetment would be supplied by the county from “a large amount of core stone and armor stone that is stockpiled at the golf course.” In addition, the DSR “also covers core stone and armor stone that may be needed beyond the amount existing on the project site and the stone stockpiled” by the county.
But even before the DSR narrative was developed, the county had identified a source for boulders over and above those stored at the golf course. In July 1995, the county Department of Public Works had asked the state Department of Land and Natural Resources for permission to remove boulders that had been encountered by a contractor excavating at the temporary hurricane debris receiving site at Wailua.
The request was made by letter dated July 26, 1995, from Steve Oliver to Sam Lee, Kaua`i district state land agent. “The county and FEMA are interested in using these boulders for shoreline erosion control at the Wailua Golf Course,” Oliver wrote.
On August 25, the Land Board heard the county’s request. Dean Uchida, administrator for the DLNR Division of Land Management, recommended approval of the request, but then-Kaua`i Land Board member Herbert Apaka asked that the matter be deferred. “Months ago,” he said, “Rego Trucking requested the boulders from this site, and what I understand, they put a down payment of $1000 towards those boulders. But all of a sudden I see the county is coming along, wanting the same boulders. Can you hold this off, can you make an investigation?”
In public testimony, the issue of possible harm from shoreline hardening was raised by a member of the audience: “I’m a little confused over the shoreline erosion control project, because it seems to me in light of the recent board action against hardening of the shore, this kind of control project, where you’re piling boulders at the shore, is in effect construction of a revetment… Is this what we want to do or is there some way to address the problem other than hardening of the shore?”
Land Board chairman Mike Wilson agreed that the board needed more information on the county’s proposed use of the boulders, and the matter was deferred.
In December 1995, the board once more considered the request. At this meeting, there was no mention of Apaka’s question about Rego’s prior claim to the boulders. Instead of the boulders being needed for vague “shoreline erosion control” purposes, the revised staff report to the Land Board stated that the boulders would be used “to repair the Wailua Municipal Golf Course shoreline revetment, which sustained major damage from intense wave action during Hurricane `Iniki.” The board approved the action without question or comment.
Work Begins
In April, the county Department of Public Works was notified by Sharlene Peahu, Damage Survey Report project manager for the county, that a total of $1,019,872 in FEMA funds had been allocated for the Wailua revetment. By late June, the contract with Doreen Sanchez-Rego, contractor for the project, was signed, and in early August, the work began.
Within days of the work commencing, the state DLNR and the Army Corps of Engineers was receiving protests that the revetment would extend onto the beach and into the water. Judy Dalton, who lives nearby and who uses the beach regularly, wrote the Corps’ Terrell Kelly on August 19, saying that, “at some points, the revetment wall has been built over the sand down to the shoreline, where waves are now touching the wall at high tide. During the winter months, with higher tides and much higher waves, the very narrow stretch of sand that remains will be impassable. We will have lost one of the most beautiful pristine beaches on Kaua`i.” Anyone attempting to walk or run from one end of the beach to the other, she wrote, “would be in peril,” while others “will have their walks abruptly cut off, not wishing to take a chance being dashed against the rocks of the revetment.”
Two days later, Bosshard delivered to the county Planning Department a request that it investigate three actions by the Department of Public Works at the Wailua golf course: the placement of a cycline fence, telephone poles, and backstop near the ocean; placement of fill on the beach fronting the driving range and the first and second holes of the golf course; and the most recent work on the revetment. “I would like to know where I can find the permit for all such work,” Bosshard wrote, in a letter that remains unanswered.
The state Division of Land Management immediately became involved in the issue. In an August 28 memo to Dean Uchida, administrator of the DLNR’s Division of Land Management, Kaua`i land agent Mike Laureta reported on the previous day’s activity. He had been informed by Bob Mullins, assistant to Mayor Maryanne Kusaka, that Mullins would try to obtain information regarding FEMA performance deadlines “and to check the possibility of time extensions, since lapsing of funds is their primary concern.”
Work Ends
The next day, everyone seems to have been in full panic mode, with issuance by the Corps of Engineers of a stop-work order. “Reconstruction of the above project appears to be extending beyond the original fill design,” acting Corps operations branch chief Rosemary Hargrave informed county engineer Steve Oliver. “I hereby am issuing to you a cease and desist order. You must halt any further unauthorized work in waters of the United States.”
Oliver disagreed with the Corps’ determination. According to a memo to Uchida from Sam Lee written August 30, “the county did receive the cease and desist order from the Army Corps yesterday afternoon. However, it is their contention that the construction of the revetment is in compliance and that they are not doing any unauthorized work.”
The Corps issued a second cease-and-desist order that same day. “You indicated today,” the deputy district engineer Joseph W. Corrigan wrote Oliver, “that after obtaining the DA authorization, and exemption from the Corps, the project elevation was changed from +4 feet to 0 feet. This is an unauthorized change in project character, scope, and size from the original fill design.”
Further Investigation
By September 6, after two weeks of working nearly non-stop on the matter, Sam Lee wrote a memo to the file, summarizing some of his findings. That day, he had been informed by the county that “most of the revetment had originally (in the late 1980s) been built seaward of the 1987 certified shoreline and consequently the current construction/reconstruction supposedly being rebuilt on the footprint of the original revetment was also seaward of the 1987 line.”
The county deputy engineer, Ken Kitabayashi, told Lee that about 3,000 of the 3,100 feet of the revetment extended beyond the 1987-certified shoreline. “More surprising, and potentially more serious according to Ken was the county’s finding that all or most of the revetment is seaward of the makai boundary of the E.O.,” the governor’s executive order setting aside the land to the county.
Should this be the case, Lee continued, “the project could be the subject of a CDUA [Conservation District Use Application] violation case and/or an encroachment case,” referring to the county’s unauthorized use of state-owned land. “I advised Ken … that the county should be aware of the possibility that DLNR would issue a Cease and Desist order.”
In addition, the state surveyor had confirmed that day that the seaward boundary of the executive order is not set by the shoreline certification, but was rather fixed at the time the land was set aside to the county. That fixed line, which at the time of the set-aside followed the shore, now lies inland of the shoreline.
By the end of the day, the state had issued a cease-and-desist order to the county, signed by DLNR deputy director Gil Coloma-Agaran. “You are hereby notified to cease all activity, remove all personal property and/or your contractor’s property from the subject beach lands and resolve the conservation and encroachment violation issues to the satisfaction of the Board of Land and Natural Resources,” Coloma-Agaran wrote, on behalf of DLNR director Wilson.
DLNR staff and county personnel continued to meet throughout September and most of October. In a memo to Kitabayashi of September 18, Uchida of the state Land Division listed three courses of action. First, if the county wanted to proceed with the revetment as planned, it would have to resolve the matter of unauthorized use of state-owned lands. Second, “if the county chooses to relocate the revetment at or mauka of the 1987 certified shoreline, the county will need to file a Conservation District Use Application for the revetment because it is a new use… This would require compliance with Chapter 343 [the state environmental disclosure law] and also require SMA clearance. Under Section 13-5-35 of our Administrative Rules, we will expedite the processing of the permit as an ‘Emergency Permit.’ Once approved, we would amend the E.O. boundary to include the revetment as part of the golf course.”
Common Goals?
Following more meetings that now included Kaua`i Land Board member Lynn McCrory, another letter was sent by Uchida to the county on September 28, based in large measure on a draft written by McCrory two days earlier. The county was assured that “our collective goals” included construction of the revetment “at or mauka of the 1987 shoreline,” utilization of “the FEMA funds,” resolution of the unauthorized work on state lands in the Conservation District, and issuance of a CDUA from the Land Board.
On October 10, a “Goal Resolution and Action Plan Joint Meeting” for the Wailua revetment was held in the county engineer’s office. Attending were representatives from FEMA, the state Division of Land Management, the county Department of Public Works, and Land Board member McCrory. An agenda for the meeting, which appears to have been prepared by McCrory, describes once more the “common goals” of the state and county. Under the “points to consider” item, there is posed the question: “Who else do we need to consider? Does this add to the time table?” Names listed under this heading are residents Kurt Bosshard and Judy Dalton, and contractor Rego.
Uchida summarized the meeting in a memo to Lee. Among other things, Uchida said, the DLNR “agreed to review their ‘draft’ CDUA now while they were resolving their violation… Once the CDUA is filed, we will use the provisions of ‘Emergency Authorization’ in the new CDUA rules to expedite the processing of the CDUA…
“We will contact the AG [attorney general]… to see what options the BLNR may have to allow construction of the revetment while the CDUA is being processed…. It is important that we all get on the same page on this to keep it moving along ASAP.”
Cleaning Up
By late September, the Army Corps of Engineers had approved action to resolve the pending violation, based upon the county’s promise to redesign the wall so it would be inland of the high-water mark (and thus out of the Corps’ jurisdiction). In a letter dated September 24, deputy district engineer Corrigan informed the county it did not have to remove the recently placed four-ton toe stones, located in a trench approximately five feet below grade. These could be buried and left in place, Corrigan said, but the stockpiled sand and armor stones had to be removed from the beach.
The county began “corrective work” on October 2. Pictures taken when the work was completed show a wide, clear sandy beach sloping gently up to the edge of the golf course and the vegetation line.
Then came the waves. Lolly Silva, an engineer with the Corps who visited the site on October 28, described what she saw in a memo the following day: “We walked the shoreline and noted that dirt, concrete, rebar and other junk fill material was used to construct the revetment. Recent rains caused severe erosion of the maintenance road, which is also considered to be the crown of the revetment. Large openings in the revetment have revealed dirt, concrete, rebar, sheet metal and other material mixed in with the rocks/boulders. Also noted were pieces of concrete and metal pieces scattered along the beach shoreline.” The toe stones that the Corps had allowed the county to leave in place the previous month were now exposed and washed by the waves, as were boulders, covered with moss and algae, that had once formed part of the revetment built in 1987.
The day following the site visit, Steve Oliver wrote the Corps of Engineers, stating that the beach had been cleaned up earlier in the month, but that “we are presently encountering winter surf.” He asked the Corps’ permission “to remove the toe stones, other stones, and debris that are currently exposed.”
Resolution?
Prompting Oliver to write the Corps was the action of the Board of Land and Natural Resources on October 25. At that time, the Division of Land Management asked the board to find the county in violation of its rules by conducting work in the state-owned Conservation District at Wailua.
After the presentation by Uchida and the county, Bosshard finally had a chance to present his complaints about the revetment work to the full Land Board. The county had consistently ignored his requests for information about the permits covering the work, he noted, while the terms of such permits as he could find — dating back to the 1986 SMA permit for the revetment — were continually violated.
County Engineer Oliver responded, acknowledging that since the revetment had not been built according to plan, erosion did occur. After `Iniki, he said, “yes, there was rubble placed behind that fill to try to stop the erosion. That rubble is not aesthetically acceptable and should be removed, but we don’t want to do any rubble removal until our ocean engineer’s report shows we won’t harm the environment any more than it’s already been harmed.”
The fact that the plan for the revetment in 1996 diverged from the 1987 plan was laid at the doorstep of FEMA. “When FEMA came in,” Oliver said, “they wanted us to go back to the same plan, but to take it down to elevation zero, since they don’t want to have to pay for the wall to be rebuilt again. So that’s what we started at.” At the time the work began, Oliver said, “we had no idea this was in state jurisdiction.”
Hawai`i island Land Board member Chris Yuen commented, “What’s bothering me is that the county should be aware that you cannot start building a seawall, dropping large stones basically into the wash of the waves, without the Corps of Engineers and state CDUA permits.”
Oliver replied, “The contractor should not have done that.”
“You’re saying the contractor was responsible?” Yuen asked.
Oliver then admitted that the contractor had placed the stones in accordance with the county’s staking of the area.
Yuen: “But that’s also in the wash of the waves. It’s obviously makai of the shoreline.”
Oliver: “Yes, sir, in August 1996. But we were building according to the certified shoreline of 1986.”
Ken Kitabayashi, chief of the Department of Public Works’ Engineering Division, said that the revetment built in 1987 was determined to be makai of the certified shoreline only in 1996.
But Yuen, looking through documents provided by Bosshard, noted that in 1987, the state had determined the county was seaward of the shoreline. “Maybe the DLNR agreed at that time to look the other way,” he noted, but now things were different.
“My opinion on this is, … suppose you built the seawall mauka of the certified shoreline in 1986 and it was subsequently lost to erosion, if you wanted to rebuild it, you would need to reapply for a permit to do that, and the shoreline would have changed. The shoreline certification was no longer any good. You have to reapply.”
O`ahu board member Michael Nekoba, disturbed by Bosshard’s photographs of rebar on the beach, also faulted the county. “The county is trying to protect the golf course, which is a public recreational facility, but the beach is, too. We have a problem here.”
In the end, the Board of Land and Natural Resources voted to fine the county (although it deferred setting any dollar figure on the fine) and to require the county to apply within 90 days for a Conservation District Use Permit for the revetment. Should the county decide not to apply for the CDUP, the boulders and other rubble and debris would have to be removed by the end of the 90-day period.
The DLNR files indicate that even before the October 25 meeting, the county had filled out a Conservation District Use Application for the revetment, although it had not formally been submitted. In addition, the county prepared a draft environmental assessment, which is a required element of work in the Conservation District.
A timetable prepared by the county anticipated that the Office of Environmental Quality Control would publish notice of availability of the draft EA in its November 8 Environmental Bulletin. However, when the document was reviewed by OEQC staff, it was found to be lacking in several key respects.
In a letter dated October 31, OEQC director Gary Gill listed the deficiencies. First, the county had not consulted with “affected agencies, citizen groups and individuals” before submitting its draft. Specifically, Gill said, the county would have to consult with Judy Dalton and Kurt Bosshard, “residents who frequent the beach and have commented about the revetment project.”
Also, Gill noted, the document contained no plan “showing the revetment in relationship to the current shoreline, shoreline setback line, state lands, executive order boundary, and Conservation District lands.” The draft EA lacked a description on the impacts of the revetment on adjoining areas, did not describe alternatives, and failed to provide the required analysis of the impact of the revetment on beaches.
Because of these “administrative deficiencies,” Gill wrote, “we are unable to publish the notice of availability for this project.”
As Environment Hawai`i goes to press, the county appears to be considering alternatives to the revetment and it has asked for a time extension from FEMA. Should it not build a seawall at Wailua, the $200,000-plus that contractor Doreen Sanchez-Rego has billed for work already done would presumably come from county funds.
- 1. Jan TenBruggencate, “Kaua`i debates seawall work,” Honolulu Advertiser, November 10, 1996, p.D6.
Volume 7, Number 6 December 1996