Posted on: Monday, August 27, 2001

Plan aims to improve main Kaua'i harbors

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau

NAWILIWILI, Kaua'i — The island's main harbor, once more than adequate for its task, has fallen short in recent years.

Its storage areas were undersized for the flow of construction materials after 1992's Hurricane Iniki, the increase in cruise ship traffic has caused pier congestion, and new super-size cruise ships may not even be able to get into the harbor.

State transportation officials address those issues for Nawiliwili Harbor and for the secondary harbor at Port Allen in the Kaua'i Commercial Harbors 2025 Master Plan.

Public meetings to present the plan and seek public comment are scheduled for Nawiliwili at 7 p.m. Sept. 7 in the Harbors District Office on Waapa Road, and for Port Allen at 5 p.m. Sept. 8 at the Kalaheo Neighborhood Center.

Although the main Nawiliwili Harbor function is freight — more than 98 percent of food and other cargo comes into Kaua'i by water — the cruise ship industry is an increasing factor in the economic life of the island, the master plan says.

The plan proposes that Piers 2 and 3, which are at right angles to each other, both be extended into the northwestern corner of the harbor to provide space to berth two large cruise ships at the same time.

It also calls for a fourth pier to be developed along the existing jetty — the area once inhabited by the Coast Guard station, Club Jetty and the Seaflite terminal — primarily for cargo, including shipping out lumber products from the island's new forestry industry.

Harbors Division planner Dean Watase said the Department of Transportation also is considering changes to the entrance of the harbor and to reduce the sharp S-turn required by ships, so that larger cruise liners will be able to enter.

Shipping pilots say they are concerned that it's not possible to safely enter the present configuration with ships as long as the 900- to-1,000-foot mega-ships, whose owners are planning to add Hawai'i to their itineraries.

The American Classic Voyages ships that arrive weekly are 704 feet for the MS Patriot and 682 feet for the SS Independence.

Although there have been discussions of redredging the harbor and of removing part of the jetty to provide more turning space, the state will leave details of design changes to experts such as those at the Army Corps of Engineers, Watase said.

At Port Allen, once Kaua'i's primary harbor, the uses are different. The harbor accepts most of the fuel-barge traffic to the island and has a considerable military presence associated with the Pacific Missile Range Facility. In recent years, tour traffic down the Na Pali Coast has originated from the port.

The Harbors Division proposes to build a new Pier 1 along the existing breakwater to be designated for military use. It would take a right-angle turn to form Pier 2, set aside for cargo operations. That structure would extend into Pier 3, which would handle passenger traffic.

Although all these changes are part of the long-term master plan that has been proposed, they are hardly written in stone, planners said.

Environmental studies, development planning and financing work must still be done, planners said.