North Shore in funk over hunks of junk
By Will Hoover
Advertiser North Shore Writer
From Ka'ena Point to Windward O'ahu and beyond, some of Hawai'i's most stunning landscapes are beginning to resemble a magnificent rust belt, as more and more abandoned, rotting vehicles line the roads and beaches.
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The city has not picked up an abandoned vehicle since April 30, the expiration date of the contract with the company that hauled off forsaken autos. Nowhere is the problem more evident than along the North Shore, where surfers bound past the hulks of someone's ruined Ford and visitors shake their heads at the incongruity of battered wrecks lying in the shadows of graceful palms.
Sunset Beach surfer Jeff Norton passes an abandoned car that North Shore artist Drew Toonz embellished with an image of Spider-Man. Toonz says he restricts his efforts to abandoned vehicles and leaves everything else alone.
"It's been a big problem up here for a long time," said Jennifer Carlsen, who lives in Pupukea and says she recently counted eight abandoned cars in a 2-mile stretch between her home and Hale'iwa.
Weeks after she complained to the city, the vehicles were removed, Carlsen said. But by the end of last week, most had been replaced with a new batch of hulks, along with a dozen others that marred Kamehameha Highway between Hale'iwa and Kahuku, some in clusters of two and three only a few feet off the road.
Zane Clark of Kahuku, who said he has been waging a losing battle to get something done about castoff wrecks, said he is especially troubled by the apparent lack of interest in cleaning up the landscape at the same time the state is trying to attract more visitors.
"What gets me most are the abandoned cars that end up at Sunset Beach," Clark said, "because that's one of the favorite stops of any tour bus going around the island. And then there's a junked car sitting there. They wouldn't let a junked car sit on Waikiki Beach. They'd say, 'We gotta get this out of here — tourists won't like it.'
"Well, we've got tourists out here, too, you know."
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City spokeswoman Carol Costa said she couldn't discuss why the city hasn't picked up abandoned vehicles in more than eight weeks because she is involved in negotiating a new deal with the company contracted to tow them away. She said the contract expired after the towing company submitted a new bid calling for an amount higher than what the city was willing to pay.
An abandoned station wagon blemishes the Kamehameha Highway roadside in Hale'iwa.
Costa said part of the problem is that the people don't distinguish between "abandoned" and "derelict" vehicles. An abandoned vehicle is one that is still operational. A derelict vehicle is one that is no longer functional because of missing parts.
Of the two types, derelict vehicles are by far the more numerous, said Costa. Jim Banigan, general manager of Hawai'i Metal Recycling, disposed of most of the 5,731 derelict and abandoned vehicles found on O'ahu in 2001. That's down dramatically from the 17,000 derelicts that were scrapped during one recent year.
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Costa said the belief by residents that the North Shore has more derelict and abandoned vehicles is "a perception that's really not true."
Junked cars are classified as "derelict" when they have been stripped of operational parts.
"The North Shore does not have an inordinate number of abandoned vehicles, and we are removing the derelicts as fast as we can," she said.
Another problem, according to Costa, is that people frequently fail to report abandoned or derelict vehicles. And the city can't tow derelicts off private property.
Costa says that under the towing contract, a company has five days to remove a vehicle from public property once it is notified that the vehicle has been designated as derelict. The time allowed for removing vehicles designated "AV" (abandoned vehicle), according to the previous contract, was 48 hours.
But Costa is correct when she says people don't distinguish between abandoned and derelict cars. To most folks on the North Shore, the distinction is meaningless.
Few North Shore residents believe roadside wrecks are removed in either two or five days. Ron Valenciana, publisher of the North Shore News, said some wrecks stay put so long, they become a ready source of replacement equipment.
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"I sometimes see people with their tools removing car parts from abandoned vehicles," he said.
Traffic flows along Kamehameha Highway past a vehicle dumped partially into the bushes. In 2001, there were 5,731 derelict and abandoned vehicles reported on O'ahu.
And some vehicles are in place long enough to become works of art. Area artist Drew Toonz keeps a photo portfolio of the dozens of abandoned and derelict North Shore vehicles on which he has painted murals since last winter.
"I never do anything to damage public or private property or nature," said Toonz, whose real name is Andrew Miller and who lives in an abandoned Chevy van parked on private property. "I only do abandoned vehicles."
Even as the city tries to jump-start its contract for removing abandoned vehicles, some North Shore residents are ready to remove throwaway vehicles themselves.
Todd White, owner of Hale'iwa Off Road Towing, will pick up unloved clunkers for $20, as a public service. He turns the vehicles over to an auto recycler for an additional $17 — but at $37 a vehicle, he said, he still loses money on the deal because it ties up his tow truck for hours.
"I do it because I don't enjoy looking at all this crap all over my North Shore," White said.
Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8038.
