Hawai'i Kai Marina channel to be cleared of sand
| • | Map: Dredging boat channel |
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| Canoe paddling is a popular activity in the Hawai'i Kai Marina where larger vessels must take extra care to avoid hitting bottom, particularly during low tide, when they go to sea and return via the channel under the highway bridge.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser |
By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Writer
HAWAI'I KAI — The state is poised to give the go-ahead to dredge the mouth of the Hawai'i Kai Marina, a project that has been stalled for nine years.
During that time, more sand and silt have accumulated, making the navigable channel under the bridge on Kalaniana'ole Highway even narrower and shallower and affecting hundreds of boaters. The boat operators must take extra care going in and out of the marina to avoid hitting bottom, particularly during low tide.
The state Department of Land and Natural Resources will give American Marine Inc. approval by the end of June to begin dredging 8,000 cubic yards of sand under the bridge at the mouth of the marina, said David Parsons, DLNR Division of Boating planning manager. The land under the bridge is state property.
When complete, the channel will be about 7 feet deep.
The work was to start last year, but the $200,000 project still needed state permits.
While the dredging is being done, ocean access will be maintained, said Jaap Suyderhoud, Hawai'i Kai Marina Association president.
The channel is heavily used by ocean recreation businesses that take customers out to Maunalua Bay. The association, which owns the private marina, estimates that several hundred boat trips a day are made into and out of the channel.
Boaters have been pushing for the state to clear the channels ever since the Legislature appropriated the money to dredge in 1993. The contract was awarded to American Marine Inc. in 1998, but residents objected to the plans, which called for clearing out one of the channels under the bridge and putting the sand on the Portlock side of the shoreline and creating a sandbag groin on the ocean side of the marina to prevent sand from shifting again.
The plan didn't sit well with a second-generation Portlock resident who went before the state land board in an attempt to block the project, saying not enough study was done to assess the effect the dredging would have on the ocean from the waters off Maunalua Bay Beach Park to Paiko Lagoon. But the land board last year denied the claim and cleared the way for the dredging.
"We've just completed the permitting process and now we need to execute the contract," Parsons said. "This took so long because it's been so controversial."
The Hawai'i Kai Marina Association will use the same contractor to remove about 1,000 cubic yards of sand on its side of the marina as well, Suyderhoud said. The work should be completed by Labor Day at the latest, Parsons said.
"It looks like it's ready to go," Suyderhoud said. "We're very, very happy about this.
"A second opening will make the channel safer. It has become even shallower lately and more and more boats are complaining that at low tide their propellers touch the bottom."
Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com or 395-8831.
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| The state will issue a contract to dredge the mouth of the Hawai'i Kai marina, where sand buildup has left only a narrow channel that is difficult to navigate. The dredging will increase the depth of the affected area to 7 feet. The dredged sand will be used to replenish the nearby coastline.
The Honolulu Advertiser |
