Sea memorial dilemma grows
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
A cement marker poured into a coral recess, an American flag and a decayed fish pays tribute to Ray Paul "Whitey" Lessary. Such seaside memorials have become increasingly popular over the past 15 years. However, some say they are being placed illegally on public lands.
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward O'ahu Writer
On a slice of shoreline directly Diamond Head of the Wai'anae Boat Harbor rests what appears to be a seaside cemetery — more than four dozen headstones soothed by tranquil trade winds and the mist of splashing waves.
Closer examination shows the location to be a graveyard with no graves. These markers commemorate deceased persons whose ashes were scattered nearby or who were lost at sea, according to Clara Napierala, who stopped by Wednesday to tidy up a handmade concrete remembrance dedicated to her husband, Stanley, who was killed in a boating accident in February 1999.
"We scattered his ashes right out there," said Napierala, pointing toward Kane'ilio Point near Poka'i Bay where more than two dozen similar markers surround Ku'ilioloa Heiau.
These and memorials at various other Wai'anae Coast locations highlight a touchy problem for land management officials: What to do about the growing number of personal markers placed on public lands.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
"This is a relatively recent development," said former Wai'anae Coast Neighborhood Board chairwoman Cynthia Rezentes. "None of this is old tradition, as far as I know. The state doesn't want to deal with it unless there is a complaint. It's just too sensitive. It's the kind of thing where you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Memorials to loved ones who were lost at sea or had their ashes scattered in the nearby ocean waters have begun to dot the coral reef at the Wai'anae boat harbor.
"But, where do you draw the line?"
City and state officials have been reluctant to take a stand on the memorials, saying only that they will evaluate them.
Seaside memorials differ from roadside memorials in notable ways. Unlike their highway counterparts, seaside memorials are found in clusters and are far more permanent, frequently being made of stone and concrete.
Napierala said the first boat harbor markers appeared in the late 1980s and were made of wood. Those perished to the ravages of the sea. Later versions were often crude handmade displays of rocks and shells embedded in concrete. Around the mid-1990s, ornate, commercial quality granite and marble headstones began to show up.
Today, a third of the boat harbor markers are professionally etched in stone.
Ron Glushenko, who has lived his whole life in Nanakuli, pointed out stone markers placed in concrete at numerous locations on public lands along a mile stretch of shoreline near his home.
"It all started about 15 years ago," said Glushenko, pointing to a marker dated 1986. "It was just people memorializing their dead. Individuals and families do this all on their own. There's nothing organized about it. They go to a mortuary or tombstone place and have them made. There's not anyone local making these professional markers."
Bert Morinaka owns Stonecraft, a licensed monument contracting firm in Kalihi Kai. He says his company has been providing seaside memorial markers for more than 15 years, although the custom has accelerated in recent years.
"It's going on all over — Hale'iwa, La'ie, Nanakuli, Wai'anae," said Morinaka. "After people scatter the ashes, they find there's no tangible way to commemorate their relatives. This gives them something that will last."
Morinaka said his standard 12-by-24-inch granite markers with etched inscriptions retail for $400 to $500. Such markers are at least 3 inches thick, the minimum standard for professionally made monuments.
A less-expensive option is for people to purchase a thinner, fl-inch stone remnant from a granite or marble fabricating company and Morinaka will sandblast the etching at a cost of $130 to $150. The purchaser must then pour the concrete in which the marker will be placed.
Morinaka said he knows of no marker that has ever been removed from an O'ahu shoreline. However, Napierala said acquaintances have told her that the boat harbor markers would eventually be removed.
Wai'anae Harbor master William Aila said only one seaside marker is actually on harbor property. The rest are either on unencumbered state lands or city and county public lands. He has never caught anybody putting in a memorial, he said.
"If I saw someone doing this on our property I would tell them that they shouldn't — that the marker probably would not be permanent," he said. "I don't know about its legality. I do know it's illegal to erect a monument without the permission of the city or state. And these would seem to fall under the definition of a monument."
Aila said the only complaints he has received have been from a few people who had mistakenly thought bodies were buried beneath the markers.
But Aila, who maintains a tolerant attitude about the markers by the harbor, has a complaint himself about the markers around Ku'ilioloa Heiau at Poka'i Bay. As a Hawaiian he considers those inappropriate.
"Just because the monuments aren't actually on the heiau, they are on parts of the heiau complex — which is sacred ground," he said. "I would chalk it up to people not being educated about how sacred that area is."
Agnes Cope, who was a driving force in the restoration of the Ku'ilioloa Heiau, agrees with Aila.
"I wanted the heiau clean all the way to the water line," Cope said. "I said, 'You want to have your services here, and throw your ashes out — fine. But there are not to be any mini-graves, or whatever they are, attached to the heiau.'"
Because it has been physically difficult for Cope to visit the heiau in recent years, she said she was unaware of the proliferation of memorial markers at the site. The markers have nothing to do with Hawaiian tradition, she said.
City spokeswoman Carol Costa was startled by photos of the markers near the Wai'anae Boat Harbor. She said she had assumed that seaside markers were similar to makeshift roadside memorials.
"In a sense (those) are allowed to remain for the grieving period, and then eventually the family either takes them away or the (city) personnel does it," she said. "But this is something entirely different, something that is not temporary."
Costa was vague about what might be done, but said the city parks department is evaluating the Leeward seaside markers to determine the extent of the situation.
Sam Lemmo, senior land division planner with the state Department of Land & Natural Resources, said the state is also looking at the issue to determine precisely who has jurisdiction over the lands on which the markers are placed.
But state rules for unencumbered public lands forbid "any monument, memorial, tablet or other commemorative installation in areas within the premises without written permission," and violators are subject to fines of up to $500 a day.
"I would take ours out if someone told us we had to," said Napierala, referring to her late husband's marker. "That's why we didn't make anything fancy. But we can't see how it hurts if nobody is buried here."
Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8038.
