Posted on: Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Waters eating away at Ka'anapali Beach sand

By Timothy Hurley
Advertiser Maui County Bureau

KA'ANAPALI, Maui — Three months after it was declared the best beach in America, Ka'anapali Beach is being knocked down a peg by Mother Nature.

An unusually severe bout of sand loss this summer not only has made the sand disappear near the beach's south end, but waves have carried out chunks of land, prompting two resorts to seek government permission to install devices to protect their shorelines.

The state is allowing the Ka'anapali Ali'i and the Maui Marriott to take temporary measures that include placing sand bags, plastic highway barriers and steel plates.

After losing nine coconut trees and a strip of grass about 30 feet wide, the Ka'anapali Ali'i placed 17,000 sandbags and 25 sand-filled plastic barriers on its shore, leaving a small strip of grass between the building and the reach of the splashing waves.

Coastal Programs Manager Sam Lemmo of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources' Coastal Zone Management program said officials don't fully understand what's happening to the beach this summer but there are a couple of theories.

It may be a matter of unusual summer weather conditions and ocean currents pushing the sand to the north end of the beach, or it could be that Ka'anapali is suffering from a severe sand deficit.

Coastal scientists who have studied Ka'anapali believe the sand stays relatively put, while migrating between Black Rock on the north end and Hanaka'o'o Beach Park on the south end. Generally, southern swells push sand north during the summer and fall, while North Pacific swells cause the sand to migrate south during the winter and spring.

Lemmo said officials are fairly confident the sand will come back to the shore fronting the Maui Marriott and the Ka'anapali Ali'i, so the resorts were told to remove their temporary barriers by Sept. 1 or when the beach sand returns.

Ka'anapali in May was named the country's top beach in the annual list compiled by Stephen Leatherman, director of Florida International University's Laboratory for Coastal Research. The coastal expert said Ka'anapali has a nice strand of beach uncrowded by hotels.