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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, May 28, 2003

Rockslide-prevention project at Lalea is outlined

By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Writer

HAWAI'I KAI — Helicopters will be hovering above the Lalea condominium and below the hillside community of Mariner's Ridge starting in mid-July to hoist the heavy mesh that will be placed over the rockslide-prone hillside, residents were told last night.

Meeting tomorrow

The Kamehameha Schools will make a presentation at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Hawai'i Kai Public Library to the Mariner's Ridge community and others interested in hearing about plans to shore up the hillside above the Lalea condominium.

A spokesman for the Kamehameha Schools, which owns the land, described plans to shore up the hillside at a Hawai'i Kai Neighborhood Board meeting.

Including the cost of evacuating residents, Kameha-meha Schools and Lalea developer Castle & Cooke Hawai'i Inc. will spend a total of about $4 million to address the rockslide problem that emerged when a five-ton boulder tumbled down the mountainside on Thanksgiving, said Neil Hannahs, director of Kamehameha Schools' land assets division.

Helicopters will be used from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. for two days in July, two days in August and two days in September to lay the mesh from the top, said Cliff Tillotson, a construction manager for Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Prometheus Construction firm.

The mesh will be similar to that installed above the highway at Waimea and Makapu'u, Hannahs said.

In this phase, work includes installing three-layer wire mesh, stabilizing loose or cracked boulders and installing wire mesh cages around 22 rocks identified as having the potential to tumble.

Work on the first phase, which included widening and deepening a drainage ditch that runs between the Kaluanui hillside and the Lalea property, began in April, Hannahs said.

Construction crews from Goodfellow Bros. Inc. began widening and deepening the earthen ditch between the Kaluanui hillside and Lalea buildings 7110, 7116, 7122 and 7128. The work will increase the ditch's capacity as a rock-catch basin.

When finished, the ditch will be 20 feet wide, 3 1/2 feet deep and 1,000 feet long. The ditch wall closest to the homes will be covered with concrete.

The $400,000 to $500,000 project should be completed at the end of June.

Kamehameha Schools and Castle & Cooke are paying to house 26 families evacuated from the two Lalea buildings considered to be most at risk until the work is completed.

"Two-thirds of the hillside was in our ownership," Hannahs said. "We were startled by the conclusion (of the geologists) that we had a severe problem above two of those buildings, which led us to the decision to evacuate and put the people out of harm's way.

"We're determined to get those residents back into their homes by Nov. 5."

Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com or 395-8831.