Hanalei boat tours dwindle
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau
Tourists still walk down the packed sand at the mouth of the Hanalei River to climb aboard "Captain Sundown" Bob Butler's catamaran for a sail down the Na Pali Coast.
But the wild days of Hanalei commercial boating are over. The two dozen boat companies that once operated there no longer haul hundreds of visitors daily out of the Hanalei River and down the coastline. Also gone are the masses of people who once lined up to climb aboard little inflatable boats and big ones, sailboats and power craft.
Gone, too, are the angry residents who worried about the safety of their kids swimming among the boats and about fuel spills at their riverside beach park.
Today, only three boat companies operate: Butler's, John White's Whitey's Boat Cruises and Ralph Young's Hanalei Sport Fishing and Tours.
They were the last three Hanalei boat-tour firms that held county permits to operate, and when the state tried to end all commercial boating in Hanalei, the businesses went to federal court.
U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor last year ruled that the state lacked authority over Coast Guard-licensed boaters. Late in the summer, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected the state's appeal of that ruling.
The appeals court said that although the state has the power to enact reasonable regulation to support legitimate community interests, it can't just deny outright the rights of boaters who have federally licensed authority to conduct business in coastal waters.
"We are sympathetic to the challenges posed by the user conflicts occurring in the (Hanalei) bay. We hold, however, that the state's refusal to issue use permits under any conditions has effectively rendered it impossible for the plaintiffs to comply with both federal and state laws in order to ply their trade," the ruling said.
In their initial reaction to Gillmor's ruling, state officials expressed concern that no state regulation was possible on coastal boating.
After reading the appeal, the state has concluded that it has the right to regulate and perhaps even to ban boating, but it needs proper justification to do so, said Yvonne Izu, deputy attorney general for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.
Izu soon will brief the Board of Land and Natural Resources, which oversees the state Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation.
"The state can enforce reasonable environmental laws, but this wasn't even tied to the environment," said attorney Jack Schwei-gert, who represents Butler. "Other boats go there and do commercial fishing, and by fishing they do damage to the environment. How can a sailboat be banned when all it does is carry people out of the harbor?"
Maui attorney Dennis Niles, who represents White and Young, said the decision "puts an important restraint on the state's powers to do what it wants in navigable waters. Once the federal government empowers vessels to operate, the state's regulatory powers are limited."
Izu conceded that most of the issues the state used to justify its boating ban were land-based — things like parking problems and restroom congestion — and not linked to the direct impact of operating boats in the coastal waters.
"The court said there wasn't enough justification" for a boating ban, she said.
Some of the original Hanalei boat companies have moved their operations to the commercial harbor at Port Allen on the west side of the island.
Some have closed, some have consolidated, and most of the survivors have converted to larger boats.
Operator Steve Cole said he doesn't think it likely that many of those firms will try to return to Hanalei.
"I think the guys who went to Port Allen were so burned they don't even want to deal with it anymore," Cole said.
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.
