The technology is not complicated, he said, and has been used extensively on the Mainland.

A barge will be moored about 2,000 feet offshore, above a sand bank identified in a University of Hawai'i survey as having plentiful, clean sand. The barge will be equipped with a hydraulic sand dredge and connected to a submerged pipeline system to the beach.

The sand will be pumped to a retention basin on the beach, where it will be allowed to dry. Then heavy equipment will be used to push the sand where it is needed on Kuhio Beach.

The $500,000 project is expected to begin in October and take 20 to 30 days. It will bring up about 10,000 cubic yards of offshore sand.

Previous beach replenishment in Hawai'i has been done by trucking sand from quarries, at a cost of $25 to $60 a cubic yard.

Eversole said if the pumping system is successful, as expected, it could be used to replenish beaches statewide, and the cost per cubic yard would be considerably less for larger projects.

"We are very interested in using this technology in other places," he said. "There is a lot of interest on Maui, where they discourage seawalls and shoreline setbacks have been increased."

Decades ago, seawalls were the standard form of shoreline protection in Hawai'i. But seawalls have proven to do little more than save the property they front, while often increasing erosion of sand on neighboring properties.

"This will establish the ability to do this kind of work in Hawai'i," said Sam Lemmo, administrator of the state Department of Land and Natural Resource's Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands. "It could be Waikiki or it could be Maui — it doesn't matter. There are tons of sand sources in the offshore areas."

Lemmo said the pumping technology was used in 2000 to bring about 1,000 cubic yards of sand onto Kuhio Beach, but the contractor had some technical problems. The state has refined the process, and American Marine, which dredged the Ala Wai Canal last year, will do the Waikiki work.

Eversole said the sand would be placed in three areas of Kuhio Beach where it is urgently needed. "Some areas of beach are not even there at high tide," he said. "Palm trees are being undermined, and walkways have big drop-offs."

At a recent public hearing on the project, surfers and beach concessions said they were worried that removing the sand below prime surf spots would affect the waves. They asked that a study be done before the project starts.

"Surf is a big deal for us beach boys in Waikiki, as well as the people that come here," said Clyde Aikau of C&K Beach Services. "I hope your project doesn't ruin our surf."

George Downing, a longtime surfer and member of Save Our Surf, said residents have been fighting to protect surf spots for generations.

"People come here for the excitement of surfing, the waves," Downing said. "If you just want a beach, you could go to Cabo (San Lucas in Mexico). This is the magic. Don't take a chance and damage our surf."

Lemmo said some 250,000 cubic yards of sand have been added to the beach at Waikiki since the 1930s, much of which now rests offshore. The 10,000 cubic yards being pumped in this project means recycling a small amount of sand, he said, and will not affect surf spots.

The data obtained from the project will be used to establish appropriate environmental and design parameters, cost estimates, pumping system designs and production rates for future beach replenishment efforts, he said.