19 Kapi'olani Park palms due to get the ax today
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
City officials today plan to remove 19 damaged or dying coconut trees from a grove of about 200 in Kapi'olani Park between the Waikiki Aquarium and Kaimana Beach.
Officials with the Outdoor Circle were consulted and agree that the trees have to be removed. But Bob Loy, the Outdoor Circle's director of environmental programs, hopes city officials follow through with plans to replace the 19 trees with 29 healthy ones.
"There is a plan that they will be replaced and there is the intent that they will be replaced," Loy said. "But there is the voice of doubt that there is money to make those plans come to fruition. That's a big concern for the Outdoor Circle, and it should be a concern for the people of this island. I don't doubt for a second that it's an expensive proposition. But if the city doesn't make the investment now, it will be very difficult to make it up in the future."
City officials are talking to contractors about replacing the coconut trees, some of which are 80 feet tall and could date to the early 1900s, said Stan Oka, chief of the city's division of urban forestry. So far, the city has not received any estimates on the cost of replacing the trees, he said.
"We may not do it all at one time," Oka said. "We are looking at our funds ... but we hope to replant as soon as we can. We don't like to wait too long."
Some of the 19 damaged trees have cavities at their bases and trunks and "are declining to the point that they will probably die pretty soon," Oka said.
They suffer from a variety of problems.
Some have reached the end of their lives or been destroyed by termites. Others appear to have been hit by vehicles or machinery — or been ruined by people placing hot barbecue coals at their bases.
Loy, who called hot charcoal "the biggest killer of trees in the city," said: "People have no idea the damage they cause to trees."
Another 60 to 70 trees in the grove will be monitored over the next several months and probably will have to be removed as well, said Oka.
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.
