State funds would boost Ala Wai effort

Stakeholders who want to improve the viability of the Ala Wai watershed, including the filthy Ala Wai Canal, are closer to receiving state funding for their efforts.

State representatives have inserted $250,000 in the House budget to seed the Ala Wai Watershed Collaboration, a group of stakeholders seeking to set up a community-based Ala Wai Improvement District. If the funds are released by Gov. David Ige, members of the collaboration would take about 18 months to establish the district’s framework. Members plan to raise another $260,000 from the private sector to formulate an action plan.

“This initiative is being proposed in order to have a mechanism for addressing the water quality and flooding and other issues for the district going forward,” said Rick Egged, president of the Waikiki Improvement Association. “There’s no question that the state and city don’t have the resources to provide the ongoing maintenance that is required to manage the watershed.”

Hawaii has spent 20 years trying to improve the Ala Wai watershed, a 19-square-mile area that joins water bodies from the ridge of the Koolau Mountains to Mamala Bay’s nearshore waters. An unpopular flood-mitigation proposal by the Army Corps of Engineers for the Ala Wai Canal is in the works to reduce 100-year-flood risks at the man-made waterway, constructed during the 1920s to drain coastal wetlands to develop Waikiki. (The term “100-year flood” refers to an event of such devastating magnitude that has a chance of occurring once every 100 years on average.)

“I don’t think it will ever get built,” said Michael Hamnett, the collaboration’s chairman.

The corps’ plan is among a half-dozen restoration proposals, including the University of Hawaii’s “Make the Ala Wai Awesome” student design challenge, which concludes March 17. Hamnett said the collaboration will sort through these plans and come up with additional solutions.

Nainoa Thompson, who is best known for bringing back the ancient Polynesian art of navigation through the voyages of the double-hulled canoe Hokule‘a, supported the collaboration’s launch in October, along with Kyo-ya Hotels &Resorts and the Waikiki Improvement Association. Representatives from the tourism industry, schools, nonprofits and restoration organizations have since joined the high-stakes effort.

According to a corps engineering study and other insurance risk studies, if a Category 4 hurricane hit Oahu, the damage to Waikiki alone could hit $30 billion. Likewise, a 100-year flood in the dense watershed that feeds the canal could cost an estimated $318 million, affecting about 1,358 acres and more than 3,000 properties.