Olomana golf course appeals to state, military on flooding and late rent

A Waimanalo golf course, where former President Barack Obama has played when visiting the islands, is in a rough spot.

Olomana Golf Links has been hit by so much flooding over the last year that it lost around $400,000 and is in severe arrears on rent owed to the state. The business also claims that flooding was due to negligent maintenance of Waimanalo Stream on adjacent U.S. Marine Corps property at Bellows Air Force Station.

“We have suffered great economic hardship,” Ed Kageyama, general manager of the golf course, said in a June letter to the state in response to a default notice for a land lease with the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Kageyama said in an interview on Monday that state and military officials have been understanding and cooperative. He also is optimistic that what he understands is a $2.7 million dredging project the Marine Corps began Monday will prevent future flooding, as will better routine maintenance of the stream channel where it connects with the ocean at Bellows.

Another sign of potential relief for the golf course is a DLNR staff recommendation to allow repayment of delinquent rent in installments with no interest or late fees. The Marine Corps also is considering a damage claim filed by Olomana Golf.

Kageyama is hopeful that the worst has passed, but there is still a big mess — both financially and in customer perception — to clean up.

DLNR said Olomana Golf, which pays $140,000 a year to lease state land, owes about $164,000 in overdue rent for 135 acres. Another $9,409 is overdue under a revocable permit for a golf course plant nursery.

Adding to the trouble is the perception by some golfers who would rather not schedule tee times because they know heavy rains could result in closures.

“The hardest part is we have this reputation that we flood,” Kageyama said. “People don’t want to book us because they think we’re unreliable.”

The longest shutdown lasted 16 days following Tropical Storm Darby last July. Kageyama said 3 inches of rain fell on the golf course and didn’t present a problem. But he said poor maintenance of Waimanalo Stream within the 1,078-acre Marine Corps training grounds at Bellows caused the stream to overflow and dump up to 10 inches of mud on the golf course.

Five of Olomana Golf’s holes were turned into mud bogs — and parts of other holes were flooded. “That shut us down,” he said. “Nobody wants to play an eight-hole golf course.”

Then not long after all 18 holes were back in play, another rainstorm hit Aug. 23 and shut down the course for six days.

Since August, Olomana Golf said there were another 68 days where it had to close or modify play due to flooding from Waimanalo Stream on Marine Corps property, including periods in September, February, March and April.

The golf course lost revenue and had to spend extra money on cleanup but managed not to lay off any of its 35 employees, according to Kageyama, who added that insurance coverage excludes floods.

Kageyama said the Marine Corps let him know that a private contractor maintains the stream channel on its land, but to Kageyama the work seemed inadequate. “It’s a forest of California grass in their channel,” he said. “It’s a forest. There were some times you couldn’t even tell there was a canal there.”

The Marine Corps, asked about the claims, described the dredging project and said, “Marine Corps Base Hawaii is committed to supporting and fostering good relations with our communities and the people of Hawaii.”

Olomana Golf is naturally susceptible to flooding. It was built in a flood plain. This, in itself, isn’t unusual. Land planners often design golf courses to serve as drainage basins. However, Kageyama contends that the severe flood damage at Olomana Golf occurred because the stream, which runs close to one edge of the golf course, couldn’t do what it was supposed to do.

“These things (floods) are avoidable, or at least you can mitigate them better,” he said.

In early 2006, Olomana Golf was forced to close for 13 days following several days of heavy rains, which a golf course official at the time said resulted in $60,000 of lost revenue and $40,000 in damage that included mud covering three greens and five fairways.

In 2014, the U.S. Department of Defense noted that it initiated a project to dredge Waimanalo Stream for the first time since the Marine Corps took possession of Bellows from the Air Force in 2000. As part of that project, 30,000 cubic yards of sediment and soil were to be removed along with debris and heavy vegetative growth that was constricting stream flow.

Olomana Golf is asking DLNR for 60 months to repay back rent and hopes flood problems won’t recur after the current dredging operation to remove 17,000 cubic yards of sediment is completed by year’s end. DLNR’s board is scheduled to make a decision at a meeting on Friday.