Promoters of a planned $25 million artificial reef containing cremated human remains off Hawaii Kai are dropping their “memorial reef” proposal but will push ahead with trying to establish a new fish habitat.

A Hawaii Memorial Reefs LLC official notified the Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board in a letter Sunday that the company has abandoned its plan to deploy structures made with concrete and cremated remains as an artificial reef in Maunalua Bay, after a community outreach effort produced mainly negative feedback. The company still wants to create an artificial reef, just without using cremated remains.

“It is clear that the original concept we proposed was not popular with most individuals we spoke with,” William Haalelea Coney, the company’s marketing director, said in the letter. “It is paramount to our cause that we are ‘Pono’ (virtuous, upright or fitting) with the community in which we operate.”

Coney said the company intends to find another way to finance deployment of the concrete structures called reef balls that have been used in other places as building blocks for artificial reefs that attract fish and coral growth.

Hawaii Memorial initially drew negative public feedback at a July presentation to the neighborhood board after applying for a conservation district use permit from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Goal: Win-win-win

The company, founded by Richard Filanc III, emphasized that its goal was to enhance coral and fish life in a largely lifeless area 40 to 60 feet deep about 1.5 miles off Paiko Peninsula, and that a scientific advisory committee was assisting the company.

With a projected cost of up to $25 million, the artificial-reef project was to be financed by private donations and selling reef balls to individuals or families who wanted to have their loved ones interred therein as part of a dedication ceremony estimated to cost $5,000 to $7,000.

Other benefits the company touted included creating jobs, educational and research opportunities, and a new attraction for diving, fishing and boating.

“We are trying to do this as a win-win-win for the environment, the community and the state of Hawaii,” Filanc said at the board meeting.

Some opponents contended that it was a creepy idea to have remains of the dead housed in an artificial reef, while others didn’t want to see more boat activity in the area.

Hawaii Memorial said most people they talked to supported establishing an artificial reef without cremated remains. Among supporters were Hawaiian community leaders William Aila Jr., Leighton Tseu and Ron Dela Cruz, the company said.

“It should be noted that over 500,000 Reef Balls have been successfully placed in 70 countries in over 3,200 projects around the world in the last 20 years,” Coney said in the letter. “We believe that this reef project will benefit the residents and businesses of Hawaii Kai and help restore our reefs and oceans in Hawaii.”

Coney said the company’s presence in the bay will be limited to just a few team members working a few hours once or twice a week. “Our impact will be minimal,” he said in the letter.

Still, some have doubts about an artificial reef at the site.

Reef debate

Robert Richmond, director of the Kewalo Marine Laboratory at the University of Hawaii Pacific Biosciences Research Center, said his research in Maunalua Bay during the past 10 years has identified sediment, pesticides, pool chemicals and heavy metals as pollution flowing from the land into the bay and harming area reefs along with invasive algae and overfishing.

Richmond said building an artificial reef isn’t a solution to improving the underwater environment. “Maunalua Bay does not suffer from a lack of hard substrata, but rather, from poor water and bottom quality as a result of the above anthropogenic stressors,” he said in written testimony to the neighborhood board. “As such, the proposed designed reef will do nothing to address the root causes of reef decline in Maunalua Bay.”

However, Aila, deputy director of the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and former director of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, expressed a different view in a video presented by Hawaii Memorial.

“I’ve dove the Maunalua Bay reef area,” Aila said. “It’s flat. There’s no place for fish to hide. Once these structures (reef balls) are put in place, I believe that you will see an immediate increase in the amount of fish, herbivores, invertebrates, and then over time as the coral begins to settle, then you will see an increase in the amount of biodiversity with different species coming in. There really is no downside to having artificial reefs in Hawaii.”

Another supporter of reef balls is Eric De Carlo, chairman of the UH Department of Oceanography’s Marine Geology and Geochemistry division. De Carlo heads Hawaii Memorial’s science advisory board, and told the neighborhood board that he is confident coral will grow on an artificial reef in the proposed area.

To move forward, Hawaii Memorial will need to produce an environmental assessment and obtain a conservation district use permit, the latter of which would involve a public hearing. DLNR’s Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands rejected the company’s prior permit application as incomplete.

DLNR told Hawaii Memorial that it needed to consult with community groups, environmental organizations and users of the ocean site, and that documented results be included with an application.

The company hopes to start operations in the third quarter of 2017.