Dennis “Bumpy” Kanahele, head of the sovereign Nation of Hawaii, knows firsthand the layout of the Waimanalo golf course that abruptly closed Friday.
Kanahele at the age of 17 helped build the cement pathways that weave through the 18-hole Olomana Golf Links. He worked his way up the ranks at the course during the 1960s and 1970s, eventually operating the driving range and managing the pro shop and tee times.
With news that the company couldn’t continue to pay vendors and employees and was closing the golf course indefinitely, Kanahele — who lives a few miles above the property at the base of the Koolaus — is hoping to step in. This time it would be in the role of redeveloper of the land and restorer of the ahupuaa (a land division that runs from the mountains to the ocean).
The golf course and surrounding land have been plagued by flooding from the adjacent Waimanalo Stream on the Marine Corps property at Bellows Air Force Station, largely leading to its financial troubles.
The land is owned by the state and was leased to the golf course owner. The state Department of Land and Natural Resources, which oversees the property, declined to comment Tuesday on Kanahele’s plan.
“If the golf course is having problems,” Kanahele said, “and people are not wanting (to) come there and make big investments and leave the place run-down, that’s sad because I knew what (it) looked like. I think we can create more jobs by creating some kind of Hawaiian village using 21st-century technologies to restore the ahupuaa.”
“There’s a lot of people getting flooded out in Waimanalo, especially the low-lying areas, in part because the water doesn’t know where to go. That’s why I think a system is necessary to try to alleviate all the problems. It could rest in the golf course. Water could settle there and be utilized,” he said.
Kanahele is hoping to assume control of the land to create another village to house the growing homeless population.
In the early 1990s the Hawaiian leader and his group of 300 mostly Native Hawaiians attracted international attention when they occupied Makapuu Beach Park for 15 months, prompting heated tensions with then-Mayor Frank Fasi. The ordeal led to Kanahele’s group signing a 55-year lease in 1994 with the state for undeveloped mauka lands for $3,000 per year, or $250 per month.
“The old-timers who worked there in the past, they know they used to have a lot of fish come up in the golf course — mullet, papio, awaawa and Samoan crabs,” he said. “Our concept is to create a 21st-century ahupuaa system. We’re kind of like excited because I think this is one way we can coexist and work on something and still allow us to exercise our rights to self-governance.”
In 2013 Kanahele said he signed a contract to use an ionizing water treatment technology to clean contaminated water. He said he’d like to work with state government, the military and the larger community to restore the land and solve the flooding and homeless problems at the same time.
“It’s kind of like just taking responsibility for what we know is possible,” he said. “I’ve been here 25 years, and we’ve seen a lot of things change with all rain and water that’s been increasingly higher now. The golf course would be a village which could probably be worked into helping the homeless … in Waimanalo. It connects to all the different social issues the government is facing today. By being here all these years, we realize we’re falling into the shoes of our elders who once had responsibility of the water out here. Progress did us in. They were not thinking that Mother Nature has the last say in a lot of things.”
