Editorial: Plan needed for coastal erosion

The dramatic picture was worth a thousand words, and many more: a collapsed house, slumped at a 45-degree angle in the sandy shoreline, a victim of strong wave action and sea-level rise. The house at Ke Nui Road west of Sunset Beach Park was the first in the area to fall from coastline erosion, but sadly, likely won’t be the last.

There’s no doubt that last Monday’s dramatic crash into the sand is a harbinger of things to come. After years of scientific warnings of sea-level rise, worsening coastal conditions can no longer be ignored — nor be met with tepid talk, when a solid and cohesive policy is required. It will involve some tough actions by policymakers and lawmakers, aided by coastal experts, to orchestrate a managed retreat from the shoreline amid rising seas and erosion.

Entities such as the state Department of Land and Natural Resources will need to be steadfast — yes, even hard-hearted — against allowing temporary but ultimately futile measures to stave off the sea’s pounding waves. That seems to have begun somewhat, with DLNR’s recent letters to Sunset Beach area residents, warning them against unpermitted structures now littering the public beach.

In desperate attempts to save their homes, which are being increasingly undermined by waves, residents have employed heavy tarps, sandbags and boulders. But such measures are temporary at best, and research has shown that the short-term reprieve for private homes actually redirects wave action onto adjacent beaches, hastening erosion of those publicly enjoyed areas.

A new report last month from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated that sea levels surrounding the U.S. will rise by an average 10-12 inches by 2050, with increases over the next three decades basically surpassing those of the past 100 years. The sea-level rise forecast for Hawaii was a bit more moderate — 6-8 inches by 2050 — but the University of Hawaii Sea Level Center’s director noted that conditions here are exacerbated by ocean conditions such as wave action and winter storms.

It was in 2017 that the Hawaii Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission issued an important clarion call, via its “Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Adaptation Report.” Sea level is rising at increasing rates, it warned, due to global warming of the atmosphere and oceans, and melting of glaciers and ice sheets — with Hawaii at “a growing vulnerability to coastal flooding and erosion.”

Today, welcome to that future.

There is debate on how much financial help — if any — our government should provide to coastal residents now at risk of losing their homes. Certainly, generous bailouts are inadvisable, since all homeowners and landowners bear responsibility for their own private property, the bad along with the good. Still, some governmental aid can’t be dismissed entirely, since any private structure that falls onto public beaches can’t help but become the state’s problem, too.

The Ke Nui Road house, for instance, was in danger last week of strewing wood, glass and other debris from its collapsed structure onto the beach and nearshore waters.

So there needs to begin, now, a dispassionate assessment of the problem statewide, to inform a coordinated strategy. As the 2017 report wisely recommend- ed: An unbiased evaluation of urban areas vulnerable to sea level rise should be conducted to establish priority redevelopment areas for managed retreat. The detailed risk analysis should quantify factors such as potential losses (i.e., structural, economic and tax), with analyses of hot-spots to help determine the order of investment to retreat or adapt, as well as to explore funding options. It surely would be in property owners’ interests to engage in proactive initiatives to retreat from areas vulnerable to future sea level rise.

Last Monday, on site to see the fallen Ke Nui Road house and other at-risk homes, DLNR Director Suzanne Case remarked: “This is just a real wake-up call.”

Truer words could not have been said — and they apply as much to the state’s need for a real strategy, as they do to vulnerable shoreline residents.