A Rocky Point property owner who is facing $92,000 in fines for orchestrating a major sand push to protect his two oceanfront homes and refusing to remove sandbags and other debris littering the public beach is requesting a contested case hearing that will likely prolong the case for many months.

The state Board of Land and Natural Resources is scheduled to vote on the request during a public meeting Tuesday.

Todd Dunphy, the property owner at 59-181-E and 59-181-F Ke Nui Road, hasn’t denied employing an excavator to move massive amounts of sand along the North Shore to protect his homes and those of his neighbors. Indeed, he told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser last month that he had to buy the excavator because a licensed contractor wouldn’t take the risk of illegally doing the work.

He also vowed to use the excavator to do sand pushes all along the North Shore to protect other homes.

But Dunphy, through his attorney, Myles Breiner, argues in documents filed with the state that he was entitled to do the work because state officials refused to help him as 30- to 40-foot waves pummeled the North Shore earlier this year.

The state’s inaction “was entirely unacceptable, negligent and emblematic of the institutional and bureaucratic paralysis rampant throughout” the Department of Land and Natural Resources and its Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands, Breiner wrote in a May 2 letter to Land Board Chair Suzanne Case on behalf of Dunphy.

Dunphy also argues he’s not responsible for some of the old debris in front of his home that the state is citing him for because he was in prison at the time.

In 2012, Dunphy was sentenced to nearly three years in prison for selling large amounts of marijuana, according to court documents.

The proposed state fine is not the only penalty Dunphy has faced in recent years for alleged violations relating to the two properties. He’s also been accruing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines from the city for failing to correct shoreline violations that date back to 2006.

In 2006, Honolulu’s Department of Planning and Permitting fined him $500 for concrete poles that it says were constructed in the shoreline area in front of his home at 59-181-F Ke Nui Road. DPP says Dunphy has yet to correct the violation and has been accruing fines of $50 a day. The fine now totals $283,350.

The city also fined Dunphy in 2013 for alleged violations on the same property. DPP says Dunphy built unauthorized decks, a hot tub and cabana within the shoreline area that he still hasn’t removed. The fine now totals $168,900, according to DPP.

The department says it placed liens on the property in 2018.

DPP also fined Dunphy in 2021 for violations relating to a stairway and roof deck on his neighboring property at 59-181-E Ke Nui Road. That fine, which also is accruing daily, now totals $9,450, according to DPP.

Dunphy’s properties are among a string of homes along the famous North Shore coastline that are threatened by the ocean. The area of Rocky Point, in particular, has become increasingly marred by illegal sandbags, heavy black tarps and boulders as homeowners have sought to stave off the ocean at the expense of the public shoreline.

In February, the home of one of Dunphy’s neighbors collapsed onto the beach, showcasing the increasingly dangerous predicament the situation poses to the occupants of the homes and the public.

Many North Shore homeowners, including Dunphy, have been brazen in their efforts to protect their homes, refusing to comply with state conservation laws and eliciting a backlash from the public.

Oahu has already lost about one-quarter of its beaches to seawalls and other barriers erected by property owners to protect their homes, condos and hotels, as well as seawalls constructed by the state to protect coastal roads.

On Friday, a coalition of coastal protection organizations issued a joint statement urging the state to enforce fines and other penalties against property owners, including Dunphy, who violate laws in place to protect the state’s beaches, which are a public trust resource.

“We have clear mandates and commitments from our government and our local community to maintain and protect our shorelines,” according to the statement issued by Surfrider Foundation O‘ahu Chapter, Hui O He‘e Nalu, Sierra Club of Hawai‘i and the Hawai‘i Shore and Beach Preservation Association.

“We therefore implore the Board of Land and Natural Resources to enforce fines against private property owners who violate the laws of the conservation district and in doing so, send a clear message that our beaches, as a public trust, cannot be manipulated and altered for the benefit of private landowners, especially at the detriment of the public beach.”

Dunphy did not respond to a Star-Advertiser request for comment.