A $1 million fine will get a landowner’s attention. With two penalties of nearly $1 million each against North Shore homeowners who’ve committed repeated shoreline violations, Hawaii’s Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) has opted to take that hard-line approach — properly, because of the damage to an irreplaceable public beach and oceanfront that shoreline hardening causes.

The high fines signal that the BLNR is finally committing to holding landowners responsible for damaging Oahu’s besieged North Shore oceanfront. The state must now stand firm on beach protection, bringing Hawaii’s era of permissiveness over shoreline-hardening to a definitive close.

The situation has reached a point of urgency. Many of the island’s beaches are on a disappearing trajectory, after a century of beach loss caused by seawalls and dredging, building too close to shorelines followed by construction of barriers and groins, and hardening with sandbags, concrete or boulder placement. To date, Oahu has lost about 25% of its beachfront to shoreline hardening — and the North Shore is now suffering dramatic losses. “During the last several years, beach erosion in this area appears to have intensified significantly,” the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) states.

Enforcement against homeowners who violate shoreline protection law is just one of the tools that must be put into play, and it’s proving necessary: For the past three years, the DLNR has refused to allow or renew any temporary emergency beach interventions, but property owners, including those fined, continued to install unauthorized structures.

The homeowners, both with properties on Ke Nui Road fronting Sunset Beach, were fined on Jan. 12: $948,000 for Sunset Oasis LLC’s William and Melinda Kernot; and $993,000 for Zhungo LLC’s Rodney Youman. Both owners’ fines included penalties of $1,000 for each day that a July 18, 2021, order to remove structures wasn’t followed.

Although both have requested contested case hearings, the penalties are justified. BLNR has offered to reduce the fines and to apply costs incurred if the homeowners agree to remove homes from the shoreline and to dismantle erosion control structures from the beach and oceanfront, which is state land up to the high-water mark.

Over the past year, the BLNR has fined three other Ke Nui Road homeowners for unauthorized shoreline work, including a $77,000 fine for pouring concrete on the beach, issued in January. All requested contested cases, with two pending; the third lost, and has been ordered to create a plan to remove structures.

Another aspect that needs attention is the contested- case process itself, which has enabled violators to stall and stretch out cases for years. Ways to speed up a plodding process must be considered, to add teeth to collecting fines and to enforce remedies in a more timely manner.

In 2020, after an investigative series by the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica revealed that DLNR issued dozens of “emergency” permits for interventions to private property owners between 2000 and 2020, despite a zero-tolerance policy for seawalls adopted in 1999, the state began reexamining its approach to beach hardening by private landowners. The problem had been allowed to intensify, as state officials allowed hardening structures that were meant to be temporary to remain for years and even decades, with little consequence if rules were ignored. Since then, DLNR and BLNR have gradually stepped up enforcement.

A $1 million fine is an impactful penalty, and reflects a forceful commitment by BLNR to throttle back damaging and unlawful shoreline alterations. That’s as it should be. Firm and persistent action is required in this era of climate change and sea level rise to prevent further losses.

Over the long run, and with the survival of Oahu’s treasured North Shore beaches and surf breaks at stake, the need for concerted action by the state and city looms. This is where, for example, Gov. Josh Green’s proposed $25 visitor impact fee may play a part. The Legislature must adopt this fee and make good use of the additional funds it would provide by making plans for a challenging future.