Windward highway crumbling as ocean swell nears
DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Trevor Duarte of International Archaeology surveyed an area of Kamehameha Highway on Monday that is eroding south of Kaaawa.
In the 23 years that Arish Riordan has lived in Kaaawa on Kamehameha Highway’s mauka side, she’s watched the beach her family used to enjoy there gradually disappear, replaced by piles of large boulders installed to protect the roadway from the encroaching sea and pummeling surf.
Until this year Riordan never saw parts of the highway fronting her family’s home on rural Kualoa Ranch-owned property actually swallowed by the ocean. However, in the past several weeks the heavy surf has already collapsed two giant chunks of asphalt road and guardrail about 100 feet apart, prompting single lane closures there. The latest closure on that highway, which offers the only route across Oahu’s Windward coast, is expected to last a week as state crews do repairs.
“Honestly, I just wish I had my beach back,” Riordan said Monday. “I’ve never seen it so strong. We are at the mercy of the waves. I don’t know what you can do to stop it from happening.”
The Windward Coast’s recent highway collapses are the latest reminders of the huge challenges that the nation’s only island state faces due to sea-level rise and climate change, according to various officials. Some North Shore residents also are fighting to keep their homes on dry land, and Waikiki officials pour tons of sand to preserve the beaches there.
The situation could get worse tonight. The north-facing shores of Oahu, which include the coast north of Kaneohe Bay, are under a high-surf warning until 6 p.m. Wednesday, with waves of 30 to 40 feet expected.
“I’m not at all surprised at what’s happened with that highway,” said Chip Fletcher, an associate dean and geology professor at the University of Hawaii. “What we’re seeing in Kaaawa is an example of what we’re going to begin to see in more and more places as we move forward.”
The coastal highway between Kaaawa and the Crouching Lion is arguably one of Oahu’s most scenic routes, but according to Fletcher it’s currently one of most vulnerable state areas to the “slow-motion disaster” of sea-level rise.
Nonetheless, various public agencies are playing catch-up to respond.
State Department of Transportation crews have been filling the highway’s collapsed areas with a cementlike material, but it’s considered only a short-term fix. DOT officials say they’re working on long-term fixes and that they’re coordinating with federal, state and county officials to ensure they follow the proper permitting steps.
The DOT had expected to start design and planning work on such a long-term project in three years, but now it aims to start sometime next year instead, according to agency spokesman Tim Sakahara.
“It’s a very complex issue,” Sakahara said Monday. “We don’t want to go in and spend a billion dollars on a new highway only for scientists to come in and say that that stretch … is still in an area of concern. So really, we need more information.”
Meanwhile, the 15 county and state agencies that make up Hawaii’s Interagency Climate Adaptation Committee, which is tasked with finding ways to deal with climate change, aren’t slated to release their first report, on the state’s sea-rise vulnerability, until the end of 2017. State Rep. Chris Lee, who’s a strong supporter of the committee, said it’s currently funded at about $500,000 but that lawmakers have recently discussed increasing the funding by $200,000 to accelerate the work and get more data.
“Speed is of the essence,” but “nothing is in stone” for getting those added dollars, Lee (D, Kailua-Lanikai-Waimanalo) said Monday.
Kamehameha Highway on the central Windward coast presents a tough challenge because it’s tightly squeezed between the coast and private properties, leaving it no place to retreat from the rising sea, officials say. “There’s not a lot of space to work with,” Sakahara said.
Hawaii Gov. David Ige also addressed the issue Monday. “I think the challenge is how do we get from where we are today, with all the highways along the coast, to where we want to be with some reasonable setback that will protect those assets?” Ige said while briefing reporters.
Northbound Kamehameha Highway near Kaaawa Valley Road and Kanenelu Beach will remain closed for about a week, reducing the highway to one lane, according to a DOT release. A previous closure occurred there in mid-February after high surf washed over the area. Local residents and workers reported minimal headaches from the contra-flow so far. Jodi Wade, postmaster at the Kaaawa Post Office, said it would be “horrific” to lose Kamehameha Highway.
“If it’s permanently out, this community would be closed off,” she said. Similar damage near the Crouching Lion led to months of repair work last year.
“It’s just going to keep breaking — there’s nothing you can do about it,” Kayla Kamaka‘ala, a 33-year-old lifelong resident of the area, said while leaving mail there. “If you drive and you look at (the road) carefully, it’s cracking in a lot of places.”
Fletcher said he was surprised that the state’s wall of boulders has helped keep the road from crumbling for as long as it has. Any long-term solution could be costly, he said. Fletcher said that he believed “the benefit-cost ratio leans in favor of keeping the road where it is and continuing to find a way to protect that road.”
Protective seawalls typically act to further erode other nearby beaches — but where the Kaaawa road is crumbling, there aren’t any nearby beaches left, he added.
“I think we are at a rock and a hard place here,” Fletcher said.
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Star-Advertiser reporter Sophie Cocke contributed to this report.
23 responses to “Windward highway crumbling as ocean swell nears”
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The State and County have ignored this area since I was a kid and i’m 58. Another do nothing situation.
“Who cares”. The poor folk on the windward side fall into the same category as the west side. Once you get past The Valley of the Temples, your place on the priority list drops off the charts. Whether you are talking about the roads, sewage system (predominantly nonexistent), mail service, etc., we are way way down on the list.
Time to go back to the old way of travel…canoe and horseback! Ige-noramous is in over his small head and short body. One-term Gov!
Do we really have to wait for a FULL-TERM? Take him FISHING…
We don’t need INFRASTRUCTURE–WE HAVE “THE RAIL”! (..and, as ROME BURNED–“NERO” ran about the city giving POLITICAL SPEECHES. And, those who dared laugh were thrown to THE LIONS to appease the populous..)
Get your head out of your okole. We need both. Transportation is not a zero sum game.
YOU MAY RECALL “THE BUS” aka “DA BUS”… For one-tenth the cost of “THE RAIL” there could be/would have been, in FULL OPERATION, 100 more Buses–SERVICING MORE LOCATIONS at more frequent intervals and EMPLOYING MORE FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES. AND, for another $100M Honolulu would/could have more ROADWAYS AND FREEWAY LANES–EXITS AND ENTRANCES– and additionally employ more LOCALS, as opposed to THE RAIL which depends on “FOREIGN LABOR”. AND, for another $100M Honolulu could invest in “INFRASRTUCTURE” repair and replacements and insure that the existing SEWER WATER isn’t flowing in to the islands precious DRINKING WATER. SO, GO TELL YOUR “UNION-MASTERS” that (NUMBNUTS)…
Ditto that Farkward.
Our officials should visit Japan to observe how they have initiated anti-ocean erosion measures for their hundreds of miles of coastline. Their engineers are far ahead of the game.
Agree. Japanese do not have all the bureaucratic red tape the USA does to make work for bureaucrats. They see a problem, they fix it. In this case with concrete Tetrapods.
State needs to get moving and follow the successful Japanese approach.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2007/07/22/to-be-sorted/tetrapods/
Agree. While the “tetrapods” (4 legged concrete pods) were first invented in France in the 50’s, Japan now uses them all around their islands. The once patented tetra design is so designed and stacked to slow down or halt wave action. To see them stacked up along the beach may not be pleasing but it does the job of limiting erosion. Japan, for one, uses these concrete blocks very effectively. Why is Hawaii so behind times, especially when many of the state/city department heads have been to Japan and couldn’t help but notice them on beaches?
I mentioned to the DOT in the 90’s about using tetrapods for erosion prevention and fish breeding as they do in Okinawa. Put them along the shores that are slowly being eaten away by the waves along the Windward side but was told that it would be an unsightly sight and spoil the beauty of the ocean. Agree, the elected and appointed officials of this state are so behind times. Hawaii needs more people with common sense instead going out to lunch everyday and do nothing attitude.
There are tetrapods at the end of the breakwater at the entrance to Hickam Harbor. DOT can check it out.
They need to build a long artificial reef offshore spanning the entire threatened coastline. This will stop the large waves from crashing on the shore and eroding the land. This is probably the cheapest and most long-lasting way of dealing with the problem of sea level rise. Just repairing the road every time it erodes is ridiculous. Just repairing the road is a temporary and expensive fix. The waves will just keep washing it away. You need to stop the big waves from hitting the land.
“the benefit-cost ratio leans in favor of keeping the road where it is and continuing to find a way to protect that road.”
Since the road will need to be relocated or protected by a massive wall from Kualoa Ranch to at least Haaula it would be interesting to see what alternatives are being considered and what each one costs. Sure sounds like protecting the road is going to leave us with a very ugly stretch of coastline. Or, like Kaena Point, do we just let the ocean take the road and be done with it?
Update – maybe we could turn this problem into a tourist attraction . . . http://www.dailyliked.net/dangerous-roadway-norway/
Not really. If you Google Map this area you see where the mountains come very close to the ocean. There is no room to relocate/move the road. State will have to build shore protection to save the road.
I hope the people who live there and are complaining about the ocean encroaching their properties aren’t the same who have “keep the country, country” stickers on their 4x4s…the ocean is doing what it does…anybody wanna buy my “keep the ocean, ocean” bumper stickers?
Probably the same ones that were opposed to widening Kahekili from a 2 lane to a 4 lane. The fact that they haven’t already done this all the way to the Higenic store is insane. You have all the room in the world to do it, simply a handful of hippies that think by widening that little stretch of highway it would result in an open invitation for development all the way to Kahuku. The only thing it would change, is the amount of time all of us need to sit in traffic; both ways.
I predict that we will see pictures like this over and over again as we move into the more into our new global warming phase. What plans have the State made to deal with this? Band-aids and denial are not going to cut it.
This is no “just fix it”situation. The engineering for the road was OK for its time, but not anymore. Putting aside the impact of rising sea level, the cost to rebuild this road with a long term fix in its present location will exceed a $billion dollars. To the person who suggested an artificial reef, there already is a reef offshore and it absorbs much of the wave energy, but the surge will come to shore and do what it does.
Our new vehicle taxes will SOLVE this problem
Don’t worry- the DOT will come up with a solution in about 5 years. Oh, the DOT now say that they need a bigger increase in the gas tax and vehicle registration and weight fees.