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A draft environmental impact statement is being prepared for a $12 million Waikiki Beach Improvement and Maintenance Program, proposed by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources in partnership with the Waikiki Beach Special Improvement District Association, that envisions constructing structures makai of the waterline, dredging sand and placing it on the shore; the entire program area extends from the Kapahulu Groin to the Ewa end of Fort DeRussy Beach.
January 12, 2021
A plan is moving forward to keep Waikiki’s existing beaches from disappearing and create a “new” beach near the shoreline of the Halekulani Hotel, which has been devoid of dry sand for years.
Without intervention Waikiki’s predominantly engineered beaches, which were estimated to bring in $2.2 billion in annual visitor spending prior to the pandemic, could be totally lost before the end of the century, said Dolan Eversole, Waikiki Beach management coordinator for the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program.
Eversole, who is coordinating a private partnership between the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Waikiki Beach Special Improvement District Association, said proposed beach improvement and maintenance projects are planned for Fort DeRussy, Halekulani, Royal Hawaiian and Kuhio Beach. Projects include construction of new beach stabilization structures and the recovery of offshore sand and its placement on the shoreline…..Click Here for full article.
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By HNN Staff | May 1, 2020 at 9:26 PM HST - Updated May 1 at 9:26 PM
HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - In Waikiki, crews will start work next week on a new 160-foot long groin in front of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.
The construction was set for the fall, but it has been moved up since fewer people are on the beach because of the state’s stay-at-home order.
Half of the $1.5 million price tag is coming from special taxes on Waikiki commercial properties.
The state says the existing groin was installed 93 years ago. It serves to protect the popular stretch of Waikiki beach.
Structural engineers found the aging groin to be at risk for failing after cracks, bowing, large voids and no internal reinforcement were found. If the groin gives way, erosion is estimated to eat away at over 1,700 feet of sandy shoreline on the groin’s east side.
“This project serves as a critical erosion control measure that will improve the stability of Waikiki Beach but is also an important step towards increased the resilience of Waikiki Beach to coastal hazard events and climate change impacts such as sea-level rise in Waikiki,” said Sam Lemmo, OCCL Administrator.
Crews will begin moving equipment onto the sand next week.
By Melanie Yamaguchi | February 24, 2020 at 11:16 AM HST - Updated February 25 at 12:50 PM
WAIKIKI, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - It’s an unusually overcast and blustery day in Waikiki so author John Clark is wearing a windbreaker as he strolls down the shoreline of a spot known as “Publics.”The salty mist in the air and sound of waves crashing on shore make Clark, a retired deputy Honolulu fire chief, nostalgic for a childhood spent in the waters off Waikiki.He learned to surf here when he was 8, grew up just down the street. His parents bought a lot near Triangle Park and his father, in construction, would help craft Waikiki’s modern shoreline.Back then, Clark’s go-to spot was “Canoes” — right in front of the Moana Hotel. He’s since ridden so many other breaks.But what he loves about Waikiki today is what he loved about it in the 1950s — as a kid who couldn’t wait for the school day to end so he could head to the beach, jump on a surfboard, and ride the waves that made Duke Kahanamoku famous on the shoreline where royalty once lived.“I've been in and out of Waikiki as a surfer my entire life,” said Clark, who’s written 10 books on the history of Hawaii beaches and has extensively studied the surfing history of Waikiki.“That's what makes it a fun place.”For many Hawaii residents, Waikiki is hardly a paradise. Overbuilt, overpriced, overcrowded — lots of folks who call the islands home are more likely to avoid it than make the trip.But underneath the glitz and the overly-idyllic sales pitch, Clark and people like him see something more: A gathering place that’s home to centuries of important Hawaii history, from the setting for ancient battles to a playground of Hawaiian royalty and the former seat of government.It’s a history that’s been all but forgotten by many and, arguably, all but ignored by the tourism industry. But celebrating Waikiki’s rich past could be key, some say, to mapping out its future.
Part of what makes Waikiki so popular are the man-made beaches and the perfect surfing weather Development marks the start of tourism in Waikiki. Waikiki is a gathering place that’s home to centuries of important Hawaiian history. Waikiki has become a gateway to Hawaii and a major destination for thousands of visitorsHere are some important pieces of Waikiki’s history you might’ve missed:
Countless battles were fought on the land that’s now Kapiolani Park. Of the roughly 10 million tourists who visit Hawaii each year, 6 in 10 still count Waikiki as a primary destination.But long before it was a tourism mecca on a global scale, Waikiki was a gathering place for alii ― for business and pleasure.As Hawaii has changed, so has Waikiki — and on a Waikiki-sized scale.Famous Waikiki Beach is geo-engineered. Waikiki’s wetlands were drained in the creation of the Ala Wai Canal, one of the state’s biggest public works projects of all time. And the very ground that Waikiki’s hotels and high rises sits on was lifted, making Waikiki’s very topography manmade.But while Waikiki may very well be unrecognizable from the place Hawaiian royals knew centuries ago, its rich history can be seen at every turn.Just ask Rick Egged, of the Waikiki Improvement Association.He gets animated when he talks about Waikiki, just a little breathless. Waikiki, he says, doesn’t begin and end with a beach.Six centuries ago, it was deemed the government center of Oahu, a place fit for Hawaii’s elite.And in the 18th century, it was the site of countless historic battles as armies from Maui and the Big Island landed near Kapiolani Park in conquest bids.“One of the things we often find around Waikiki is a lot of iwi — or bones — of our ancestors,” said Egged, sitting in his office on Kalakaua Avenue a recent day.From there, under the shadow of soaring highrise towers, it’s hard to imagine the Waikiki of yesteryear. The place that nature created — where fishponds and wetlands, covered with taro patches, once filled the landscape.
Surfing in Waikiki has always been really big.Some might think Waikiki’s modern history begins in the 1900s, at the advent of its first hotels. But you could argue it actually started in 1809, when Kamehameha I moved his headquarters to Honolulu and Waikiki became a favorite retreat for the Hawaiian monarchy.Kamehameha IV, Kamehameha V and Lunalilo — who consecutively ruled Hawaii from 1854 to 1874 — all had homes in Waikiki.In fact, what's now the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani Hotel was once the site of Ainahau, the sprawling estate where Princess Kaiulani grew up and enjoyed bathing in Waikiki’s waters.But the royalty — and foreigners who lived in Hawaii — not only relaxed on Waikiki’s shorline. They loved to surf.Before the days of lightweight shortboards and longboards made of foam, surfers hauled massive, wooden boards — some as long as 24 feet — into the ocean to catch waves.It wasn’t until around 1910 when Duke Kahanamoku — the father of modern surfing — introduced the 10-foot-long surfboard to the islands.Clark, the historian and author, said the history of surfing is intertwined in the history of Waikiki."Waikiki has always been a focal point for Native Hawaiians and was particularly attractive to royalty because they surfed," said Clark, an avid surfer himself."Hawaiian royalty, all of them, men, women, young, old. They were all surfers."Clark points out that popular surf spots, with names like "Queens," "Publics" and "Castles" and "Canoes,” were originally surfed by Native Hawaiians and had Hawaiian names."Waikiki is one of the best surfing areas in all of the Hawaiian islands, so they were attracted to this place," Clark said.Full ScreenAutoplay1 of 51The history of Waikiki spans several centuries. (Source: Bishop Museum)
Material dredged from the Ala Wai Canal was used to elevate Waikiki land.But as picturesque as early Waikiki sounds, it had a big problem.Waikiki, loosely translated as "spouting waters,” was a hotbed for mosquitoes.The insects, introduced accidentally to the islands in 1826, swarmed the ponds and wetlands and raised concern about diseases.It was those concerns, along with an interest in further developing the area, that ultimately led to one of the state’s largest feats of engineering: the draining of Waikiki’s wetlands in the 1920s and dredging of the Ala Wai Canal."The modern-day Waikiki that we know of came about when they began to dig the Ala Wai Canal," Egged said."The original justification for the Ala Wai Canal was disease control because there's so much wetlands in Waikiki, basically the area between what is now the Hilton Hawaiian Village and Kapiolani Park was wet because of the streams that ran through there."The construction of the modern Ala Wai Canal took nearly a decade.Crews dredged the 2-mile-long waterway, and the material was used to fill rice paddies, taro patches and fishponds, elevating the land where hotels and highrise buildings sit today.Instead of the streams of Waikiki flowing into the ocean, they flowed into the canal.Historians say the creation of the Ala Wai Canal marked the start of modern Waikiki.Waikiki: Looking Back (An HNN Digital Documentary)
At the turn of the 20th century, Waikiki helped diversify Hawaii’s economy.Egged, of the Waikiki Improvement Association, likes to say that tourism was Hawaii’s original economic diversification."Prior to that, our economy was based on sugar, pineapple and the military," Egged said.The early 1900s ushered in that new era for Waikiki. One of the first major hotels was built in 1901: the Moana Hotel ― now the Moana Surfrider. Then came the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, also known as the “Pink Palace.”In the years to come, Waikiki’s landscape (and its skyline) would continue to change dramatically.And along with that change, Waikiki moved further and further away from the everyday experiences of Hawaii residents ― and from Hawaiian culture.But there’s a push to change that.Egged pointed to work underway to bring hula programs to Kuhio Beach three times a week and offer other educational opportunities to visitors.“We want to bring that sense of Hawaiian culture into Waikiki on a regular basis,” he said. “Of course, Waikiki is a Hawaiian place and we want to make sure that link is available for our visitors to share.”Full ScreenAutoplay1 of 39The modern-day Waikiki is considered a tourism mecca on the global scale. (Source: Hawaii News Now).
Nature might have started Waikiki’s famous shoreline, but men finished it.There’s a race on to save Waikiki’s crowning jewel: its beach.Many don’t realize that Waikiki is an extensively developed beach with a history of coastal engineering projects that began in the early 20th century.The 2-mile-long shoreline, separated by several smaller beaches, is dotted with man-made structures ― from seawalls and groins to piers and storm drains.Much of the sand, too, is imported from various sources.This piece of history is important for Clark, too, as his father helped build one of those structures: the Kapahulu Groin, an extension of a storm drain that's become a popular pedestrian pier.Clark said his father was the superintendent for the James W. Glover construction company, which built the wall in 1951. The work took about six months.
Maintaining a man-made shoreline takes lots of work ... and money.Structures built to widen Waikiki Beach are now part of the problem.The hardened shoreline structures, sand hauling, and dredging and mining of the reef have significantly altered the dynamics of the coastline — and in turn have accelerated coastal erosion and actually contributed to beach narrowing.What that means is that without consistent maintenance and management, erosion would ultimately swallow up Waikiki’s most prized asset: its beach.[Read more: Series of coastal engineering projects underway amid race to save Waikiki Beach]Dolan Eversole, of the University of Hawaii, is among the team of scientists working to save the beach. Eversole’s official title: Waikiki Beach management coordinator.“One of the overarching goals with a lot of the work that’s happening in Waikiki is one, to maintain a viable beach, a sand beach resource in Waikiki,” Eversole said.But a looming challenge remains: Sea level rise due to climate change.As coastal erosion is already a problem for this highly engineered beach, Eversole worries that sea level rise will not only expedite erosion, but it could flood Waikiki's streets and infrastructure.Eversole said without these maintenance projects, we run the risk of losing Waikiki’s beloved beach.“I think there’s pretty much a universal agreement that having a sand beach in Waikiki is not only desirable but it’s crucial for the future of Waikiki as a resort destination.”Clark put it this way: Without a beach “It wouldn’t be Hawaii. Hawaii and beaches are synonymous — and not only here on the island of Oahu but on all the islands.”And it’s not just the beach that needs maintenance. It’s Waikiki as a whole.With more than 50,000 workers and 90,000 visitors on any given day, work constantly needs to be done — whether it’s landscaping or building renovations."One of the things that's important to realize is you can't ever stand still,” Egged said.And that’s always been true in Waikiki. It’s a place with a unique place in Hawaii history, including as a gathering place for people from around the globe, Egged said.That’s one thing that hasn’t changed."That energy that comes from all of the mixing of people here,” he said, “from all over the world … all of that energy that takes place in Waikiki is something that is not easy to find elsewhere.”
Copyright 2020 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
12/01/19
BRUCE ASATO / BASATO@STARADVERTISER.COM
Visitors stop to get photos of the Duke Kahanamoku statue on Waikiki Beach. Construction has been completed on a 95-foot sandbag groin designed to stabilize an erosion hot spot fronting the statue.
Construction has been completed on a 95-foot sandbag groin designed to stabilize an erosion hot spot at the Diamond Head end of Waikiki’s Kuhio Beach fronting the Duke Kahanamoku statue, officials said Friday.
The $700,000 project — a temporary measure until a more comprehensive master planning effort is completed for Waikiki Beach — included the transfer of some 1,000 cubic yards of beach sand from the Diamond Head swim basin of Kuhio Beach.
The effort, among other things, will help cover up an old foundation that is sometimes exposed on the beach. The foundation was part of the Waikiki Tavern, which was built in 1928 and demolished in 1962.
The Waikiki Beach Special Improvement District provided half of the project cost through a special tax assessment of Waikiki commercial properties, while the University of Hawaii Sea Grant Program provided technical support.
Rick Egged, president of the special improvement district, described the beach improvement project as the first in Waikiki in a generation.
“The Waikiki Beach Special Improvement District is proud to be a partner in this important beach management effort,” Egged said in a news release.
UH Sea Grant will continue to monitor the project weekly and provide monthly technical assessments evaluating the performance of the groin and beach restoration.
The project was completed following three weeks of construction. The project consultant and engineering designer was Sea Engineering Inc., and the contractor was JS International Inc.
The state Legislature this year allocated $13 million for Waikiki Beach. In addition to the Kuhio Beach project, the money will fund repairs to the Royal Hawaiian groin, between the Waikiki Sheraton and Royal Hawaiian hotels, in a project expected to be completed next year.
The funding also is underwriting the creation of a Waikiki Beach Master Plan, which is now being developed by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, UH Sea Grant and the Waikiki Beach Special Improvement District Association.
Hawaii News Now
Engineers hope high-tech sandbags will keep the beach in Waikiki from disappearing
By Allyson Blair | November 29, 2019 at 4:34 PM HST - Updated November 29 at 5:45 PM
HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - A fresh round of repairs to Hawaii’s most famous beach have been completed ― and engineers hope their latest idea will do more to help the shoreline from washing away.
Over the last three weeks, and at a cost of roughly $700,000, engineers worked to install a 95-foot sandbag groin at Waikiki Beach, along with hauling in tons of new sand to help replenish it.
It’s one piece of a much larger project that’ll start next spring on the Royal Hawaiian groin.
“The thing I’d like to emphasize is how critical the Royal Hawaiian groin is. It holds all the sand in place from the Kuhio Beach basins to the groin," said Rick Egged, President of the Waikiki Beach Special Improvement District Association. "Minus that groin, the sand would erode very rapidly,”
Known the world over, Waikiki’s famed beaches help fuel the state’s economy, bringing in an estimated $2 billion every year.
Egged calls it an asset worth protecting.
“It’s an artificial beach,” he said. “So it’s going to take the work of man and money to maintain it.”
An overhaul started earlier this month, with strategically-placed sandbags installed as a form of erosion control.
“What’s different about this project is the material,” said Dolan Eversole, Waikiki Beach Management Coordinator. “It’s a geotextile material. It’s extremely durable. We’re expecting it to last up to 10 years. It could last 20 years.”
Project officials say repairs on the Royal Hawaiian groin will be much more involved. The total cost for that project, and for regularly bringing in more sand to keep the beach full, will exceed $12 million.
Taxpayers are footing about 70 percent of the bill, while the Waikiki Improvement Association covers the rest.
When that’s wrapped up, state officials say there’s still more to do.
“We have a project planned in about a year and a half to bring in additional sand into Waikiki from offshore to stabilize the beaches. And we’ll have to keep doing this continuously to keep up with the rates of sand loss and combat sea level rise,” said Sam Lemmo, the administrator of the state DLNR’s Office Conservation and Coastal Lands Administrator.
The state says its developed a partnership with the University of Hawaii to do a weekly beach monitoring program. They’ll be responsible for tracking the movement of the sand over a seasonal basis.
The data they collect with help determine what other work needs to be done.
Civil Beat- Honolulu. November 14, 2019
Sea-level rise and coastal storms require us to develop innovative erosion control plans based on proven science.
Reading time: 5 minutes.
As a nonprofit organization comprised of coastal engineers, scientists, planners, and community representatives, the Hawaii Shore and Beach Preservation Association would like to provide some clarification to the Nov. 4 Civil Beat Community Voice titled “There’s A Better Way To Replenish Waikiki’s Sand.”
First, it is critically important to distinguish Waikiki as an urban beach with a unique history of coastal development. Due in part to this unique history, being entirely man-made and thus inherently unstable, Waikiki Beach warrants proactive planning, erosion control intervention, and beach management actions that may not be viable or appropriate in other locations.
The use of a submerged shore-parallel structure (breakwater), as suggested in the opinion piece, would not only interfere with recreational activities in Waikiki, but may negatively impact the existing sediment transport pathways.
The opinion piece mentions that six to eight years ago the state dredged offshore to provide “hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of soil to restore the vanishing beach,” and that “The first Waikiki beach restoration project cost about $7 million and had a life of only some seven years.”
In 2012, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources in partnership with Kyo-ya Hotels recovered 25,000 cubic yards of marine carbonate sand (not soil) from immediately offshore of the coastline as a form of beach maintenance. The purpose of the project was to recycle beach quality sand back to the beach where it originated.
This project cost $2.7 million (not $7 million). This project is widely considered successful since it achieved the project goals of delivering offshore, beach compatible sand back to the beach at a cost-effective price.
Recent erosion and king tide events in Waikiki have highlighted the need to develop comprehensive and proactive management plans.
Nathan Eagle/Civil Beat
The author of the opinion piece writes, “In that process, the state irreversibly damaged the ecology of the ocean.”
In fact, the project marine monitoring report from the 2012 Waikiki beach nourishment project found no conclusive evidence of environmental damage or change in the nearshore reef ecosystem that could be attributed to project impacts.
The 2012 project did result in the placement of greater than expected fine marine silt content, which created “milky” ocean conditions. This naturally occurring marine silt was flushed out and continues to be flushed during high tides and high surf conditions; however, this material has not resulted in “irreversible damage to the ecology of the ocean.”
The author writes, “The use of geotextile tubes has been proven in the Yucatan Peninsula facing the Gulf of Mexico. Within only two to three years, multiple locations had natural sand deposited … and last three times longer, to 21 years.”
Geotextile tubes can be effectively employed in certain environments. Use of geotextile tubes on the beach and in the water at Waikiki has been considered, but they do not meet the rigorous environmental, oceanographic, recreational, marine biological, essential fish habitat, endangered species, or water quality requirements for use as a beach stabilization structure at this location.
Typically, these geotubes are buried as the “core” of a reconstructed coastal dune and can have lifespans that exceed 20 years when completely buried. However, there is ample evidence in engineering literature that documents significantly reduced lifespans when the materials are exposed to the marine environment, wave action, and abrasion.
The author also writes, “Besides, anyone supporting the idea of cheaper construction is quickly brought down by those wanting construction to be as expensive as possible.”
It is critically important to distinguish Waikiki as an urban beach with a unique history of coastal development.
There appears to be no basis for this statement. In the case of the Kuhio sandbag groin, the project is a public-private partnership with 50% of the costs funded by the Waikiki Beach Special Improvement District Association providing private funds as a match and which has no ties to the contractor or the state procurement process.
And the author writes, “Approximately one mile of geotextile tube will be needed offshore at Waikiki. By a rule of thumb, which is more scientific than science can prove, these tubes are usually placed such that their top is at the lowest level of the low tide visible on the beach.”
Given the importance of Waikiki Beach in all permit and environmental review contexts, a one-mile long submerged breakwater in Waikiki is highly unlikely to make it through the environmental review and permitting processes, and there is no evidence that it would result in a more stable beach. Rather, impacts to surfers, locals, businesses, and visitors alike would be tremendous, including potential public safety concerns for a shore parallel, submerged breakwater, located in the wave impact zone of the beach face.
Recent erosion and king tide events in Waikiki have highlighted the need to develop comprehensive and proactive management plans for Waikiki Beach that can account for the dynamic nature and future changes in the shoreline.
The compounding impacts of sea-level rise, coastal erosion, sediment deficiencies and coastal storms require us to think creatively and develop innovative erosion control plans based on proven science. As such, alternatives are being conceptualized and will be evaluated from engineering, financial, permitting, recreational, cultural and aesthetic perspectives.
Community Voices aims to encourage broad discussion on many topics of community interest. It’s kind of a cross between Letters to the Editor and op-eds. This is your space to talk about important issues or interesting people who are making a difference in our world. Column lengths should be no more than 800 words and we need a photo of the author and a bio. We welcome video commentary and other multimedia formats. Send to news@civilbeat.org. The opinions and information expressed in Community Voices are solely those of the authors and not Civil Beat.
Dolan Eversole serves as the president of the Hawaii Shore and Beach Preservation Association, an organization of private sector, academic, and government professionals, students and local community members. Eversole is a coastal geologist and faculty of the University of Hawaii Sea Grant Program and serves as the Waikiki Beach management coordinator for the Waikiki Beach Special Improvement District Association.
KUHIO BEACH PROJECT AREA.
HAWAII NEWS NOW
By Lisa Kubota | November 6, 2019 at 8:15 PM HST - Updated November 6 at 8:15 PM
WAIKIKI, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - Crews have started working on a new fix for an erosion hotspot in Waikiki.
They will construct a sandbag groin that will extend out into the ocean.
The structure at Kuhio Beach will be 95 feet long, 18 feet wide and 4.3 feet high.
The barrier will help to stabilize the corner of the beach where the foundation of the old Waikiki Tavern has been exposed.
Workers will bring in 700 cubic yards of sand from the Diamond Head swim basin of Kuhio Beach.
The construction is expected to last up to 3 weeks.
"It's getting bad. It's getting worse every time, so now they're finally going to do something about it," said surf instructor Chris Matteson.
According to experts, the erosion problem in that spot seems to have accelerated after the state took out two crumbling groins as part of a 2012 beach nourishment project.
"The state, they're going to do what they want to do, right? You can't help that, but I guess it was a bad mistake, right? Now they gotta put them back," said Matteson.
But others insist that the removal of the groins was necessary.
“They were deteriorated to the point that large chunks of concrete were coming off of them, rolling around in the shorebreak,” explained Dolan Eversole, Waikiki Beach Management Coordinator for the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program. “They were getting eroded from behind, so waves were actually washing behind both structures creating a funneling effect.”
The $568,000 state project is being supported through a public-private partnership with the Waikiki Beach Special Improvement District Association, which will pay for half of the cost.
"We believe that Waikiki Beach is very important to our prosperity as well as the most important natural resource to both the visitor industry and for our community," said Rick Egged, the association's president.
The association will also pay for half of a separate $2.5 million project to replace the failing Royal Hawaiian groin.
The old structure will become part of a new 160-foot long L-shaped groin that will be much wider than the current one.
"It will not result in the beach becoming magically bigger or more sand being attracted into that area, but what it should do, what we expect it to do, is stabilize that corner so we don't see those big seasonal swings," said Eversole.
After several delays and design changes, construction of the Royal Hawaiian groin is expected to start next spring.
Copyright 2019 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
The Waikiki Beach Special Improvement District Association
2250 Kalakaua Ave. Suite 315
Honolulu, Hawaii 96815
(808) 923-1094 WAIKIKIBEACHSIDA@GMAIL.COM
