Effort aims to keep vehicles off Sandy Beach shoreline

A 9.5-acre stretch of undeveloped city beach known as Wawamalu would be a pristine place where beachgoers could enjoy nature to the accompaniment of wind, waves and the cries of seabirds and children exploring tide pools, were it not for the roars of off-road vehicles driving on its sand beach, gouging deep, blackened tracks and tearing up the native vegetation and dunes.

The trucks on the span extending from Sandy Beach to the Kaiwi State Scenic Shoreline also drive near basking, endangered Hawaiian monk seals as well as humans on the beach, said Reese Liggett of the Oahu Sierra Club. Other native species found in the area include beach naupaka, naio, sea turtles, seabirds and the endangered Hawaiian yellow-faced bee.

“It’s a beautiful beach that’s been marred by black rubber,” said Tommy Waters, city Councilman for District 4, which includes Hawaii Kai and Sandy Beach, during a Thursday visit to Wawamalu. He was joined by Michele Nekota, deputy director of the Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation; Liggett; Elizabeth Reilly of Livable Hawaii Kai Hui; and others for the launch of a project intended to protect the critical shoreline habitat.

In a dirt area just makai of Kalanianaole Highway, a big yellow DPR excavator piled boulders in a wide circle that would provide a parking area and public foot access to Wawamalu’s beaches while blocking vehicles from illegal off-roading on the beach, Nekota said.

It was a collaborative plan initiated by a Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board resolution calling for the recognition and protection of the natural features at Wawa- malu, she said, noting that “it is always encouraging to see the will to protect our natural environment, and actionable solutions to realize that goal, initiated by the community.”

Waters lauded the “dedicated effort by the Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board, community members and nonprofit organizations like Livable Hawaii Kai Hui, the Sierra Club Oahu and the Surfrider Foundation, to ensure that we can preserve this place.”

As the little group walked along the devastated shoreline, where trucks and campers were parked at intervals above the high-water mark, Waters added that the plan “will still allow surfers, fishermen and other beachgoers to park in two dedicated areas along Wawamalu, while accomplishing the key objective of preventing the off- roading of vehicles across the dunes and beach.”

Pointing out sets of tire tracks at intervals perpendicular to the highway, Liggett said the Sierra Club and Ka Iwi Coalition were asking that the state erect barriers along Kalanianaole Highway to prevent vehicles from turning directly off into the dunes.

Nekota said DPR will coordinate with the state Department of Transportation on alternatives to protect the site from access from the highway.

Wawamalu’s sand dunes, beach and rocky volcanic coastline form a critical wildlife habitat and serve community cultural, recreational and resiliency needs, DPR said in a news release, adding that it is the site of a former Native Hawaiian farming and fishing village, sandalwood forest, trading route and ranch where archaeological evidence exists of human burials.

In April 2017 a coalition of government, nonprofit and community groups secured the last two parcels of the Ka Iwi Coastline to ensure its protection, culminating a 40-year community effort to keep 7 miles of this scenic shoreline free of development from mauka to makai.

“I do think in a while the white sand will come back, once people stop driving on the beach,” Nekota said.

“I’ve actually never seen it so white,” Reilly said, pointing to slender crescents of bright white sand at the water’s edge and adding that she hoped it was a good omen.