Winter swells could bring back beach, but long-term fix elusive
Fallen Kaanapali beachwalk reignites debate over future of shoreline properties
Toppled coconut palm stumps and pieces of broken concrete walkway are lapped by waves on the beach fronting the Kaanapali Alii Tuesday afternoon. Island Style Adventures Manager Christian Courtemanche, who works along the beach, said north swells generally replenish sand in the area, but a summer of large south swells transferred it elsewhere and thus undermined the shoreline. “I’ve seen it pretty bad before, but this takes the cake,” Courtemanche said. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
Winter swells on the horizon could trigger “some degree of beach recovery” for a section of shoreline in Kaanapali where a popular beachwalk recently collapsed, but conditions “could possibly get even worse before getting better,” a coastal researcher said this week.
Residents, government officials and shoreline property owners are struggling for solutions after trees fell into the ocean, portions of the beachwalk crumbled and roots and pipes were exposed last week — a climax to the heavy ongoing erosion in the area due to a large number of summer swells.
Rebuilding the walkway, a resort operator official said, “will be an engineering challenge given the current conditions,” and state Department of Land and Natural Resources officials had no immediate fixes for the area.
“Shoreline conditions could possibly get even worse before getting better with those first swells, in the time it takes for the sand to be redistributed to recreate a sandy buffer,” said Coastal Hazards Specialist Tara Owens of the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program.
She said the winter swells will trigger some degree of beach recovery for certain properties located at or north of Hanakaoo Point, including Kaanapali Alii and The Whaler on Kaanapali Beach.
Jim Richard of Phoenix walks on the devastated shoreline fronting the Kaanapali Alii Tuesday afternoon. “We have been coming here for 15 years,” Richard said. “You notice the erosion, but this is something else.” — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
But she added that shoreline conditions in the southern part of Kaanapali (in the vicinity of the Marriott’s Maui Ocean Club and the Hyatt Regency) that are more subject to chronic erosion, rather than seasonal erosion, will not likely improve substantially.
Owens said the erosion this summer in Kaanapali “does seem to have reached a new extreme, leading to the exposure and loss of infrastructure, including the collapse of the walkway.”
“As we know, this is a function of increasing sea levels and wave energy, and landward migration of the shoreline in response,” she said.
Similar erosion episodes also occurred in 2003 and 2007 after periods of prolonged summer south swells.
In those cases, various erosion measures included sandbags, steel road plates and plastic road barriers, Owens said. Those previously installed materials were buried during beach recovery and are now being exposed again.
And now, the recent massive erosion in Kaanapali has reignited the debate on how best to protect and preserve the beach that is loved by locals and highly valued by the tourism industry.
What’s best for the beach
Last week, concerned community members and activists visited and took photos and video of the erosion fronting the Kaanapali Alii where tiles have fallen into the ocean. The area is closed off by orange fencing and cones have been placed near the eroded areas.
Tiare Lawrence visited late last week and said the erosion has gotten worse and that there could be 10 trees in the ocean by now.
“I watched it fall in the water,” she said.
She added that walkways were flooded and workers were moving debris such as tiles and pipes that had been exposed.
Lawrence called the situation “frustrating,” as temporary measures such as sandbags that were placed in the areas years ago still remain, exacerbating the situation while no long-term plans have been in the works.
For several years, Lawrence said she has been seeking a long-term management plan to protect the area.
“I feel like at this point managed retreat needs to be taken serious and things need to get out of the way,” she said.
She added that buildings, lawns and landscaped areas need to be removed “to allow the ability for the beach to have its natural ebb and flow.”
“These hotels were built on a beach, on sand and you take away that ability for the natural ebb and flow to occur you are going to consistently see these erosion events happen,” Lawrence said.
As a youngster growing up, she said it was understood that during the summer months the north side of Kaanapali Beach (where the Sheraton Maui Resort and Spa is located) would see more sand and in the winter the south side (where Kaanapali Alii is located) would receive more of the sand.
“And now it’s going to get worse because of sea level rise, and because of these temporary fixes that have existed along Kaanapali for decades that have caused more harm than good,” she said.
But Wayne Hedani, president of the Kaanapali Operations Association that represents beach resorts in the area, said that by looking at data and predictions, “There will be nowhere to retreat to which will be viable at this time.”
“Honoapiilani Highway will be beachfront property. If the Thwaites glacier system melts further in Antarctica and slips into the sea up to ten feet of sea level rise is possible in as early as 3 to 5 years. Financing would be impossible for such as scenario and retreat here in Maui County would take decades to accomplish,” Hedani said via email.
He added that various county laws, including recent ones pushed by the County Council, have made managed retreat within existing properties “virtually impossible.” For example, county laws require building 200 feet away from the shoreline. The problem is that the shoreline is moving mauka while the property line is not, which limits the space where property owners can relocate buildings.
Instead, Hedani points to beach restoration and berm enhancement.
“We have been pursuing this solution since 2006 when we first noticed increasing erosion along our beaches,” he said. “Opponents of our joint project with the state are the cause of the current situation.”
Hedani was referring to a project that aims to restore Kaanapali Beach by bringing sand from offshore. Residents have raised concerns about impacts to the reef and offshore ecosystem.
The Office of Planning and Sustainable Development’s Environmental Review Program staff are currently going over the project’s final environmental impact statement and will provide an analysis to the governor following their review, said Cindy McMillan, communications director for Gov. David Ige.
Ige would be the one to sign off on the final EIS.
After the final EIS is signed, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands plans to present the $11 million beach nourishment proposal to the state Board of Land and Natural Resources, DLNR officials said.
Hedani said the project is funded by $5.05 million from the Kaanapali Operations Association and matching funds from the state hotel room tax increase approved in 2013 for natural resource projects such as these.
He added that current plans call for completion in 2024 but said that activist opposition had delayed the project.
Lawrence, however, countered Hedani’s claims that the current issues would have not occurred had the project been allowed to progress sooner.
“You can do all the beach nourishment you want, but the sand is going to come and go regardless,” she said. “If there is a south swell — and we see this happening in Waikiki, where they do these beach nourishment projects. When they first started doing it, they expected, oh it will last 10 years. Well it didn’t. They are now having to do these beach nourishment projects almost yearly, now in Waikiki. At the cost of who? The taxpayers.
“These beach nourishment projects are not a long-term solution. It’s just a temporary solution that will be very invasive to the ecology offshore.”
Lawrence said those who support the nourishment project are in the hotel industry, but that it is much more important to protect public beach access and offshore cultural subsistence practices.
Waiting for the winter swells
For now, researchers will monitor how much sand will be returned during the winter swells.
Michael Cain, administrator of the DLNR Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands, said Thursday that sand patterns are “highly variable, but in general we should expect to see sand accumulating in the area with the winter swells.”
Cain did not directly answer a question of whether any short-term measures were going to be put into place in the near term.
He said his office continues to monitor the area and that the community has been active in providing them “with valuable documentation on a day-to-day level.”
He added that there are few options that can be exercised during “an active erosion event” such as at Kaanapali.
“Conservation rules allow for the issuance of emergency permits to ‘alleviate any emergency that is a threat to public health, safety, and welfare.’ Emergency permits bypass the environmental review process, and DLNR only issues them with caution,” Cain said.
Currently, it doesn’t appear that any of the buildings are immediately threatened, Cain said.
“Any type of shoreline hardening, even temporary hardening with sandbags or other barriers, can have impacts on beach processes and on neighboring properties,” he added.
Sand pushing and beach nourishment can be effective in creating buffers to mitigate erosion, but they are not appropriate in ongoing hazardous situations, he added.
“Sand pushing was conducted this summer, in order to create a temporary berm between the properties and the ocean, but had since eroded,” Cain said.
Hedani said the Kaanapali Alii is is working with engineers from Sea Engineering Inc. to address temporary mitigative measures if possible and that they would require approval from the state.
“The current state position is that walkways, pools are not considered important infrastructure, although the state legislature declared the Kaanapali Beachwalk as important infrastructure for lateral access along the beach,” Hedani said.
In the past when walkways were damaged, they were moved mauka, as was done by the Marriott Maui Ocean Club, which had enough space for the walkway to be relocated. Kaanapali Alii does not have the space, unfortunately, he said.
“We will await their discussions with their engineering consultants and support the mitigative measures they can implement in the near term to mitigate erosion,” he said. “Reestablishing the walkway will be an engineering challenge given the current conditions and design parameters but they will do their best once nature returns the sand to the beach with winter north swells.”
* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.