From Sand Mining to Wetland Work, County Racks Up Violations at Wailua

posted in: December 1996 | 0

The attempt to rebuild the seawall at Wailua by the Kaua`i County Department of Public Works is by no means the first time the county has run into problems with government regulatory agencies in the Wailua area. Here’s a brief recap of some of the county’s run-ins with the law:

Unauthorized Rental

Most of the area that today makes up the Wailua golf course was once the old Lihue Airport. Following the airport’s relocation in the late 1930s, territorial governor J.M. Poindexter set aside to the County of Kaua`i a little more than 105 acres for use as a “park, playground, fair ground, race track, and field for athletic and other sports as the Board of Supervisors of the County of Kaua`i may deem best.”

During World War II, the U.S. Marine Corps occupied the area, building “54 quonset huts, nine galleys, 20 shops and a cottage and outdoor theater,” according to a report in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin of May 30, 1946. The county purchased the Marine buildings for $10,000. For a while, it rented out at least one of the buildings to Kaiser Aluminum for use as a laboratory. When the territorial government heard of this, it ordered the practice to stop, since commercial use of the property was contrary to the purposes called out in the set-aside order. The county, assisted by a hurricane, ousted Kaiser.

Unauthorized Use

By 1958, the county had constructed a nine-hole public golf course on the area occupied by the fairgrounds and undertook planning for the second nine holes, in the area of the old race track. This prompted territorial Land Commissioner Frank Hustace Jr. to threaten to withdraw the land from county control, since “the use for which the land has been set aside no longer exists.”

In the end, the dispute between the county and the territory was resolved with the territory apparently agreeing with the county’s argument that a golf course was equivalent to a park. The second nine holes were built soon thereafter.

Sand Mining

The beach and dune areas around Wailua appear to have been regarded as an unlimited and free source of sand for at least the 1950s, and probably earlier.

In March 1956, William Ellis, a Kaua`i land agent for the Territory of Hawai`i asked his boss, Public Lands Commissioner Marguerite Ashford, to set a price on sand per cubic yard, “since a considerable amount of sand is being removed from the beaches of Kaua`i by contractors.” Ashford immediately discussed the issue with Kunji Omori, county engineer and got Omori to agree to stop the practice.

But a few months later, Omori informed the state land commissioner that the county had permitted Hale Kaua`i, Ltd., to take “sufficient sand for ready-mix concrete for the Papa`i Bridge and Lihue School jobs… Similar permission were granted other contractors on government projects.”

Such permission went beyond what the territory had allowed, according to a letter from Public Lands Commissioner Jack A. Meek. “As I had given you permission to take sand for the Lihue Grammar School job only, will you please report on this Papa`a Bridge situation at an early date,” Meek wrote Omori.

No copy of a follow-up report could be found in files at the Department of Land and Natural Resources. In any event, the mining of sand along Wailua Beach appears to have stopped, with a new source having been located in the area of Nukoli`i Beach, south of the golf course. (More on this later.)

Illegal Fill

By the early 1970s, the problem wasn’t that the county was taking sand away from the beach. Instead, there wasn’t enough sand, which meant that now the problem the county faced was to prevent the golf course from falling into the sea.

On March 30, 1971, then-state Land Board Chairman Sunao Kido wrote Fujio “Fudge” Matsuda, then-director of the state Department of Transportation, complaining that the DOT’s Kaua`i highways crew had been observed dumping sludge and debris on the beach in front of the golf course. “Evidently the material was removed in the course of dredging the Wailua drainage canal fronting the jail,” he wrote.

“I am disturbed that this incident occurred… In all fairness to your Kaua`i District Highway people, I understand that they were requested to deposit the material by the management of the golf course to prevent erosion of the bank by action of the sea. However, this should not happen again and I am, accordingly, by copy of this letter, also notifying the county of Kaua`i (under whose jurisdiction the golf course lies) to this effect…

Wetland Work

With the sands disappearing at Wailua, the county was forced to look elsewhere to replenish the sand traps at the golf course. The county’s Nukoli`i Beach Park, just to the south of the course, was a convenient target. According to information provided by the county to the Corps of Engineers, the mining began at Nukoli`i more than a quarter century ago — in other words, it was under way at the same time that the county was having to shore up the banks along the golf course with fill.

Eventually, the pit was dug to a depth below the water table. Tidal ponds were created. Over time, in a process that the county claims was hastened by Hurricane `Iniki, in 1992, the ponds became vegetated with wetland grasses and inhabited by shorebirds, including the endangered Hawaiian moorhen and coot.

On May 16, 1996, staff from the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service visited the site. According to a letter the Corps wrote to the county four days later, they found “approximately two acres of … tidal wetlands were being disturbed by excavation and discharge of dredged material. Three common moorhen (Gallinula chloropus sanvicensis) and one Hawaiian coot (Fulica alai), both listed on the endangered species list, and one duck family (including five chicks) were seen on the site. Staff from the USFWS also found a moorhen nest with two viable eggs only a few yards away from the bulldozer, which was excavating in the wetland. The bulldozer operator indicated he worked for the county Department of Public Works, and that he was excavating for the purposes of obtaining sand.”

The letter goes on to note that Corps staff “recommended that [the bulldozer operator] cease working in the water because it was likely that no Department of the Army permit had been issued. In addition, the presence of endangered species and a nest site could have serious legal implications under the Endangered Species Act.”

As it turned out, the county had no Corps permit for work in wetlands. In what seems to be an effort to make the best of a bad situation, the office of Mayor Maryanne Kusaka issued a press release in mid-July of this year, hailing the county’s efforts at “wetlands restoration.”

The news release briefly described the county’s mining of the area for sand “to reinforce putting greens and to refill and reshape sand bunkers at the Wailua golf course.”

“Well, whether by mistake or divine intent,” the news release goes on to say, “county sand miners dug to a depth below the sea level water table…. In 1992, Hurricane `Iniki struck Kaua`i, displacing hundreds of water fowl and scattering various types of seeds all over the island. The mined area soon burst out with various types of vegetation… This vegetation, along with the wetland type environment around North Nukoli`i, soon attracted `Iniki displaced water fowl … and even waterfowl from the Outrigger and former Westin Kaua`i” hotels.

The Corps of Engineers “alerted” the county to the presence of the protected birds, prompting county officials “to attempt to recreate and restore this wetland type habitat” by “bulldozing the sand to sculpt the area into a true wetland environment.”

Spearheading the effort, the release said, was County Engineer Steve Oliver. “Once the sculpting is done, Oliver plans to ask the county for funds to build a walkway around the area so that the public can experience this wonder of Mother Nature…. He would like to see the Nukoli`i wetland restoration through in a historic operation that could … better educate the public on the importance of preserving our environment and protecting all wildlife for the enjoyment of generations to come.”

Volume 7, Number 6 December 1996