WAILUA — More than two dozen people spent a couple of hours removing two large chunks of derelict netting which washed ashore during the recent storm at a Wailua beach. Volunteers from Surfrider Kaua‘i on Sunday joined Friends of Kamalani
WAILUA — More than two dozen people spent a couple of hours removing two large chunks of derelict netting which washed ashore during the recent storm at a Wailua beach.
Volunteers from Surfrider Kaua‘i on Sunday joined Friends of Kamalani and Lydgate Park and other volunteers to unearth a large portion of the derelict netting at the shorebreak located between Lydgate South and the Kamalani Bridge. Others broke apart the second chunk of netting using serrated knives.
Dr. Robert Zelkovsky of the Surfrider Foundation said the nets were not part of the tsunami debris from the Japan earthquake in March, but probably were cut loose from long-liners a distance away from Hawai‘i, or possibly were lost from a boat and washed to shore by the ocean currents.
“There’re a lot of nets out there,” Zelkovsky said. “We recently found two near Kealia, but they’re almost straight down and it’s almost impossible to remove them.”
As volunteers worked to unearth the portion of netting near the shoreline, people walking the beach stopped to help, one group of young girls finding a submerged net near rocks above the high water mark.
The discovery prompted the group to break into smaller groups, some dispersing to help the girls unearth their find while others hauled off the nets for disposal.
One volunteer said Surfrider almost had a full container of netting, which will be shipped to O‘ahu where it will be burned to make energy.
Using a truck from the Friends of Kamalani and Lydgate Park, the large shorebreak netting was finally hauled above the waterline where it was broken down for disposal. The entire operation yielded more than two heaping pickup loads of nets.
“It’s good people are doing this,” one passer-by said. “This prevents the nets from washing back into the ocean and damaging the reefs and other marine animals. The humpback whales are here now, and could become ensnared in them.”
Visit www.surfriderkauai.ning.com for more information.
