KAPA‘A — Year after year, the county gives a new timeline to fix the eroding Pono Kai seawall in Kapa‘a, but the project never takes off. The Moanakai Road seawall, just south of Pono Kai, has a similar history.
The latest timeline, however, sets no dates, according to county officials.
“Both projects are currently in permitting with the state Department of Health Clean Water Branch and we cannot estimate when the permits will be issued,” county spokeswoman Mary Daubert said in an email last week.
In the summer of 2011, Dough Haigh, chief of Building Division at the county Public Works Department, told the Kaua‘i County Council the administration was “hoping” to start construction of a new seawall at Pono Kai in the winter of that year, and that the preliminary estimate for the replacement seawall was $1.5 million.
In January, county Parks and Recreation Director Lenny Rapozo told the council the administration had been replenishing the sand on the beach fronting the seawall. But as far as the status of the replacement of the seawall, he said he didn’t know because it was not from his department.
Today, the Pono Kai seawall continues to erode, untouched by the administration.
Responding to the latest inquiry from The Garden Island, county officials disclosed the project’s scope — which was to replace the Pono Kai seawall — may change significantly.
“For the Pono Kai seawall, we are re-evaluating whether to repair or replace the existing seawall,” county spokeswoman Mary Daubert said. “Initially, the plan was to replace the seawall, but due to escalating cost estimates we are further evaluating the repair option.”
South of Pono Kai, at Moanakai Road, the administration has also blown its latest timeline to fix another eroding seawall. In June 2011, Haigh told the council that if all went as planned, repairs would start in the summer of 2012.
The summer has come and gone, and a look at Moanakai Road last week reveals the situation there is unchanged.
Daubert said that Moanakai Road has actually two adjoining structures, a seawall on the southern end and a revetment on the northern end. A seawall is a fairly vertical structure, and a revetment is more sloping, she said.
“The seawall is in fairly good shape and minor repairs are planned,” she said. “The revetment on the northern end has failed and reconstruction is required.”
When Haigh updated the council on the Moanakai Road situation in June 2011, he said the administration was planning a $2 million repair of the structures. He said the seawall had damages to its concrete cap, decaying tree stumps in the structure, that part of the northern section had collapsed and what was left was affected by erosion.
Pono Kai history
The Pono Kai seawall was heavily damaged by Hurricane ‘Iniki in 1992, then rebuilt a year later. But erosion kept taking a toll on the structure, causing it to slide down toward the sand, producing sinkholes behind it and cracking the county’s multi-use path.
In September 2007, The Garden Island reported that Oceanit, a Honolulu-based consulting firm, told the council that if repair work — estimated at about $1.4 million — was not done, the entire 600-foot wall could collapse.
In October 2008, then-County Engineer Donald Fujimoto told the council the only feasible option was to build a new retaining wall behind the wall. He said he was hoping the new seawall project would not exceed $2.5 million and would be completed by early 2011, according to The Garden Island archives.
In June 2010, Haigh, who was also the project manager, told the Kaua‘i Planning Commission the 600-foot wall would be replaced by a 750-foot-long revetment wall. He said the project was supposed to begin in the last quarter of 2010, and would last about two months.
He also said one of the challenges was coordinating with the DOH, which was holding on to permits to replenish the sand.
After the administration blew the winter 2010 timeline, a new timeline was set for the winter of 2011, but repairs have yet to be set in stone.
• Léo Azambuja, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or lazambuja@ thegardenisland.com.
