LIHUE — Sediment buildup is obstructing the flow of the Waimea River, causing silt to accumulate in the county’s drainage system and increasing the likelihood of a flood that could endanger surrounding homes.
Officials with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources recently decided to stop dredging the river, an operation that has to be performed on a weekly basis in order to prevent sediment from plugging up the river entirely, and Kauai County is now left to foot the bill at an annual cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Deputy County Engineer Lyle Tabata appeared before the county council at its regular meeting Wednesday to talk about the Public Works Department’s stop-gap efforts to keep the mouth of the Waimea River open and update the council members on the status of an ongoing dispute between state and county officials over who will be responsible for funding maintenance of the river in the future.
The council voted unanimously in favor of a proposed bill that would reallocate $625,000 in the county operating budget to fund emergency dredging operations in the river mouth through the end of the 2020 fiscal year and pay for an engineering study to identify measures that could prevent future floods.
Tabata said that responsibility for the river was dropped suddenly in the county’s lap six months ago, when the mayor and members of his administration were called to a meeting with DLNR Chairperson Suzanne Case and told the state would no longer be funding the 40 or so dredging operations per year required to keep the Waimea River mouth open.
Public works officials soon realized the sediment buildup presented a much more imminent threat than anticipated and state funds were only days from being entirely expended, Tabata said.
Since that time, he estimated the county has already spent around $110,000 in contracts to have the river dredged, often to find that the sediment has built right back up to dangerous levels in a matter of days.
“As fast as the excavator was removing sand, the tide and the surf was pushing it back,” Tabata said, describing the scene he watched unfold months earlier as King Tides and storm swells combined to undo efforts to keep the Waimea River flowing.
Despite unanimous initial support for the $625,000 proposal — proposed draft Bill 2760 passed first reading but still has to go through multiple rounds of discussion before being finalized — virtually every council member expressed some level of doubt that the amount would be adequate to provide any kind of long-term solution.
“Over the years, the silt has been an ongoing issue,” Councilman Mason Chock said, asking about the public works department’s plans to develop a “holistic solution” that will prevent the threat of flooding and keep the river flowing without a need to constantly battle against nature.
Tabata suggested dredging the entire river and said that over half of the $625,000 called for in the bill will go toward a study that will identify weaknesses in the drainage system and provide an estimate of the cost to dredge the entire river instead of repeatedly clearing the mouth.
“I think we need to change strategy,” Council Vice Chair Ross Kagawa said. “It’s possible to do it better than we’re doing now. I don’t see half of $600,000 doing much of anything.”
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Caleb Loehrer, staff writer, can be reached at 245-0441 or cloehrer@thegardenisland.com.
