HILO, Hawai‘i — Long-deferred maintenance projects are underway at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park after an infusion of millions of dollars in federal funds.
Through the Great American Outdoors Act, the park will receive more than $45 million in federal allocations for various improvement projects between the 2023 and 2025 fiscal years.
Of those funds, a 2024 appropriation of $33.6 million is expected to be used to rehabilitate the park’s aging water catchment system, the park’s primary source of potable water.
Park Superintendent Rhonda Loh said the project is HVNP’s largest critical deferred maintenance project, and will require significant overhauls.
“Some of our rain sheds were built in the 1920s, so they’re a bit overdue,” Loh said.
The rehabilitation work will include replacing the old buildings’ roofs, siding and gutters while upgrading waterlines, filtration systems, fencing and storage tanks.
The remaining $12.5 million will be for a fiscal year 2025 project to rehabilitate portions of the Mauna Loa Lookout Road.
These projects are in addition to $30 million allocated in 2023 to repair ungulate fences at three Hawaii national parks: Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, Haleakala National Park and Kalaupapa National Historical Park.
About 64 miles of fences will be restored, 40 miles of which will be at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, said Sierra McDaniel, natural resources program manager the park. Loh said fence repair work is already underway.
“HVNP is one of Hawaii’s crown jewels,” said U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who toured the park with Loh on Thursday. “They’re doing incredible work up here, and what they really need is money.”
During the tour, Loh showed Schatz the devastation wrought by the 2018 eruption and summit collapse at Kilauea, including the former Jaggar Museum, which is under demolition, and a stretch of Crater Rim Drive closed to the public for safety reasons.
“One of HVNP’s challenges is the dynamism of the park,” Schatz said. “Pele makes her own decisions.”
At one point on the tour, a stretch of forest on Mauna Loa’s flank caught Schatz’s attention — in particular, a sharp delineation between forest and pasture, which Loh said demonstrates the impact a simple, well-built ungulate fence can have on the local ecology.
Schatz said he will work to ensure Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park receives whatever funding it needs, He added that parks funding tends to be an easy sell among his Washington, D.C., colleagues.
“We argue about a lot of things up there, but parks funding is something we usually all agree on,” Schatz said. “At least I can look my colleagues in the eye and tell them that not a single dollar we spend here is wasted.”
