Nine years ago I first noticed the corals out in front of Sunset Beach on Oahu starting to get sick and die.
Some of the corals were 5-foot tall and rock hard reef building coral species. Corals like all marine life only live so long, but when they die they normally leave their skeleton behind that is glued to the rocky reef.
Much like an apartment building on land. The people who live in the building may pass away, but the building is still there. A new person may come along and build a new story on top of the old one. This is how corals build a barrier reef over time.
We all know our sea levels are rising, but can the coral reef rise as fast as sea levels? We found out by studying the coral growth at Anini Beach in Kauai that the corals can grow up to 8 inches a year! The sea level rise is less than one-half inch a year, so the ocean is building its own natural seawall out on the reef to protect the beaches from sea level rise.
The problem along the North Shore of Oahu is when the corals die the hard calcium carbonate of the coral skeleton is breaking down and dissolving. Kind of like your multi-story apartment building may collapse during a large earthquake. It is not normal for these rock hard coral skeletons to just fall apart so something out on the reef is causing the corals to dissolve.
Eight years ago I did a Hawaii TV story right on the beach when the homes were fine and had a 30-yard beach out front. I said in the interview the corals are starting to die and this will cause excess erosion endangering the homes. Most people laughed, but just this week another one of the homes we stood in front of fell into the sea.
This is just pure physics. Cause and effect just like we were taught in physics class in college. Kill the reef and beach erosion will increase.
So what is killing the corals from Haleiwa to Sunset Beach? That is a long distance of coastline so something major must be happening. Sewage and sunscreen can’t kill an entire coral reef system all the way out to 70 feet deep.
North Shore currents and waves clean the coastline of pollution on a daily basis, so the land based pollution only kills corals very close to shore.
Sea temperature rise is not killing the corals because the ocean temperatures are colder along the North Shore than on the Sough Shore and the corals over on the Waikiki side are doing quite well in most places. The only thing happening along Oahu’s North Shore is underwater submarine electromagnetic weapons testing of which we know can kill and dissolve live coral.
The bottom line is the DLNR, NOAA, USGS and UH should come on out to the North Shore and go diving with me and I will be happy to show them the dead dissolving coral reef out front of the homes falling into the sea. Then we all need to work together to find out for sure what is killing the corals and fix the problem if we want to save the homes along North Shore.
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Terry Lilley is a marine biologist living in Hanalei Kaua‘i and co-founder of Reef Guardians Hawai‘i, a nonprofit on a mission to provide education and resources to protect the coral reef. To donate to Reef Guardians Hawai‘i go to www.reefguardianshawaii.org.
