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Waikiki beach erosion, something the city has been dealing with for over a hundred years, has gotten worse in recent years due to climate change. Human impacts over the past century include dredging channels in coral reef, the construction of sea walls, the collapse of sea walls, and climate change, which have all contributed to the loss of habitable coast and habitat for animals. In 2012 and more recently in 2021, the state’s solution to rising seas was to float a barge beyond the surf break known as Queens, suck up sand from the seafloor like a vacuum cleaner, and then deposit this sand on the beach. The solution has been largely futile, with the most recent efforts completed just at the start of May already eroded by high tides and high swells.
A new, Waikiki beach improvement plan proposes creating a beach where historically there has been none, constructing groins where prior groin construction appears to have failed, and dumping tons of sand on a significantly stressed coral reef habitat where endangered monk seals and sea turtles forage for food. In total, the project would require either the burial or relocation of 28 coral colonies. What I can’t understand is the new and more expensive plan to construct groins in front of the Sheraton Hotel, creating a new beach where there has been no beach for over a hundred years, all of this to the detriment of a coral reef where endangered species forage for food.
Today Waikiki Beach is a large crescent shaped bay fronted by resorts and hotels. You cannot walk the entirety of Waikiki beach on the sand. The presence of no sandy beach means that the waters in this section of Waikiki are relatively free of humans. According to Sea Engineering, Inc.’s environmental impact report, “The proposed action in the Halekūlani beach sector will create approximately 3.8 acres of new dry beach area. Marine habitat in this area consists of a relatively barren reef flat.” I wouldn’t call an area where sea turtles actively graze and where monk seals have also been spotted a “relatively barren reef flat.” At present, the seawall prevents most swimmers from accessing the water, allowing animals to freely forage in this section of the reef.
In order to understand why there’s a sea wall in the area in question, you need to go back to the early 1900s. In 1908, a hydraulic dredge cut a channel through the reef right in front of where the Halekulani now stands, and in 1913, this channel was deepened and widened. After the 1913 dredging operation, the beach in front of Fort DeRussy and the beaches in front of Halekulani began to erode. According to the environmental impact report, after the channel was created, property owners lost “ten to thirty feet of their ocean frontage. Seawalls were constructed to prevent the existing homes from being lost. The seawalls still exist today.” Other groins were constructed in the past, and these groins “are largely submerged and ineffective.”
Waikiki beach erosion offers a palpable testament and direct evidence of the ways we are changing and damaging our planet. It cannot be denied that the parts of Waikiki’s coast that have sandy beach suffer from erosion due to climate change, but it also cannot be denied that there wasn’t much beach to begin with. Sea levels are rising, but coral reefs are also stressed and dying due to increased ocean temperatures and ocean acidification. The impact of these stresses can be seen dramatically on Waikiki beach.
Heating oceans have stressed the nearshore coral of O’ahu. A recent report indicates that the main Hawaiian islands experienced “back-to-back severe coral bleaching in 2014 and 2015.” NOAA reports that the coral reefs of O’ahu are in “fair” condition. By “fair” NOAA means that coral are “impaired,” fish have been “very” impacted with “reef fish populations…depleted.” NOAA reports that “temperature stress and ocean acidification are moderately impacting the islands.” If Sea Engineering, Inc.’s proposed project buries the reef, it will be because the public and the government permitted it.
Last Thursday, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that the public has until July 23 to submit comments about Sea Engineering Inc.’s recently-released environmental impact statement. The report recommends a $12 million plan to construct a series of groins that would allow developers to create an artificial beach in front of the Sheraton Hotel, the Halekulani, and Outrigger hotels. Gone would be the seawall in front of the Sheraton that overlooks a reef where I’ve seen turtles and other sea creatures foraging for food. In fact, the plan seems to propose dumping tons of sand on that very reef.
An environmental impact statement completed by the very contractor that stands to benefit from the project if the project in question is approved sounds like an egregious conflict of interest. Why hasn’t the government hired an independent party to conduct the environmental impact statement? This seems to reflect deep irresponsibility on the part of our elected officials when it comes to offering the public a good understanding of the real effects a given project might have on sensitive cultural, ecological, environmental, and recreational areas.
The environmental impact statement completed by Sea Engineering, Inc. is a thousand-plus page-long document and I put it upon myself to read it in its entirety. It raises far more questions than answers. The opening sentence of the report took a defensive posture from the start, hardly the language of the unbiased: “Waikiki is a predominantly engineered shoreline.” Seawall construction in Waikiki beach dates back to 1890. But ProPublica notes that sea walls protect property “at the expense of the environment and public shoreline access.” In 1917, the construction of sea walls on Waikiki’s shore were outlawed. Given that sea walls have existed on this beach for over a hundred years, why do this project now?
The most obvious reason to me seems to be that the sea wall in that area is in gross disrepair. The benefits of the project seem to be aesthetic and touristic: the creation of a continuous Waikiki beach that the hotels can then cover with rental chairs. The report doesn’t mention any commitment by the hotels to repair their own damaged sea walls, which the report notes, are private property. The Star-Advertiser reports that “critics fear the project could degrade Waikiki’s legendary surf, harm reef habitat for fish and foraging areas for endangered monk seals and green sea turtles, and destroy the graceful, haunting ambiance at its heart, where ancient coconut trees mark the sites where Hawaiian chiefs once lived and freshwater streams and springs entered the sea.”
My concerns only grew deeper as I read on. The negative impacts of the project are presented as being only temporary, with no permanent negative impacts suggested. Yet sand will literally be dumped on a reef currently used by sea turtles and other marine species for foraging. The report explicitly states that 28 coral colonies will be buried and that the placement of the boulders and sand will “result in some loss of benthic organisms, including corals.”
Another concern expressed by critics is that the project will cause refraction of waves off the new beach, affecting Waikiki’s famous and beautiful surf breaks. Will the proposed new project affect the waves and surf breaks of Waikiki Beach? The report initially says the work will not impact surf breaks, but I didn’t believe it, and was right to distrust the initial claim. Buried in the 1000-page report is a more nuanced analysis of the impact of the project to surf breaks, one that deeply concerns me. The environmental impact report presents models of current wave formation in Waikiki, but doesn’t show the visual results for the models showing how the waves will break should the engineering project be approved. I have deep concerns that this project will further affect the offshore reefs that create Waikiki’s prized surf breaks.
The good news is that this project cannot move further without federal approval, particularly approval under the Clean Water Act. Other federal acts may also be affected, including the Endangered Species Act, the Archeological and Historic Preservation Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, among others. These approvals may be required on top of local state approvals.
When the state plans to take action that could potentially destroy natural resources critical to endangered animals, we need to ask ourselves who stands to benefit. Whom does this project primarily serve? Does it serve the people of Hawai’i and protect our natural resources, or does it protect a few coastal hotels and the tourist economy, an economy which has proven to be fragile in the era of COVID-19, and an economy that the local people have expressed that they want to rely on less? Notably, the beaches which are more heavily used by locals will not be served at all by the project.
What are the alternatives to this project? Of course, the only real alternative is for us to stop pumping carbon into the atmosphere and to find effective carbon sequestration. I don’t see that happening any time soon on a large scale. The current solutions are risky, myopic, and unsightly. Sea Engineering, Inc’s report itself admits that its own extreme engineering solutions will only protect the beach for a mere 50 years. The obvious alternative is to stop pumping carbon into the air. Sea Engineering, Inc’s report suggests alternative courses of action given our situation. These alternatives include no action, managed retreat, or beach maintenance without stabilizing structures.
Of course, sea levels will continue to rise, threatening Waikiki’s beaches, hotels, and other structures unless we find a way to stop and reverse carbon atmospheric levels. According to Sea Engineering, Inc’s environmental impact report, we stand to lose as much as 49.5% of the world’s beaches by the end of this century if the sea levels rise 3.2 feet under NOAA’s intermediate scenario projections for 2060 in Hawai’I, we could lose $12.9 billion in land and buildings, including 3,800 structures flooded, resulting in the displacement of 13,000 residents. My opinion is that no new beach should be created where there currently is none—period.
We don’t want to face the painful and difficult facts. Even if we manage to reverse course on climate change, we will likely see sea level rise in Waikiki for centuries. Even Sea Engineering, Inc’s report notes the following: “managed retreat should be part of the community development process.” What is managed retreat? It means relocating the resorts inland. It means abandoning buildings and covering their foundations with sand, forming a new beach. It means giving up on our idea of Waikiki beach as it exists now, which will be lost anyway by the end of the century, even with this multi-million dollar project. This is frightening, but it is our reality. Are we building groins and dredging sand in denial of the reality that the sea will rise and the beach will be lost? Perhaps we need to face the reality that the coastline as we know it will never be the same again. And as long as climate change continues, the water will get hotter, the coral will continue to die. We need to face the reality that we may not be able to enjoy the protective effects of our coral reefs forever.
I lean towards solutions that involve the least permanent environmental impact, including small scale beach restoration and beach nourishment that doesn’t involve the construction of added structures and that doesn’t involve dumping sand in places where there traditionally hasn’t been sand to begin with, especially on coral reefs. These temporary and costly solutions can preserve the beach, while we plan for managed retreat, the only real long-term solution. A project involving public money to ultimately protect a private sea wall, while potentially putting surf breaks, reefs, and marine animals at risk sounds wrong-minded to me. Finally, I am also sure that conflicts of interest make it impossible for Sea Engineering, Inc’s report to adequately or honestly convey to the public the real cost of the project in terms of environmental costs, recreational costs, and more. Until a truly independent analysis is performed, this project should not be approved.
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