Posted on July 12, 2021
Testifiers worry about impacts of streamlined permitting process
Maui residents are drawing a line in the sand over a proposal to streamline a statewide permitting process for small-scale beach restoration work.
The state Board of Land and Natural Resources during a meeting on Friday voted 5-2 — with board members Doreen Canto of Maui and Wesley “Kaiwi” Yoon of Oahu dissenting — to approve an amended state plan to expand, revise and streamline a complex permitting process to do shoreline restoration work on coastlines statewide.
Overseen by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands, the permitting plan would expand an existing Small-Scale Beach Nourishment program to allow private homeowner associations, individual landowners and government agencies the option to get federal and state approvals through a single application.
The Small-Scale Beach Nourishment program would be tiered from Categories I (up to 500 cubic yards of sand), II (up to 10,000 cubic yards) and III (up to 25,000 cubic yards). The program would not be related to sandbag revetments, but sandbag groins may be considered.
“A programmatic goal is to provide an incentive for oceanfront property owners to seriously consider beach nourishment as an alternative to coastal armoring, which can be achieved through small-scale beach restoration project permit streamlining,” state documents said.
Tiger Lee plays with daughter Kaia Lee, 4, in a hammock as wife Bridget Lee and daughter Luana Lee, 1, look on Friday in Maalaea. They were relaxing at a public beach access that had no beach to access. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
Requests to conduct shoreline work to mitigate erosion has been increasing over the years and coincides with the rising impact of global warming, according to the state. Any shoreline work is costly, time-consuming and requires many permits and approvals across various county, state and federal agencies.
Spurred by strong public opposition during testimony, amendments made to the proposal on Friday include:
• Category III actions would come to the board for final approval.
• Office of Hawaiian Affairs would be consulted on Categories I, II and III.
• For final approval, all private owners would be required to certify they would not get a regulatory shoreline certification makai of pre-construction shoreline for Categories I through III.
• Grounds for denial would be that negative impacts outweigh the benefits.
• There would be a full Ka Pa’akai analysis (to identify whether traditional or customary Native Hawaiian practices are impacted), public trust analysis and public meeting before the board for any Category III project.
“Given the testimony we’ve had, this does deserve a lot of care,” said board member Chris Yuen, who introduced the amendments.
After the vote, Maui shoreline activist Kai Nishiki, along with a testifier from Kauai, made separate requests for a contested case. They now have 10 days to formalize it.
“While we appreciate the board’s attempt to amend and clarify the proposal on the fly, the last-minute additions did not fully clear up the questions and concerns on how the more intrusive Category III activities like sandbags and groins could harm our public shorelines and beaches,” Nishiki said after the meeting. “A request for contested case hearing was the only way to ensure our concerns are addressed prior to implementation of a statewide program.”
Sam Lemmo, administrator of the Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands, pushed back against the testifiers’ claims Friday, saying that the department is passionate about caring for the environment and Native Hawaiian traditional and cultural practices.
“There’s a whole discussion about the negative aspects of this project and the damage it’s going to do and the problems it’s going to lead to,” Lemmo said. “I’m having trouble getting my head around all that because this is resource protection, it’s resource conservation, it’s resource enhancement. The programs we’ve done throughout the Hawaiian islands have been very successful. We haven’t seen any negative ecological effects. It actually improves the habitat for marine creatures.”
He added later that more could have been done with public outreach efforts.
The majority of testimony came from Maui, with residents saying that the state did little to no community consultation on the major change to statewide permits that would “fast-track” a process for wealthy property owners. Testifiers also questioned whether erosion measures approved by the state actually work or make things worse for the natural ebb and flow of the environment.
“This has nothing to do with the locals,” West Maui resident and teacher Jeremy Delos Reyes testified. “The proposed plan for Kaanapali Beach was to dredge up sand offshore and dump it on Kaanapali. For what reason? To give the tourists the sand because somebody came in during the winter, during winter swell, and saw the beach disappear. All my life, 46 years, every winter the beach run away and every summer the beach come back. So you guys are just preserving stuff for big companies and tourists and tourism dollars.”
Council Member Tamara Paltin, whose residency seat covers West Maui, said some of the shoreline erosion mitigation efforts may work, but the elephant in the room is sea level rise, with oceans expected to rise 3.2 feet by 2100.
“Once sea level rise hits the 3.2 mark, these shoreline erosion measures won’t have the same kind of impact as they currently are, and any move to allow for for people to protect their property needs to be a coupled with a commitment to managed retreat,” she testified.
Francine “Aunty Mopsy” Aarona of Paia said the shoreline changes on a daily basis and that Native Hawaiians for generations have allowed the sand to come and go.
“Unfortunately our problems that we face today are our own doing, yours and mine,” she testified. “From the day we said yes to hotels and short-term rentals on our shoreline we were not satisfied with the pink palace or the Moana or any of our grandfather hotels on our Neighbor Islands. The word ‘enough’ was not in the book of rules.”
Kahana, Kaanapali, Napili, Ukumehame, Puamana, Stable Road, Sugar Beach and other Maui locations were referenced by testifiers, board members and state staff during the hourslong debate Friday afternoon.
“It’s a very thorny situation,” said Chairwoman Suzanne Case when discussing controversial shoreline work in Kahana.
Nishiki said after the meeting that the community can no longer afford to keep kicking the can down the road when it comes to a statewide policy on managed retreat and more needs to be done than Band-Aid fixes.
“There are no easy answers,” board member Samuel “Ohu” Gon III said before the vote. “This is a really difficult issue; we need to make a decision of some sort. To not do anything at this point would be irresponsible, I think.”
* Kehaulani Cerizo can be reached at kcerizo@mauinews.com.
