Putting rocks on the beach, cutting trees to save Oʻahu highway

Yahoo

03-06-2025

KAAAWA, Hawaii (KHON2) — A popular Windward Oʻahu coastline is going through a major change.
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The State Department of Transportation said it is necessary to protect Kamehameha Highway in Kaʻaʻawa, but some beachgoers have reservations.
The ocean has been slowly eating away at the Kaʻaʻawa Beach shoreline for years, but the Hawaiʻi DOT is preparing to build a rock wall about 400 feet long and 15.5 feet wide to keep the highway from collapsing into the sea.
'I get that your priority is to fix the road, and then in some places, you know,' said Kaneohe resident Shane Brown, 'What's the other option? Are we going to put a road through the middle of the school?'
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Roughly 13,000 vehicles pass through this corridor every day, and it is a vital route for both residents and emergency services, but protecting the road comes at a cost.
'And even just being a surfer, I'm not a civil engineer and all that. But there's something where when you build a wall and the water hits it, the sand just goes away,' Brown said. 'Even I can see it looking behind you. We have a rock wall that's just down there. You see where the rock wall is, there's no sand…as soon as it ends, boom, beautiful beach.'
Another concern KHON2 heard had to do with the trees that needed to be cut down in order to make room for the project. There are worries it could lead to further problems down the line.
'Seeing the trees removed, it's just more like another punch in the gut to the community, something that they didn't have a say in and it takes away the beauty of the location,' said Haula resident Derrick Pressley. 'The road itself is very important, the question would be, 'Why do we have to take the beach away to secure the road?''
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According to the HDOT's environmental assessment:
A riprap revetment is the preferred option because it is a longer-term solution for the protection of the critical roadway, which also minimizes reflected energy at the shoreline. Lateral access to the beach is expected to improve following the installment of the revetment due to the absorptive and permeable nature of rock revetments.
Kamehameha Highway at Kaaawa Erosion MitigationDraft Environmental Assessment
'They have to remove all this vegetation to be able to put the rocks in a secure way so that the rocks don't just go out into the ocean, because the worst thing would be that they do this project and then the waves break it all apart,' said Brown.
The highway is being contraflowed while the project is ongoing; it is expected to be completed before high surf season in the winter.
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for a link to the full environmental assessment from HDOT.
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