An environmental assessment to increase moorings at Keauhou Bay has kicked into gear, and residents seem as displeased as ever with the proposal.
An environmental assessment to increase moorings at Keauhou Bay has kicked into gear, and residents seem as displeased as ever with the proposal.
An engineer and consultant laid out their plan for comment Friday in a consultation with stakeholders that kicked off the study. About 50 people showed up and took turns shredding the plan.
The bay is too small, too exposed to the ravages of weather, and contains a recreational culture incompatible with an increase in the number of moorings from nine to 16, Keauhou residents argued.
“The swell rolls in there 12 feet high; you guys have never seen it but I have,” said Geerling Goosen. “My boat has broken loose three times in the past nine years. You want to create seven more situations like that.”
The state Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation plans to remove the existing moorings and place 12 new ones on the south side of the channel and four on the north side. The division is undertaking the EA to settle a lawsuit filed in 2013 by the Keauhou Canoe Club alleging DOBOR failed to follow its own rule when it pursued the expansion without completing a study of impacts to the environment.
A draft study is set for completion by late fall, examining impacts to underwater cultural resources, coral, cultural practices, recreation, public access and other effects. Public comments will be incorporated and an additional meeting will be held when the draft is ready, the project leaders said.
Divers will be in the water this coming week doing transects of the bottom and photographing all historical features.
“Go do it down in Kailua where there is more room, or up in Kawaihae. Don’t do it in the birthplace of a king,” said the canoe club’s president Bill Armer.
The bay is a sensitive and revered area — the birthplace of King Kamehameha III — already impacted by sewage pollution, said residents, many of them members of the paddling club. Crowding more boats into the basin would increase pollution from bilges and squeeze out non-motorized opportunities, they said.
Craig Watson called on the state to study the bay’s wide mix of uses.
“They’ve taken a big leap and jumped strictly into 16 moorings in that bay,” he said.
Asked why DOBOR is pursuing the plan, division engineer Finn McCall said his understanding is the bay once held up to 24 moorings and there is a public demand for an increase.
The existing moorings are not engineered nor permitted, undersized and of questionable durability, said McCall. Some are concrete blocks; at least one is a train wheel. Some are installed in the channel.
The new plan would better organize the moorings within the existing footprint, McCall said. They would eliminate the threat of sub-par moorings getting dragged through delicate coral areas, he said.
New moorings would be steel anchors with a 5-foot sweep radius.
Armer said that buffeting surf makes the area unsuitable for additional boats, which would carry the risk of breaking loose and slamming other craft. The national average for recreational boat use is nine days out the year, he said.
“You want to create a parking lot for seven more boats to sit out there,” he said.
In a phone interview Saturday, Armer compared the benefit of the moorings to seven individuals with the 2,000 signatures against the plan gathered in the winter of 2013.
With six commercial moorings in the bay and three recreational ones, the expansion would increase the recreational moorings total to 10.
Supporters of DOBOR’s plan didn’t appear to be present Friday. One fisherman said he has been on the waiting list for new moorings for 10 years, but he and his family reject the proposal as presented.
“The plan is rotten,” he said.