The plan to reopen the Pohoiki Boat Ramp has gone sideways after a funding snafu, Big Island lawmakers said.
The ramp, which was cut off from the ocean during the 2018 Kilauea eruption after a lava flow entering the sea deposited a sandbar across Pohoiki Bay, is the subject of a long-gestating reopening plan by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation.
Last month, a draft environmental assessment was released for a dredging project that would allow the ramp to reopen, listing a series of four options for the project that would remove varying amounts of the beach. The preferred option was a $40 million proposal that would remove the entire beach, roughly 175,000 cubic yards.
But a delay by a federal agency has cast uncertainty over the future of the project, said Puna Rep. Greggor Ilagan.
While the DLNR and the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency sent requests to the Federal Emergency Management Agency in December to confirm whether any of the four options would be eligible for federal reimbursement, FEMA has yet to send a response.
“We still haven’t received FEMA confirmation that any option is eligible for reimbursement,” Ilagan said. “Obviously, we wanted some kind of approval before we made our budget allocations” (in the state budget bill).
FEMA’s lack of response by the end of the 2023 legislative session prompted lawmakers to leave the $40 million out of the state budget.
Without a guarantee that the project is eligible for federal funding, Ilagan said including the full funding for the project could leave the state on the hook for the entire sum.
Instead, Ilagan said he and Puna Sen. Joy San Buenaventura have been able to secure $5.4 million to go forward with one of the more modest dredging options. That option would dredge a channel through the beach roughly 325 feet long and 15 feet wide, removing roughly 33,000 cubic yards of material.
In this way, Ilagan said, work to reopen the bridge can still begin this year even though FEMA still hasn’t given an official response yet.
“If we spend all $40 million on a single project without any reimbursement, that would take away from other projects elsewhere in the state,” Ilagan said. “At least with this option, we can eat a $5.4 million cost.”
San Buenaventura added that, with $50 million in state funding already going toward an expansion for the Hilo Medical Center, it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect another $40 million for another East Hawaii project this fiscal year.
Ilagan said that, should the rest of the process go smoothly, the channel-dredging project could go out to bid before the end of this year, and added that he didn’t want to force Puna to wait another year for the long-awaited reopening to take place.
Meanwhile, Ilagan said he believes FEMA should issue its reimbursement eligibility response within the next few months. If that response approves federal reimbursement for the complete beach removal option, Ilagan said he will work to add funding for that project in next year’s state budget.
But San Buenaventura was pessimistic.
“My preliminary read is that FEMA is not going to approve reimbursement for the total dredge,” San Buenaventura said, although she added that her diagnosis was based on conversations with federal lawmakers, and not statements by FEMA itself. “Obviously, I hope we’ll be able to persuade them against that decision.”
San Buenaventura noted that the option to dredge a channel through the beach is cheap and fast, but also unstable: Marine engineers have expressed concerns that the ocean currents could cause the channels to fill in with sediment quickly after they are dredged.
If FEMA declines to reimburse the total dredge project, Ilagan and San Buenaventura both said it is unclear how the project could move forward.
San Buenaventura said that earlier economic forecasts for 2024 predicted the state might be somewhat insulated from the effects of a possible recession on the mainland, but those forecasts now seem “highly likely” to be incorrect, and that next year’s state revenues might be lower than anticipated.
Ilagan said that he can’t predict what might be possible next year until FEMA confirms what it is and isn’t willing to fund.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.