Puna residents were ambivalent Wednesday about news the state will not dredge the entire beach blocking the Pohoiki Boat Ramp.
Following the April release of a draft environmental assessment for a project to dredge some or all of the beach that formed in front of the boat ramp during the 2018 Kilauea eruption, a state budget bill was finalized with significantly less money for the project than anticipated.
Big Island lawmakers explained at the time that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has not yet decided whether the project is eligible for federal reimbursement, and was unable to deliver that assessment before the end of this year’s legislative session.
Uncertain whether the state could get reimbursement for their preferred option — a $40 million project that would dredge and remove the entire beach blocking the ramp — lawmakers included in the budget only $5.4 million to dredge a channel through the beach.
During an online public discussion Wednesday evening soliciting feedback about the draft assessment, John Katahira, president of Limtiaco Consulting Group, the Honolulu firm spearheading the design for the boat ramp’s reopening, acknowledged the funding shortfall, but added that it falls outside of the scope of the draft EA itself, which included four dredging options with various costs.
Katahira said the project has been progressing under the assumption FEMA could provide up to 75% of the funding, but said he has “heard rumours” the agency may be unwilling to reimburse a project involving a full beach dredge.
“The way we are approaching it, we are trying to make our recommendation scalable to the funding that’s provided,” Katahira said. “We just have to do the most we can with the resources we have.”
But testifiers at Wednesday’s meeting largely spoke about the necessity of opening the ramp as soon as possible. With the ramp unavailable for nearly five years, local fishers are at a breaking point.
“This is a generational thing,” said resident Leila Kealoha. “I get it, people are concerned about the funding it’s going to take, but right now, the biggest concern is getting access to the ocean … we’re tired of having to pay $13.99 a pound for our poke.”
Other attendees posited their own ideas about how to reopen the boat ramp, most of which were shot down by representatives of Limtiaco and the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation.
DOBOR engineer Finn McCall said that a proposal to extend a ramp on top of the beach, rather than dredge through it, would be unsafe because it would not include a channel to protect boats from waves while descending the ramp.
Much of the meeting also devolved into discussions about the merits of the “hot ponds” that formed when the beach did. Despite many residents characterizing the ponds as bacteria-ridden “cesspools” that attract nude bathers and other licentious behavior, one resident asked for considerations to preserve the pools for future use, leading to backlash from other testifiers.
“I am a wife of a commercial fisherman for over 25 years,” said resident Bunnie Harrington. “This has changed my life more dramatically than more than 99% of you in this chatroom.”
Harrington said that her husband’s fishing trips now take days to account for the travel time from the Hilo boat ramp to fishing waters off the coast of Puna, which increases the risk of getting caught in dangerous storms.
She also noted that with the entire Puna coast unserved by a boat ramp, the range of seafood brought in by fishers is narrower.
“My husband’s life is in jeopardy to feed the Big Island,” Harrington said. “Right now, it’s graduation time. You guys ready to pay $25 a pound for ahi? Because my husband just paid $800 for fuel today.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.