The Hamakua Community Development Plan Action Committee is mulling whether to request the county maintain Mud Lane or to open it up as an emergency evacuation route.
The committee has a 5:30 p.m. meeting today at the Kula‘imano Community Center, at 29-2892 Alia St. in Pepeekeo. One of the agenda items is for “decision making” about what to recommend should be done with the road.
Mud Lane — a mostly unpaved narrow stretch of road which from Mamalahoa Highway narrows into little more than a trail — is popular with hikers and bicyclists but isn’t a viable route to Kukuihale, a village sitting above Waipi‘o Valley that had a population of 281 in the 2020 U.S. Census.
According to County Council Chair Heather Kimball, who represents District 1, which includes Hamakua, “Mud Lane, as a whole, is a county road already, on paper.”
“There’s a little bit of roadway on each end, the Kukuihaele side as well as the Waimea side. And that is maintained and paved,” Kimball said. “And then what happens — which is not unusual in District 1 — you have a paper road. And the physical road/trail veers off of that paper road and actually goes onto private property.”
Kimball said that before any improvements could be made to Mud Lane, there would have to be “some reconciliation between the paper road and the physical road with Kamehameha Schools, which is the property owner where the road/trail exists.”
In 2017, Kamehameha Schools went to court and was granted an injunction by then-Hilo Circuit Judge Greg Nakamura against Jonathan Spies and his companies Hamakua Renewable Enterprises LLC and Golden Lion Hawaii LLC, which KS said in its complaint had trespassed and illegally harvested 28 acres of eucalyptus trees from its property.
Kukuihaele residents had complained about logging trucks on the road.
“We get a number of reports about trespassing, trees over the trail and illegal dumping,” said Kimball. “It’s definitely one of those more challenging situations.”
State Rep. Mark Nakashima, a Democrat who represents Hamakua, said he’s not received any input from constituents about the need for an emergency road from Kukuihaele to Mamalahoa Highway.
“If we’re talking a county-maintained road, then it’s actually a thoroughfare,” Nakashima said. “I do recall, my predecessor, Rep. Dwight Takamine, wanted to continue the road from Waipi‘o up to Mud Lane. I think that was tied to some housing development at the time, but it never came to fruition.”
Nakashima said such a thoroughfare could cause visitors to Waipi‘o to bypass Honokaa and deprive them of the opportunity “to stop in the town and enjoy the rustic character.”
Kimball said converting Mud Lane into an emergency road “is a reasonable thing to consider.”
“Having alternate routes of egress is a concern, particularly in light of Lahaina,” she said, referring to the deadly fires that devastated the Maui town in August.
“If you were to have some sort of blockage that lasted for quite some time across the Honokaa-Waipi‘o Road, that would be an alternate method to get the folks from Kukuihaele and that general area to the main highway.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.