Ann Noguchi isn’t afraid the house her parents built way back in 1933 is going to fall into the ocean soon. She knows the disaster is going to happen. High winds and high surf are doing the damage. “Erosion has
Ann Noguchi isn’t afraid the house her parents built way back in 1933 is going to fall into the ocean soon. She knows the disaster is going to happen.
High winds and high surf are doing the damage.
“Erosion has been worse and worse. We’ve lost at least 100 feet (on their oceanfront Aliomanu Bay property,” Noguchi said.
But according to Noguchi, the weather has had a human helper in the destruction of her property and that of the house next door, belonging to Paul and Carol Lemke.
Noguchi blames a seawall that she claims is illegal.
The seawall was built in the 1980s by a group of new neighbors (see photo on page 11).
The county had filed a suit claiming that work reinforcing the seawall in 1997 had been done without county approval.
But then-Kaua’i District Court Judge Clifford Nakea ruled against Kaua’i County, Noguchi and her next door neighbors, the Lemkes, in the summer of 2000.
Nakea ruled that the reinforcement work done for Albert Morgan Sr. and his family, were repairs and not new work that would have required a permit.
Had the county prevailed, county officials said they could have dismantled the latest sections of the wall, which was originally built in the 1980s.
It was reported in the Garden island at the time, that the wall cost approximately $100,000 to construct.
The seawall has been the focus of a 20-year argument between those who claim it is saving their property and Noguchi and the Lemkes, who claim the wall is going to eventually cause their homes to fall into the ocean.
In 1997, the county Planning Commission had ordered the residents who had constructed the wall to modify it and replenish sand in front of their homes and the Lemke and Noguchi homes.
But the seawall builders appealed and Nakea ruled in their favor.
According to Noguchi, the county appealed and the case has languished in the state Supreme Court for the past 18 months.
She fears by the time a ruling is made, she won’t have a house above the waterline.
The Fire Department visited the homes Saturday and fire officials said they advised the Noguchis and the Lemkes to turn off their electricity.
“We’ve turned the main circuit breakers off,” Noguchi said Sunday afternoon.
