HANAPEPE — A slight improvement to the Hanapepe levee is being considered following Monday’s visual inspection by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, county authorities said yesterday. The team flew in from Honolulu to inspect the Hanapepe and Waimea levees
HANAPEPE — A slight improvement to the Hanapepe levee is being considered following Monday’s visual inspection by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, county authorities said yesterday.
The team flew in from Honolulu to inspect the Hanapepe and Waimea levees following flooding and heavy rains.
The engineers determined both levees are functioning as intended, according to Ryan Nishikawa, chief of field operations and maintenance for the Department of Public Works.
The team was accompanied by Deputy County Engineer Ed Renaud, as the county is responsible for the maintenance of the Hanapepe and Waimea flood control levees.
The levees were designed to provide protection for the 100 year flood. Areas protected by the levees need to be evacuated as a precautionary measure during the threat of a levee breach. Such action was taken during this past weekend’s flooding, Nishikawa said.
The Army Corps of Engineers conducts a visual inspection of the levees annually, and a structural assessment is expected to be done within the next two years to comply with FEMA mandates.
“I am not aware of any structural assessment being done on the levee system in recent years except for the I-walls (similar to a retaining wall) which was done within the past nine months by the Army Corps of Engineers,” Nishikawa said in an e-mail.
Renaud said in a prepared statement that the Army Corps is considering redesigning a small section — approximately 900 feet, between the swinging and Hanapepe bridges — of the Hanapepe levee.
“Even though it’s draining as it’s supposed to, this modification will help to provide even better protection against flooding in the future,” he said in the statement.
An additional Army Corps team came to the island yesterday to work on a possible design for the project, though further details were not available at press time.
Both levees were built by the Army Corps in the 1950s to reduce the risk of flood damage and protect life and property in these areas, Mary Daubert, county spokeswoman, said.
