LIHU‘E — The Lydgate-to-Lihi portion of the multi-use coastal path will hug the coastline through Waipouli rather than cross Kuhio Highway and parallel the canal, county officials announced Thursday. In a press release that focused on a resolution of the
LIHU‘E — The Lydgate-to-Lihi portion of the multi-use coastal path will hug the coastline through Waipouli rather than cross Kuhio Highway and parallel the canal, county officials announced Thursday.
In a press release that focused on a resolution of the Wailua Beach portion of Ke Ala Hele Makalae, Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. also noted that due to cost and safety reasons, Phase 3 would go makai of the area’s resorts, while the mauka leg will be “postponed.”
The new leg would head makai from Papaloa Road where it meets Coconut Marketplace, between the Kaua‘i Sands Hotel and the Aston Islander on the Beach, before turning north and staying behind the Kaua‘i Coast Resort at the Beachboy and the Aston Kaua‘i Beach at Makaiwa, a county map shows.
Carvalho’s Executive Assistant Beth Tokioka, after consultation with county Department of Public Works Building Division Chief Doug Haigh, said the new route will not require any additional environmental assessment because half of the makai leg was already included in a previous EA and the new proposed leg connecting Papaloa Road to the system would be on county park land and would use only county funds, exempting it from the EA process.
Only a special management permit and additional design work would be needed to implement the change, Tokioka said. She added that the phase had always been in discussion but was not included in the EA because the county wanted to move forward with the mauka route.
An additional change currently under discussion that would involve land acquisition from Mokihana of Kaua‘i a bit further north could require a supplemental EA, Tokioka said.
Wailua Beach
The county announced in the press release that officials received word Tuesday that the Federal Highway Administration decided to close the re-evaluation period on the modifications to the Wailua Beach portion of Ke Ala Hele Makalae on the grounds that “the proposed changes are not substantive in size, scope, intensity, use, location and timing,” concurring with the county.
“I am pleased that we can now continue our work on the Wailua Beach portion of the multi-use path,” Carvalho said in the release.
“I want to acknowledge everyone who provided input on this matter, especially our Hawaiian community who shared their concerns, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Federal Highway Administration, and the state Department of Transportation Highways Division.”
Hundreds of path supporters signed a petition recently stating they wanted Ke Ala Hele Makalae to stay makai of the highway through Wailua, but not all Hawaiians were pleased with the January compromise, endorsed by OHA, that moved the proposed route from being entirely on the beach to straddling the existing concrete Kuhio Highway shoulder and the sand dunes on the makai side of the highway.
“Make no mistake, irreparable harm and negative impacts to the religious, cultural and historic properties of Wailua are already occurring,” Kehaulani Kekua, kumu hula of Halau Palaihiwa O Kaipuwai, said in an e-mail Thursday evening.
“County, state and federal leaders continue with a purpose to cause unnecessary destruction and bring demise to the religious and cultural properties of the great sacred Wailua,” she said.
Kekua said development projects like the multi-use path, highway widening, bridge expansion and undergrounding of utilities will “potentially cause negative effects and impacts on historic properties and natural resources that kanaka ‘oiwi (Native Hawaiians) have religious and cultural attachment to.”
“Expertise and sound advice must come from those who possess the ability, understanding, connection and cultural practice that speak to the profound and the sacred,” Kekua wrote, adding that she was “insulted” by Carvalho’s “empty words” that acknowledged the input from the Hawaiian community. “We have repeatedly offered our ‘ike (knowledge) and expertise, only to be ignored and denied any consideration.”
FHWA also approved $7.4 million in funding to complete the path’s section from Kuamo‘o Road to the northerly end of Papaloa Road, as well as the spur from Kuhio Highway to Gore Park in Hundley Heights above Kapa‘a town, the release states.
Tokioka clarified that $4.2 million comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, known as the federal stimulus, while $3.2 million came from the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program.
