WAILUA — Mabel Silva has had enough. Her home on Kuamo‘o Road in Wailua Homesteads sits next to state Department of Land and Natural Resources property where a path leads down toward Wailua River. Silva aid she has been speaking
WAILUA — Mabel Silva has had enough.
Her home on Kuamo‘o Road in Wailua Homesteads sits next to state Department of Land and Natural Resources property where a path leads down toward Wailua River.
Silva aid she has been speaking with DLNR officials for the better part of four years, trying to convince them to maintain a route from the road to the river.
The overgrown path has meant branches and rats coming into her yard, a situation she said would be intolerable even if she weren’t thinking of putting her home up for sale.
“There’s rats and all coming through here,” she said, suggesting prisoners could do the work.
Silva has spoken with former state Sen. Gary Hooser, who represented Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau and lives in a subdivision on the other side of the path, and anyone else who would listen “about this jungle,” she said.
Her late husband used to maintain the DLNR land from the road to the end of her property line, she said.
She just completed renovating her home and was considering putting it up for sale, she said, “but who’s going to want to buy it next to an unmaintained trail?”
She is also concerned that some of the trees on the state land might be damaging her driveway with their roots.
“I’m not going to go in and clean. That’s not my property. If they let it go it’s going to get worse, not better,” she said.
Deborah Ward, DLNR spokeswoman, said the DLNR is soliciting bids for maintenance of the path, which is technically not a trail as defined under the DLNR Na Ala Hele Trails and Access Program.
“DLNR has cleaned the path in the past. In 2005, in conjunction with the County of Kaua‘i Ka Leo O Kaua‘i program headed by Tim Bynum, community response specialist, the community did agree to maintain the cart path,” Ward said in an e-mail.
“However, due to the state requirement that the group obtain liability insurance, they then decided not to pursue maintaining the cart path,” Ward said.
Silva said the path used to be popular with people going frogging on the river and hiking to waterfalls, and that even after the state put up a fence at the head of the path people were still hopping the fence.
The path used to be a 10-foot-wide easement suitable for driving on and people with pastoral leases on state land drove down to access these properties near the river, said Silva.
“A gate across the path was placed in response to complaints from the community of illegal dumping, motorcycles riding on the path and loitering,” Ward said.
“Then in 2004 we received community complaints that the gate prevented them from walking down the path to the Wailua River. This prompted the department to modify the gate to allow pedestrian use only,” she said.
“Could be a nice trail,” said Silva, who was born and raised in the Wailua area. “I hope something’s going to transpire after this. We used to play on this trail a long time ago.”
Jerome “Da Shadow” Freitas, whom Silva reached out to when she saw him at a function recently, said he doesn’t think the state is right.
“They’re supposed to be responsible for maintaining the trail,” he said.
• Paul C. Curtis, assistant editor and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or pcurtis@kauaipubco.com.
