WAILUA — Work on restoring the Morgan’s Ponds at Lydgate Park is progressing on schedule, said Mary Daubert of the County’s Office of Public Information, Thursday. “The contractor has completed the repairs to the breakwater by lifting rocks from inside
WAILUA — Work on restoring the Morgan’s Ponds at Lydgate Park is progressing on schedule, said Mary Daubert of the County’s Office of Public Information, Thursday.
“The contractor has completed the repairs to the breakwater by lifting rocks from inside the pond and filling voids on the breakwater,” said Doug Haigh in the county release. “The contractor has currently started the dredging work.”
Daubert said after checking with the county’s Department of Public Works, the dredging is anticipated to be complete by mid-May.
The scope of work for the Lydgate project includes the dredging of the larger pond, resulting in an increase in depth from about 3.5 feet to between seven and nine feet, states a county release dated March 28 announcing the closure of the popular swimming area.
Additionally, the excavated sand from the pond will be spread over roughly 700 feet of the beach dunes; boulders which have fallen into the pond from their original positions along the border will be put back in place, reducing the amount of logs which are deposited inside the pond following major storms and naupaka will be planted along the sand dunes, according to the release.
Keith Suga of Goodfellow Brothers, who was supervising work at the Morgan’s Ponds, Thursday, said after initial work started, they discovered a lot more rocks in the pond resulting in a benefit to the county.
“These rocks were used to bolster the seawall,” Suga said. “As a result, the wall is a little taller and is beefier to withstand the debris from the Wailua River runoffs.”
He noted that because of the amount of rock, there is less sand than they originally anticipated, and because of the amount of silt accumulated over the years since the ponds were constructed in 1964, the sand and silt will be removed.
Additionally, as more rocks are uncovered during the dredging, they will be used to bolster the walls of the “keiki pond.”
“We’re currently on schedule,” Suga said. “Following the dredging, we’ll take about a week to remove the silt and do final dressing up of the area before opening. If everything goes according to schedule, the ponds should be open by the end of May.”
The county initiated the project in response to the public’s request to restore the larger pond to a swimming area and awarded $274,450 to Goodfellow Brothers for the restoration project.
Suga said former mayor Bryan Baptiste was pushing to get the project off the ground, and now, Kaua‘i Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. is making it happen.
• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@ thegardenisland.com.
