Seawalls
The March 14 Garden Island printed a large story from the AP wire service entitled “Coconuts to the coastal rescue?” Unfortunately, the article’s author didn’t get any input from the coastal environmental community. The American Littoral Society (a trade group of coastal engineers) is advocating putting seawalls made of coconut tree logs on U.S. beaches.
The laugh is that they call these seawalls a “nature-based solution.” I guess you could say that boulders are a “nature-based solution” also? Mats made of coconut trees have been used for erosion control on stream banks and sand dunes, but they are not nature-based solutions, not to mention the carbon footprint of importing coconut trees from Indonesia?
Seawalls destroy the public beach, no matter what they are made of!
Once the beach has washed away, the erosion gets worse. Hawai’i Sea Grant just put out a nice manual on real nature-based solutions to coastal erosion: Sand dunes, native plants.
Our biggest threat on Kaua‘i is losing the public beach in front of Coco Palms.
The state Department of Transportation is still planning to harden the coast with a seawall and a plastic breakwater. Eventually the beach will disappear and so will the road.
Gordon LaBedz, Surfrider Foundation
Crosswalks
We spend three months of the year in this paradise.
We walk miles every day, primarily in the Po‘ipu area. We really need more marked crossroads.
Ho‘onani Road where it crosses to the Kukuiula center is a waiting disaster. Hundreds of people, families with strollers, from the Sheraton and other ocean side resorts, cross there daily.
Cars come flying off the roundabout; no one goes 25 on Lawa‘i Road!
Nancy Anderson, Koloa
