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Lanikai Beach
gets back sand

Erosion has been taking
Lanikai sand to Kailua for years,
but the state and city rectified
the situation

By Treena Shapiro
Star-Bulletin

When Mollie Foti moved to Lanikai 35 years ago, there was an enormous stretch of sand extending to the Waimanalo end of the beach. Now the beach has been reduced to "a nice crescent of sand."

But a few months ago, it wasn't even that. Lanikai residents had watched for decades as their southern shoreline eroded, and beachfront property owners erected seawalls and sandbag revetments to protect their homes.

Meanwhile, right around the bend, Kailua Beach was gaining an excess of sand. Lanikai residents began saying, "This is Lanikai Beach in Kailua," Foti remembered.

Before

After

By Aulani Wilhelm, Special to the Star-Bulletin
The state Department of Land and Natural Resources and the city
took sand from Kaelepulu Stream in Kailua and dumped it onto
Lanikai Beach to help restore beach sand lost to years of erosion.
These before and after photos of Lanikai Beach were
provided by the DLNR.

But with help from the city and state, the Waimanalo end of Lanikai has sand once again. The city dredged 10,000 to 12,000 cubic yards of sand from Kaelepulu Stream in Kailua and used it to renourish a stretch of Lanikai Beach.

Now a 5- to 7-foot-high sand dune stands in front of four beachfront houses.

Meg Stone, an Enchanted Lake resident who has taken sunrise walks on Lanikai Beach for 40 years, said the new sand means she no longer has to wait for a very low tide to walk on the beach.

To walk on this section of beach at any other time, "I'd be ducking against the wall," she said. "It used to be I couldn't get past the right of way."

But since the renourishment project she can walk farther south.

"Now the sand is firm and there's lots of it. It's a longer beach, more room."

Sam Lemmo, coastal lands program manager of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, said this type of beach renourishment "is not a cure-all, but it can certainly help us out with many locations throughout the state." Beach erosion has affected almost 25 percent, or 17 miles, of Oahu's beaches.

Renourishment offers natural protection for property owners, a better alternative than erecting permanent barriers, Lemmo said.

"Seawalls are built in response to erosion," he said.

"Your land is eroding, your structure is threatened, you want to protect it. But there is a kind of unintended side-effect," he said. "The wall accelerates beach erosion."

Ned Dewey, president of the Lanikai Association, said that of the more than 100 beachfront structures, only six didn't have some sort of protection, primarily seawalls or sandbags.

Now the renourishment will help protect structures, he said. "It was a win-win proposition for everyone involved.

"The excess sand problem at Kailua Beach Park was addressed, and was taken to Lanikai Beach that desperately needed that sand."

"Many people think the Lanikai sand is moving to Kailua," Dewey said.

"By taking it from Kailua Beach Park to Lanikai, it's like completing a cycle."