Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Windward marsh
plan criticized

---

By Treena Shapiro
Star-Bulletin

Three Windward Oahu community groups are worried that the state's plans to build a maintenance facility at Kawai Nui Marsh will lead to further development on the island's largest wetland area.

All four people submitting testimony at a public hearing yesterday at Kailua District Park support the state Department of Land and Natural Resources' plan to restore some 70 acres of the marsh to create a bird habitat and open more space for public use. But they asked the City Council to deny the department's request for a special management area use permit until it's determined whether a proposed flood-control facility could be built somewhere else.

The $390,000 facility would be the base for maintaining and monitoring water quality and flood-control equipment, including an existing levee installed by the Army Corps of Engineers to protect the Coconut Grove subdivision after the 1998 New Year's flood. The plan also calls for installing a flood warning system which would have two gauges in the marsh and one on the Oneawa Canal Bridge.

Sandra Braun, vice president of the Kawai Nui Heritage Foundation, said she is concerned that the state settled on building the base yard on marsh land without exhausting the alternative sites.

"The plan got stuck and we're unsticking it," she said.

Braun said the base yard is not coastal dependent and therefore doesn't need to be built on marsh land. In light of the community concerns, the Department of Land and Natural Resources has contacted the city to see whether there is space for the facility at the Kapaa Transfer Station across Kapaa Quarry Road from the marsh.

Kailua Neighborhood Board member Donna Wong said the board voted against the project because it was afraid that it would lead to other projects and affect the marsh.

Asked what her hopes were for the marsh, Wong said she'd like to see the area, particularly the waterways, opened to public use, rather than have the sanctuary fenced in to keep the public out.

Muriel Seto, culture chairwoman of the watchdog group Hawaii's Thousand Friends, said the management plan lacks clarity, particularly in regard to which agencies are responsible for maintaining the marsh.

She also questioned the state's plans to fence in the marsh, a sticking point for all who testified.

"What they want to do is good. Why did they start with fences and corporate yards before they do something to support the resources?" she asked.

District Wildlife Manager Dave Smith, however, rebutted arguments that the fences would alter the view plane and would simply serve to keep feral dogs away. The 4-foot "ranch-style" fence would be out of sight from the Pali Highway or Kapaa Quarry Road and, in fact, "many of the fences are already there and people don't know it," he said.