Maui beach park closes to remove 12 trees
WAILUKU » What began as the cutting of three trees along a sandy shoreline has turned into the removal of 12 trees and the partial closure of a popular beach park on Maui for more than a week.
County officials hope to fully reopen Baldwin Beach Park in Paia by Saturday.
Officials planned to remove a fallen tree and two others leaning dangerously on an eroded beach on the eastern side of the park, said county spokeswoman Ellen Pelissero.
But county arborist David Sakoda, who did an assessment, determined that there were nine more ironwood trees whose roots had been undermined by the heavy surf and had to be removed.
While the driveway entrance to the park is closed and the eastern side of the park is off-limits, the public may still walk to the park and use the western side of the beach.
The ironwood trees, some 40 feet tall, have been a part of the park for more than 57 years, said Parks Director Glenn Correa.
Correa said the surf has eroded a large portion of the beach in the last 50 years and that the park once extended more than 50 feet into the ocean.
He said a former military concrete pillbox for a machine gun emplacement was now underwater.
Pelissero said the company contracted to remove the trees had most of its employees on the Big Island doing a job and had to get some of them back to Maui for the work at Baldwin Beach.
Correa said prior to closing the beach Friday, a little girl was playing near the tree stumps when her hair got tangled in the roots of the fallen tree.
"It was a good thing somebody saw her and untangled her hair and got her out," he said.