"It would be world-class," says the owner of RNR Surf & Ski. "We could attract people from around the world to compete in a good venue like the Ala Wai."
But the wakeboarders, canoe paddlers, kayakers and others who are eager to safely enjoy their sports in the Ala Wai will have to be patient. A complex interaction of city, state and federal agencies is needed to implement a plan to dredge the dangerously shallow canal, and it will be several years before crews start to scoop silt out of the Ala Wai.
The canal may never be dredged if the federal government can't be persuaded to pay $7.2 million of the $9.5 million project.
The 1995 Legislature set aside $1.7 million for the state's portion of the dredging project, with the city prepared to pay a matching sum. But the plan came to a screeching halt when the federal Department of Transportation revised the criteria by which state projects qualify for funding. State planners are scrambling to find a way to get federal money, realizing that without such funding the dredging project may have to be abandoned.
That option is unacceptable to a lot of people, especially the rowers and paddlers who depend on the canal for their recreation and mental and physical health.
Landscaped banks and a promenade for walking, biking and skating
are redesign features. Special to the Star-Bulletin
Since it was completed in 1928 - when the stock market crash kept it from reaching the ocean near Kapiolani Park - the canal has been dredged only twice, in 1968 and 1978. The Manoa-Palolo drainage canal has filled the Ala Wai with silt and debris, creating dangerous shoals that torment paddlers and create a greater danger.
Most people forget that the canal was designed to keep stream sediment and debris from sullying the beaches of Waikiki, and to prevent flooding in the tourist mecca. It also takes the storm drain runoff from Kaimuki and Kapahulu and keeps those neighborhoods from flooding.
The canal is so shallow that even during normal downpours rain runoff from upstream fills the Ala Wai, preventing Waikiki's storm drains from emptying into the canal. They then overflow and flood Waikiki.
Debris and litter clog the Ala Wai during a heavy rainstorm in February 1995. By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
Dredging the canal is such an important project that Charles Swanson, city transportation director, believes the state and city will find a way to get it done even without full federal funding.
At the very least, Hawaii residents and visitors will be able to enjoy biking paths, pedestrian walkways and wonderfully landscaped areas along the banks of the Ala Wai. The city has been working since early 1995 to fill the banks with coconut palms, bougainvillea, plumeria and delicate yellow-blossomed galphemia. They will soon add double signature lights that illuminate Ala Wai Boulevard and the sidewalk.
The federal government is willing to help pay for a multiuse promenade along the mauka banks of the Ala Wai. But when people see city crews landscaping the banks of the Ala Wai, it fills them with hope that soon they will see dredging equipment hauling tons of muck out of the canal.
State workers can't even begin planning how to dredge the canal or draft an application for federal funds until an environmental assessment is completed. The federal Highway Administration won't even glance at a funding request until the environmental assessment reveals how much of the canal's pollution is related to highway runoff.
The city can finally hire a contractor to conduct the assessment now that Gov. Cayetano has released $69,500 in state funds to match the city's portion, which will join $511,000 in federal funding. It could take up to 18 months to complete the assessment, with help from the University of Hawaii, state Department of Health, Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency.
Then state officials could begin creating dredging plans, apply for federal funding and seek permits to do the work, which could take another 18 months or longer.
Unless, of course, the environmental assessment finds that an environmental impact statement is needed, which would mean additional delays.
Wong is helping local officials find ways to help them qualify for federal transportation enhancement funds or regular transportation funds (if people are ferried to and from the convention center) or a combination of the two.
Additionally, Ed Liu of the San Francisco office of the Environmental Protection Agency has $250,000 in grants to help clean the canal, as well as ways for the city and state to seek more funds.
To clean the ocean you have to clean the canal and the entire watershed, and through a court-consent decree the city has hired Eugene Dashiell to do just that.
By 1998, Dashiell must complete a management plan for the Ala Wai watershed and measures for improving water quality in the canal. His plan thus far relies heavily on cooperation from state and city agencies, and especially from the public.
Dashiell would educate residents upstream not to dump lawn clippings in stream beds and canals, and teach everyone that anything they toss on the road or in gutters and storm drains ends up in the canal. He also urges people to adopt streams to help clean them, and hopes to find a way to control erosion and reduce sediment load by stabilizing stream banks in the watershed without using concrete.
Most of all, a private/public partnership is necessary to establish funding to dredge the canal at least every decade.
The EPA's Liu is impressed with Dashiell's work thus far, calling it a national model for community-based management of an urban watershed.
Because the Board of Water Supply leaves enough water in Waiomao Stream, native o'opu are able to swim all the way down to the Ala Wai to breed in the brackish water, and their keiki swim back upstream deep in Palolo Valley to continue their life cycle.
Dashiell is working toward the day when the Ala Wai is clean enough for humans to swim there without worry.
