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Press release
When it rains, "Kamehameha Highway is functioning as
a dam," said Ralph Makaiau of the Kahuku Village Association
and the area's resident expert on flooding.

Flooding in
Kahuku ‘frustrating’
for residents

Diverting water from one
part of town will affect another,
may have unintended effects

---

By Pat Gee
Star-Bulletin

Flooding in Kahuku has become such a fact of life that area residents are resigned to it and just thank God it's nothing like "the big one" in 1991.

Police officer Joseph Keanu, who helped with the mop-up, said: "People just grin and bear it. We just rebuild and go on again."

The 1991 deluge, a once-every-100-years variety, made roads impassable, isolated Kahuku Hospital and forced firemen to paddle around in boats to rescue stranded residents, said fireman Wayne Ching.

But even normal rainfall puts Kahuku High School's football field, the "lowest point in the community," under a foot of water every year, said former Principal Lea Albert. The big flood closed the school for a week, and since then, rain has closed it for a day three or four times.

"It's frustrating for the community. ... We keep praying for dry weather," Albert said.

Kamehameha Highway is 14 feet above sea level, and the school's parking lot is next to it, making the school a "retention basin," she explained.

When it rains, "Kamehameha Highway is functioning as a dam," said Ralph Makaiau, vice president of the Kahuku Village Association and the area's resident expert on flooding, according to government officials.

All the rainwater backs up mauka of the road because the use of the land has changed since the Kahuku Sugar Mill closed in 1971, he said. Outlets for streams and rivers that formerly drained into the ocean have not been kept clear and now flood the town during heavy rainfall.

The 1991 flood was so severe that "all evacuation centers were isolated, including the hospital, Kahuku High School and Elementary. From Kuilima to Laie, everything was flooded along the highway," Makaiau said.

'It's not a simple problem'

Finding a solution is complicated because diverting water from one part of the community will affect another and may have unintended consequences. Because environmental studies had to be done, building projects in the community have been put on hold for several years.

One such project is the delayed construction of 177 homes by the Kahuku Village Association, put in charge of developing former sugar lands by the city, Makaiau said.

Fellow association board member Jimmy Leonardi said: "It's not a simple problem. We've done virtually everything we were told we had to do, but it keeps getting bigger."

He said environmentalists now want a study on the long-range effects that diverting polluted flood water into the ocean will have on marine life.

A lot of "outspoken people have jumped up and down" about the delay in solving the flood problem. "We get mad, but we have to take it in stride," Leonardi said. "We've been promised things many times, but they've not been delivered."

Total cost: $23 million

Funding has been the main reason for the delay, as the entire flood control project will cost $23 million, said Jimmy Yamamoto, an engineer of R.M. Towill Corp., which drew up a master drainage plan in 1998.

But $2.7 million of it has been acquired for work on the hospital ditch project, a high priority because it is near the lowest point of Kamehameha Highway where flooding is the worst, Yamamoto said.

The state Department of Transportation is planning to build four more culverts, two on each side of the existing ditch next to the hospital, according to DOT spokesman Marilyn Kali.

But first they have to complete an environmental assessment, and it won't be until the end of this year before the preliminary design stage even begins. Construction should start in 2003 and take eight to 10 months to complete, she said.

Funds needed to complete the project are available from the federal, state and city governments, Kali said.

Yamamoto said the hospital ditch project should take care of less than 20 percent of the area's flooding problem.

"It's just to help water get to the other side of the highway," but water still will not be able to go downstream to the ocean until further improvements are made in the future, he said.

"By itself, it (the hospital culverts) may not improve the flooding much, but it's part of a piece that all fits together," he said.

"If you sit back and wait till you get all the money together, it will never be built," Yamamoto added.

The entire flood project should cost $23,611,818 for the construction of new bridges and culverts at the hospital ditch site, and at the Ohia, Kalaeokahipa, Hoolapa and Oio streams, he said.

Also in the plan are more "environmentally friendly" graded channels (vs. concrete canals) within the terrain to divert water to the ocean from the hospital ditch and the Ohia and Kalaeokahipa bridges, Yamamoto said.

Leonardi said of the DOT project: "We hope that this is the end, the light at the end of the tunnel. It's been eight, nine years longer than we expected."