{"id":243943,"date":"2025-10-22T16:32:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T16:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/243943\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T16:32:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T16:32:14","slug":"will-bailey-states-dredging-of-pohoiki-bay-fails-quickly-and-completely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/243943\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Bailey: State’s Dredging Of Pohoiki Bay Fails Quickly And Completely"},"content":{"rendered":"

Built to reopen a path from a crucial boat ramp to the ocean, the new channel through volcanic debris has already vanished.<\/p>\n

When the state\u2019s dredging of Pohoiki Bay began in June, project critic Dane DuPont wasn\u2019t speaking prophecy. He was reading the data. <\/p>\n

As co-founder of the Hawaiian Volcano Education and Resilience Institute, DuPont helped design digital tools to track the 2018 K\u012blauea eruption and map homes lost to lava. Later, he worked with state officials and contractors on community recovery projects, including plans to reopen Pohoiki\u2019s landlocked boat ramp.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnsupported sand, four-to-one slope, no maintenance budget,\u201d he said of the dredging project. \u201cWe told them it wouldn\u2019t hold.\u201d<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t wrong.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the Department of Land and Natural Resources confirmed that the newly dredged Pohoiki Boat Ramp channel has already filled back in with sand \u2014 just weeks after completion.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ideas showcases stories, opinion and analysis about Hawai\u02bbi, from the state\u2019s sharpest thinkers, to stretch our collective thinking about a problem or an issue. Email news@civilbeat.org<\/a> to submit an idea or an essay.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe closure was caused by heavy tidal conditions,\u201d said Andrew Laurence, DLNR communications director. \u201cNature proved more than a match for this solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a project celebrated as the reopening of Puna\u2019s ocean access after seven years, the reversal is stark. It didn\u2019t even take a storm to do it.<\/p>\n

When I visited the site Tuesday, the channel was gone and the resulting basin was still and sour.<\/p>\n

DLNR crew members in wetsuits and scuba tanks moved slowly through the mostly stagnant water, hauling nets heavy with small dead fish.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been working on this project for nine years and we are all extremely disappointed,\u201d Laurence said.<\/p>\n

The Cheaper Fix<\/p>\n

DLNR\u2019s own documents show how it happened.<\/p>\n

According to the agency\u2019s 2023 Environmental Assessment, three alternatives were considered: twin breakwaters ($46 million), full removal of volcanic debris ($40 million), and a smaller $5.4 million channel dredge. The state ultimately pursued the smaller dredge, later expanded under the Federal Emergency Management Agency\u2019s cost-share program to a $9.28 million contract awarded to Goodfellow Bros.<\/p>\n

The state preferred the full dredge, but funding fell short. \u201cIt was important to do something rather than nothing,\u201d Laurence said.<\/p>\n

That \u201csomething\u201d lasted less than a month.<\/p>\n

\"\"The dredged path at Pohoiki Bay has completely refilled, leaving a stagnant basin full of dead fish. Access to the boat ramp is again cut off, as it had been since the 2018 eruption of K\u012blauea. (Will Bailey\/Civil Beat\/2025)<\/p>\n

DuPont said the community\u2019s original plan called for complete sand removal followed by a testing phase to observe current flow before reopening. As it turned out, \u201cWe never even got to put a boat or a jet ski in the water. The channel failed before we could test it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the DLNR\u2019s Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation staff later messaged him asking for drone footage of the collapse.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThey said, \u2018Can you send us some video? We don\u2019t know what happened.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The cause, DuPont said, is no mystery. Pohoiki sits in the path of a strong south swell that drives a north-flowing longshore current, pushing sand back across the bay.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe window of calm was perfect when they dug it,\u201d he said. \u201cAs soon as that window closed, so did the channel. That\u2019s just normal out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even DLNR engineer Finn McCall had cautioned at the time: \u201cWe really can\u2019t predict how quickly the new channel might fill back in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now we know \u2014 weeks, not years.<\/p>\n

A public notice from FEMA last year described the dredge as a one-time restoration, not a rebuild. It explicitly warned that Pohoiki lies in a flood zone \u201csubject to future flooding events.\u201d<\/p>\n

A FEMA grant was supposed to reimburse initial construction only, leaving no maintenance funding. DuPont said FEMA hasn\u2019t yet reimbursed the state or signed off on completion \u2014 meaning the project is in limbo even as the bay has closed again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe department is currently examining the site conditions and evaluating options to address the situation and long-term solutions,\u201d said the DLNR\u2019s Laurence.<\/p>\n

\"\"The dredging project last summer was supposed to restore access to the Pohoiki boat ramp. (DLNR photo\/2025)<\/p>\n

A Symbol Of What Went Wrong<\/p>\n

By last weekend, videos from local residents showed a spotted eagle ray \u2014 a protected species \u2014 circling inside the closed basin. The ray had entered when the channel was open and became trapped as sand drifted back across the cut.<\/p>\n

In one clip, residents stood on the new sand-and-rock bridge that now separates the basin from the sea, using shovels and buckets to carve a shallow trench toward the surf \u2014 a desperate attempt to give the animal a path out.<\/p>\n

DLNR\u2019s Division of Aquatic Resources confirmed receiving reports about the ray and sent staff to rescue it Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey opened the ocean, then sealed it again,\u201d resident Cheyne Johnson said. \u201cNow even the fish are paying the price.\u201d<\/p>\n

For many in Puna, the image hit hard \u2014 a symbol of what went wrong.<\/p>\n

A project meant to restore access had instead created a trap, not only for boats and people but for the wildlife the bay once sustained.<\/p>\n

The Human Cost<\/p>\n

Pohoiki was never just a boat ramp.<\/p>\n

It was the east side\u2019s lifeline \u2014 connecting subsistence fishers, charter crews and families whose lives move with the tide.<\/p>\n

Before the eruption, fishers launched here to chase ahi, often landing 100- to 200-pound yellowfin during the summer run. The ramp supported small commercial crews that supplied markets with fresh tuna rivaling Kona\u2019s in quality, if not scale.<\/p>\n

When lava sealed it off in 2018, the loss was economic and cultural.<\/p>\n

\"\"Pohoiki Bay used to open right into the ocean before the eruption. (Nathan Eagle\/Civil Beat\/2017)<\/p>\n

Fishers were forced to haul to Hilo \u2014 30 extra miles, two extra hours, and far more fuel. Some folded their operations entirely. Reopening wasn\u2019t about convenience; it was about survival.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what the community\u2019s full-dredge plan was meant to protect \u2014 after a broader $60 million harbor-improvement concept discussed in 2022\u201323 was dropped. The larger plan, never formally adopted, would have added breakwaters and deeper dredging but required long-term federal investment the state couldn\u2019t match.<\/p>\n

The design that survived wasn\u2019t built to last \u2014 only to appease.<\/p>\n

Now the sand has returned, and with it the same waiting, the same questions, the same quiet frustration that comes when a preventable failure is blamed on nature.<\/p>\n

The Lesson In The Sand<\/p>\n

The physics are simple and merciless: sand moves.<\/p>\n

Ignore that, and the sea will undo your math.<\/p>\n

Pohoiki\u2019s collapse may yet serve a purpose. Each refill, each recorded tide, is data \u2014 proof of what the next plan must confront.<\/p>\n

But only if that data is made public, and the next design is funded to match the scale of the coast, not the size of the budget cycle.<\/p>\n

Because out here, doing \u201csomething rather than nothing\u201d can become the most expensive choice of all.<\/p>\n

Puna doesn\u2019t need another ribbon cutting. It needs an as-built drawing, a monitoring plan and a maintenance budget.<\/p>\n

It needs to know who\u2019s accountable when the next tide turns.<\/p>\n

Pohoiki has always been a teacher.<\/p>\n

This time its lesson is brutal and clear: The warnings weren\u2019t mystical. They were measurable. And the people who measured them were right.<\/p>\n

\"Civil<\/p>\n

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