KAILUA-KONA — The notion of increasing moorings at Keauhou Bay is as distasteful to paddlers and many nearby residents as it has ever been. And the state on Friday evening gave its first real hint that it could be swayed by public opinion.
A consultant found no significant impacts to the area in a recently completed draft environmental analysis of the plan. The state Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation seeks to increase the moorings in the bay from nine to 16 by adding new sets of anchors capable of mooring seven additional sport boats.
Residents shredded the plan, saying it places boats in perilously shallow water and ignores the history and temperament of the area.
“There are places two and a half feet deep where boats are supposed to maneuver around to get out of those moorings,” said paddler Sue Roberts, during a public hearing on the study.
Residents called for preservation of a place of healing where King Kamehameha III was stillborn and revived.
“It’s not a bay; it’s an inlet,” Virginia Isbell said. “Once you get that into your head you realize it really is something special. … The whole inlet is basically shallow and full of coral. There is a history of damage to the area when the waves are wild and high.”
DOBOR held the hearing on the draft EA at the Kealakehe High School cafeteria. About 200 people attended and a couple of dozen spoke.
Residents have accused DOBOR of rolling ahead with the plan despite the opposition. But Department of Land and Natural Resources spokeswoman Deborah Ward confirmed in an email that the EA is part of the legal process and its findings are not the determining factor.
“The final decision on what actually is approved will rest with the Board (of Land and Natural Resources),” she said.
DLNR’s first deputy Kekoa Kaluhiwa confirmed to the group that there has been “no predetermined decision that there will be added moorings to Keauhou Bay.”
At the end of the day, DLNR recognizes it cannot move ahead without the support of the community, Kaluhiwa said.
“It’s important in my heart that we make right with the recreational users of the bay, the fishers, the paddlers,” he said, noting that replacing and realigning existing moorings is key, and that the addition of moorings is more a secondary consideration.
But Bill Armer, president of the 600-member Keauhou Canoe Club, said it has always felt like there was a predetermined outcome.
“The state has had its say with the EA — shallow, insubstantial, no data, repetitive,” he said. “Probably 50 percent of the moorings in Hawaii are unpermitted by the federal government. So let’s start in Keauhou Bay?”
DLNR agreed to conduct the EA after it was sued by the Keauhou Canoe Club in 2013. The lawsuit alleged the state failed to follow its own laws when it pursued the moorage expansion without first completing the study. More than 2,000 people signed a petition against the plan several years ago, saying the bay is already too crowded, the boats will conflict with non-motorized uses and that more development is out of step with the bay’s cultural significance.
DLNR is pursuing the project because federal law requires that all offshore moorings be permitted by the Army Corps of Engineers, and none of Keauhou Bay’s nine existing moorings are permitted; nor do they meet engineering standards, Ward said.
The moorings help address a large gap between available sport boat moorage and the demand for it around the state, according to DLNR.
The existing buoys and anchors will be relocated so that none interfere with the navigation channel, and the network of moorings will be located more to the south of the harbor and laid out to make more efficient use of space, according to DLNR.
Lawrence Peebles is third on the list for a mooring. He’s been trying to get moorage for a sport boat for 10 years, he said.
“I don’t understand all of the opposition,” he told the newspaper. “People put in their own moorings. They threw old engines in. They roll around and tear up the bottom of the bay. The bay has changed significantly in 35 years.”
“Everyone should share the bay,” he added.
But Peeble was a small minority in his support for the plan.
“I don’t know why they keep coming back and wanting to ruin our beautiful bay,” said Barry Willis. “But they keep coming back.”