KAILUA-KONA — After years of delays, the mauka boat ramp at the Honokohau Small Boat Harbor will finally receive a much-needed upgrade.
The capital improvement project will begin Jan. 30 with an estimated completion date of March 30, the Department of Land and Natural Resources announced Tuesday. Isemoto Contracting will handle the repairs, which are expected to cost $562,700. The makai boat ramp will remain open.
Commercial operators and recreational users who use the mauka ramp must find alternative entry points to the ocean during the repair period, although the process is a bit more complicated for commercial interests, which are typically limited to entry at one specific location.
Bill Taylor, Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation Hawaii District manager, explained commercial operators must contact DOBOR for pre-approval to use a different site. Recreational permits, on the other hand, allow holders to use any location they choose across the island.
Walter Gay of Makana Lani Charters, who uses the ramp in question commercially, said the inconvenience should prove manageable, especially when weighed against the structure’s longstanding state of disrepair.
“The pier itself is pretty much in disarray and on both sides it’s falling apart,” Gay said. “The docks have got cracks and it’s kind of unsafe. People have slipped between the dock and the boat and gotten hurt and things like that.”
He added the state of the ramp creates the potential for damage to vessels as well, which he safeguards against by employing rubber bumpers along the side of his boat.
According to a DLNR release, concrete spalling and steel corrosion over a long period of time have compromised the integrity of the loading docks. The mauka dock has actually been condemned for several years due to structural problems.
Both of the ramp’s concrete loading docks will be replaced, and the new docks will be equipped with plastic lumber fendering and cleats.
Gay said he’s been hearing talk of improvements for years, adding they’re a long time coming. Taylor confirmed discussions of the project stretch back that far, explaining that the first hold up was a three-year delay waiting to obtain a permit from the Hawaii Department of Health to move forward.
After the permit was finally procured, the improvements were scheduled for July 2016. But Taylor said another delay arose because the contractor didn’t have all the construction materials on island.
In the interest of keeping the ramp closure as brief as possible, DOBOR pushed the start date back and created a provision that repairs couldn’t begin until the materials arrived.
“There’s no good time for this ramp to close down,” Taylor said. “Hopefully with us putting the provision in place, we won’t run into further, unnecessary delays. Two months with that ramp down is a big deal.”
Gay agreed, but said the timing is actually somewhat fortuitous.
“This is actually kind of better for us just because of the time of year — it’s a slower fishing season,” he explained. “So their timing is probably as good as they’re going to get it. But how long it’s going to take them to do it, that’s another thing.
“I just hope the state actually holds a deadline and gets it done promptly, because by summertime we’re going to need access to all of these ramps, for sure.”