Waipio Valley residents are grateful for a county emergency proclamation closing the Waipio Valley Access Road to nonlocal traffic.
In a proclamation issued by Mayor Mitch Roth Friday, because of unacceptable hazards on the winding and treacherous road to the bottom of the valley, the road will be closed until 2025 to all traffic except for those who live or work in the valley.
“It’s a matter of life and death,” Roth said. “We’re trying to get as few people on that road as possible. If it weren’t the only way into the valley, we’d be closing it entirely.”
The proclamation comes shortly after the release of a geotechnical study of the road conducted by Seattle construction company Hart Crowser. That study, launched in the wake of a landslide beneath the road in 2019, found that the risk of rockfall from higher on the slope is “unacceptable,” and the soil around the upper section of the road is dangerously unstable.
Hart Crowser’s recommendations included mitigation measures such as the removal of rock overhangs above the road and cutting back the upslope parts of the road to reduce its height.
Roth said the county has some funds in place to pursue potential plans, but the cost will not be known until specific designs can be commissioned, which will take at least four months.
“We feel we have to make the valley accessible,” Roth said.
Until then, however, the popular location will be inaccessible to tourists. According to county data, the road had a daily average of 149 hikers and 29 rental cars traveling into the valley in 2021.
Roth said the county is considering how to enforce access. On Friday, he said, there were some barriers at the top of the access road. The county workers who count the daily traffic coming in and out of the road could also determine whether somebody is permitted to be there, he added.
Violators could be found guilty of both trespassing and violating the emergency proclamation, Roth said.
Waipio residents voiced support for the closure Friday. Taro farmer Jim Cain said all Waipio Valley residents know that the access road has become extremely dangerous, not just because of the geotechnical issues, but because of the extreme amount of traffic on a road patently unsuited for it.
“You get hikers trying to walk on survival mode, you get tourists renting a four-wheel-drive who aren’t used to it and don’t know where the pull-offs are,” Cain said. “It’s so bad, I just don’t drive on the road during the daytime.”
Cain said the congestion on the road has affected the quality of the valley and the beach area overall.
“There are other born-and-raised folks from here who are just in tears over how the valley has changed,” Cain said. “Something has to be done, and I guess the aina has spoken.”
Puna resident Kulia Tolentino-Potter, whose family has farmed in the valley for generations, said she’s glad that traffic will finally subside three years after the 2019 landslide, but added that she is worried about illicit trespassing now that the road is closed.
Cain was skeptical of the road ever being fully reopened, believing the necessary work to be prohibitively expensive.
“It probably never, and should never, happen,” Cain said. “It’s too expensive, and no matter what you do, you can’t make that road safe.”
Cain said he is confident that eventually there will be other ways to welcome tourists into the valley, but until then, he thanked the county for considering the safety of taro farmers and valley residents.
The closure of the road is disastrous for others on the island, however.
“They do this, that’s the end of my business,” said Gary Matsuo, owner of Waipio Valley Shuttle, a tour company that exclusively provides tour van service to Waipio Valley.
Matsuo said his business, which he has owned since 1980, uses equipment specifically intended for the steep slopes of Waipio Valley.
“I’m going to have to fight for my life,” Matsuo said, adding that he hopes the county might allow some degree of limited tourism traffic, but was not optimistic.
“It’s over,” Matsuo said. “We’ll have to shut down.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
