(Honolulu) – Sacred Falls State Park has been closed 21-years, after a Mother’s Day 1999 rockslide killed eight people and seriously hurt dozens of others. In spite of hundreds of trespassers getting citations for entering a closed area since then, continued rockfalls and landslides in the park, and numerous encouragements for people to stay out, they continue to come.
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(Honolulu) – The reconstruction of the existing, 93-year-old Royal Hawaiian Groin in Waikīkī and the construction of a new $1.5 million replacement begins next week.
(Honolulu) – In order to provide the DLNR and the Board of Land and Natural Resources relevant information, including community input, into whether Mauna Kea is being effectively managed, the department is launching an independent evaluation of the University of Hawai‘i’s (UH) compliance with the Mauna Kea Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP).
(Honolulu) – Today, as DOCARE Officer Fagota Tataipu Jr. recounted the Mother’s Day 1999 Sacred Falls tragedy, it was hard holding his emotions back. While patrolling the long-closed state park, Tataipu tearfully commented, “It’s one of those incidents in your life that you can never forget. It’s one of those, that even though Mother’s Day is a special day, you can’t help but reflect back on 1999 when we came up here because of the rockslide and so many moms that lost their lives.”
(Kailua-Kona) – Kahalu‘u Bay on Hawai‘i Island is one of the most popular and heavily visited snorkeling locations in all of Hawai‘i. Hundreds of thousands of people come to view colorful fish and dazzling coral colonies every year, and like in many other over-used locations, the aquatic life in the bay is struggling to survive.
(Honolulu) – As major contributors to the Royal Hawaiian Groin Replacement Project held on to a ti leaf lei, Kahu Cordell Kekoa remarked, “Today, what we are doing is just enhancing what those have done before us. Part of what I want to do is we want to honor those who had come before us.”
(Honolulu) – Being out of work and out of school coupled with the barrage of COVID-19 crisis news can be particularly tough on families with children. The recovery of Makai Prejean’s bike by a trio of DOCARE officers yesterday could not have come at a better time.
(Honolulu) – The existing Royal Hawaiian groin was installed 93-years ago and for decades it protected one of the most popular stretches of beach in Waikīkī. The virtual shut-down of Hawai‘i’s visitor industry during the COVID-19 crisis is providing a rare silver-lining. Next week, the DLNR Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands (OCCL), in partnership with the Waikīkī Beach Special Improvement Association (WBSIDA), is kicking off work on a modern replacement groin, with construction work made much easier and safer without hundreds of visitors on the beach.
(Honolulu) – Two, 21-year-old men from Honolulu were cited late yesterday for entering a closed area – Diamond Head State Monument. The individuals were escorted out of the park by officers from the DLNR Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement (DOCARE) through the park’s main entrance.
(Kailua) – With three successive “fire-in-the-hole” warnings, LT Jordan Bethke of the U.S. Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team (Detachment Mid-Pacific) set off C-4 explosives attached to two potential Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) off Lanikai Beach this afternoon.