A Pahoa resident built a large dirt wall to try to protect his home from lava.
A Pahoa resident built a large dirt wall to try to protect his home from lava.
Alfred Lee, whose house on Pahoa Village Road was at risk of becoming one of the first claimed by the June 27 flow, said Monday he was using a bulldozer to build a large berm between the lava and his home. Lee said the wall — made out of dirt, cinder and other material on his property — was about 12 feet high and 250 feet long before he finished that evening.
While such barriers proved futile in the past, he said he thought he needed to give it a shot.
“I wasn’t trying to give up this place without a fight,” he said.
Such barriers also could redirect the flow. Even slight changes in topography can have an impact, Hawaiian Volcano Observatory geologists have said.
“Stone walls can act as diversions,” HVO geologist Frank Trusdell told reporters Monday. “A thing only has to be knee high to shunt the lava in a different direction.”
Lee said he didn’t think he was diverting the flow’s path or putting other homes at risk. The way he saw it, he said, is lava is going to go through the area anyway.
“I talked to my neighbors,” Lee said. “They said, ‘Do what you got to do.’”
Brandon Gonzalez, Hawaii County deputy Public Works director, said Lee wouldn’t need a grubbing and grading permit if less than an acre of land is disturbed.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Lee’s berm would violate the county code, he said.
“Generally, what people do on their private property is their business unless it affects adjacent property owners,” Gonzalez said.
Staff Writer Colin M. Stewart contributed to this report.
Email Tom Callis at tcallis@hawaiitribune-herald.com.