Mayor Mitch Roth got an earful Friday from Waipi’o Valley residents during a legally required public meeting held online to discuss amendments to his emergency rules which, as of Monday, will allow increased access to Waipi’o Valley Road.
The road has been closed to most of the public by an emergency proclamation of Roth’s since Feb. 25. That led to a lawsuit by a group calling itself Malama I Ke Kai ‘O Waipi‘o, comprised largely of local surfers and anglers. The group argued the closure was based on flawed mathematics in an engineering risk assessment commissioned by the county.
The group and the county reached a mediated settlement that will allow increased access to the road starting 9 a.m. Monday. Banned by the initial proclamation but now allowed to use the road to access the valley are Hawaii Island residents, Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners and licensed, insured tour operators with county permits.
Still banned are pedestrians, horseback riders, vehicles heavier than 10 tons gross vehicle weight or without four-wheel drive, passengers in pickup truck beds, and open-air all-terrain vehicles, regardless of drive-train.
“This road closure was because of a safety issue and only the safety issue,” Roth said. “We know that this is a wahi pana, or sacred place.”
Steve Pause, the county’s director of Public Works, said a plan is in the works for the remediation of road in three phases.
“DPW’s role in this is to fix the road and make it safe. At the same time, we’re going to look to make improvements,” he said. “We all know the pavement condition is poor. We all know that there are line-of-sight issues. So we will endeavor to not just remove risks as far as slope issues, but we will look at making the road better.”
Pause said the plan, when completed, will be posted on DPW’s website.
Michelle Hiraishi, the county’s Parks and Recreation deputy director, said two interpretive technicians will be stationed at Waipi’o lookout to check permits and make sure those going into the valley are those who are allowed to do so.
“Any violators that they find or anybody who is not following the rules, their job is to simply call (police),” she said. “They do have good connection with HPD and HPD will be there to address the violators.”
Eleven people were given two minutes each to comment, with comments limited to the emergency proclamations. Neither questions nor statements about the lawsuit or the Hart Crowser engineering study that, according to the lawsuit, led to the road closure were allowed. Ten of the 11, most identifying themselves as Waipi’o Valley residents, voiced strong opposition to the loosened valley access.
“Allowing special interest groups like the surfers and tour community to set the foundation for how access planning will move forward after the closure is hewa,” said Leiokeko‘olani Brown, using a Hawaiian word meaning profoundly wrong. “We often heard how long the surfers have been surfing and the tours have been operating but tend to forget the political and cultural history that the wahi pana holds.”
Jesse Kunishige, a land management officer for Bishop Museum, which owns land in the valley said he wanted “to remind everyone that Waipi’o is private property.”
“There’s a misconception that because there’s a beach, the public is allowed to go there and you know, do whatever they want,” he said. “But people have to be mindful that the whole valley floor is private property. … And for picking and gathering rights, where are they going to go picking and gathering? It’s private property. It’s called stealing.”
Jim Cain said the Waipi’o community’s “angst” is because “we feel that we’re not being listened to.”
“Waipi’o is a wahi pana; it’s recognized as such in the Hamakua (Community Development Plan),” he said. “It’s not a tourist or a hiking destination. And we have to start with that.”
Ku Kahakalau said if the problem is a potential rockfall hazard, as the county has stated in the past, singling out Waipi’o Valley Road is insufficient.
“If it’s the rockfalls, then every single road going from Hamakua to Hilo should be stopped for horses and for vehicles that are uncovered,” she said. “… And if it’s about the road being undercut, then we shouldn’t allow 10-ton vehicles, which is what our tour operators are driving.”
Carl Sims III said the road closure shouldn’t have been amended “because the safety of the road never did change.”
“I don’t understand how you guys can open the road to all Hawaii residents if nobody owns land there,” he said. “And the County of Hawaii owns no land in Waipi’o Valley, so how is it OK for you to allow access to our wahi pana?
“… You know what, Mayor Mitch Roth? You’ve been down to Waipi’o with us and me and my wife before, and you know Waipi’o is important. You better make the right decision, my friend.”
Chris Yuen, a former county planning director and former member of the state Board of Land and Natural Resources was the only one who commented in favor of the new rule — which he described as “certainly much better than the old rule.”
“It allows local people again to drive down to Waipi’o, to go to the ocean, which is one of the very few places that people on that part of the island have any real ocean access. no reason to ban pedestrians or open-top ATVs. This is coming from the risk assessment that was done by Hart-Crowser,” Yuen said before he was interrupted by Sherise Kana‘e-Kane, the public information officer for Public Works and the meeting’s moderator, who told Yuen discussion was limited to the proclamation.
“The proclamation incorporates a statement that there’s an unacceptable risk to pedestrians that comes out of the Hart-Crowser risk assessment. And that is an erroneous statement,” Yuen replied. “They made a mistake in their calculation that exaggerated the risk to pedestrians by 280 times.”
Roth said the two emergency proclamations aren’t “something that we took lightly.”
“I know there’s people who are going to want to go down there that are upset. There’s going to be people that don’t want people going down there that are also upset. We’re trying to do the best we can with the information that we have.”
County officials said a public meeting with a broader discussion will take place between 5:30-7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 5, at the Honokaa People’s Theater.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
