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Rob Report
Baldwin Beach
Yesterday, today and tomorrow
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April 19, 2007
Body surfing, boogie boarding and coastal erosion. Family picnics,
devastating tsunamis and climate awareness events. Ancient heiaus, limu
gathering and sand mining. Proposals for luxury homes and preservation
efforts for a regional park. Historical battles and current lawsuits.
It's all going on at the North Shore's Baldwin Beach Park, named
after Henry Perrine Baldwin, sugar baron, pioneer pineapple planter and
son of missionary Dwight Baldwin.
On the morning of Saturday, April 14, close to 150 people gathered
at Baldwin Beach for a "climate awareness event," one of nearly 1,400
such events nationwide. Sponsored locally by the Hawai`i PV
(photovoltaic) Coalition, organizers hoisted banners calling for
Congress to mandate an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by
2050. A flyover by Blue Hawaiian's "Eco-Star" helicopter filmed the
gathering.
Baldwin Beach was chosen because it represents one of the beaches
Maui stands to lose to rising sea levels if the United States doesn't
do its part to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Indeed, last summer
beachgoers were shocked as seasonal erosion undermined nearly two-dozen
ironwood trees, tumbling them into the surf.
The Hawai`i PV Coalition is composed of individuals and businesses
"focused on moving our State away from its dependency on fossil fuels
while moving it towards clean, renewable energy; specifically solar
power," according to their press release. "With sunshine in abundance
and electric costs rising, solar power makes sense."
Twelve weeks ago, Bill McKibben, author of The End Of Nature,
launched the nationwide Step It Up campaign to raise awareness for
global warming. He maintained that the urgency of the cause requires a
campaign infused with the same passion as the 1960's civil rights
movement. His timing may be right on.
"It's gone off like a rocket ship," McKibben said. He chose the week
before Earth Day for the awareness events, though "the Earth might need
more than one day."
This Sunday, April 22, from 10 a.m. to sunset, an Earth Day event
will attract a large crowd to Baldwin Beach for a wide array of musical
performances, food booths, speakers and displays on social action and
environmental awareness. The event sponsor is Bruce Douglas of Mandala
Ethnic Arts in Paia, with co-sponsorship by Sierra Club, GMO Free Maui,
Hawai`i Ocean Noise Coalition, Save Makena, Ocean Mammal Institute and
a few others.
Douglas, who has sponsored the event for the past two years, is also
the owner of Mandala Homes, which successfully petitioned the Board of
Variance and Appeals last year to allow the importation of sustainably
harvested palm and rubber wood to Maui for use as building materials.
He encouraged participation from the Sierra Club-Maui to promote the
idea of preserving the undeveloped coastal area as a North Shore
Heritage Park.
Lucienne De Naie and Lance Holter of the Sierra Club-Maui conceived
of a regional park, celebrating the history of the area and envisioning
an undeveloped wilderness shoreline for future generations to enjoy.
They'll be at Baldwin Beach on Sunday, with displays and petitions to
rally support for protecting the area from urbanization pressure.
Just eight years ago, as part of the Wailuku-Kahului Community Plan
revision, Alexander & Baldwin asked the County Council to include a
proposal to develop 24 to 30 homes on the wooded dunes between the Maui
Country Club golf course and the beach. A tidal wave of community
support swelled to "Save Baldwin Beach" from the impending coastal
development, as well as another 420 homes and nine holes of golf
proposed mauka of Hana Highway.
Five thousand citizens signed petitions opposing Spreckelsville
development, and Council hearings set a record with 160 testifiers on
that agenda item, spanning several meetings and many months.
Ultimately, the Council unanimously voted down the makai proposal for
two-dozen homes, though the Sprecks mauka vote was a narrower five to
four to reject.
Around the same time, citizens began questioning permitting
irregularities that were to allow three private residences on the
single parcel where the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar (HC&S) Lime
Kiln operated for much of the last century. The "Montana Beach" fiasco
(named after the daughter of one of the investors) dragged through the
media and the courts.
Realizing they had erred, the Planning Department refused to issue a
Certificate of Occupancy to the owners of a two-story, elaborately
crafted house. After years of legal stalemates, matters were settled,
with the County acquiring two of the three lots, while the middle lot
remains in limbo. It is noteworthy that the effort of one resident,
Christina Hemming, working with Dana and Isaac Hall to untangle the
chronicle of events that allowed the pilikia to unfold, is largely the reason that three luxury homes aren't built there today.
Of course, recent skirmishes over development proposals are nothing compared to past battles in the area.
In the 1730's, rival sons of recently deceased Maui King Keakaulike
led armies through days of fighting, with great casualties on both
sides. Reportedly, the battle ended in a truce, which probably took
place at the Papanene heiau, now in ruins at the base of the Pu`u Nene
cinder cone, visible rising out of the cane fields across from the
"Sprecks 5" subdivision along the Hana Highway.
It's likely that many of the deceased warriors were buried in the
coastal dunes. A search of the microfilm archives at the Kahului Public
Library turned up an April 1973 Maui News
article, complete with photo of three visitors posing on the beach with
a complete, just-unearthed skeleton. The paper's next edition—which
cost a dime back then—printed letters chastising the newspaper for
their bad taste in disrespecting the Hawaiian remains.
One time "Sugar King" Claus Spreckels, for which the community is
named, was a chief competitor of the Alexander and Baldwin family
plantations. When the present Pu`unene Mill was being built a century
ago, it was often referred to as the "Spreckelsville Mill." But at the
laying of the cornerstone, plantation manager H.P. Baldwin announced
the mill would be called Pu`unene, after the nearby cinder cone. The
plantation Spreckels assembled is now essentially the 37,000 acres in
production by HC&S.
Maui Agriculture Co., run by Alexander and Baldwin, constructed the
Paia Lime Kiln in 1907. Over much of the next seven decades, sand and
coral were excavated from the beach to manufacture hydrated lime for
plantation uses, build roads and airstrips and also produce cement
during wartime. Railroad tracks and a roadway ran through the area.
Portions of the old asphalt roadbed are sometimes visible on the beach
today.
The lime kiln withstood the April 1, 1946 tsunami that badly damaged
dozens of structures in the Spreckelsville and Paia beach areas. Also
destroyed was a USO recreation hall built on the dunes during World War
II.
Erosion was a concern even back then. In 1954, geologist Doak Cox,
contracted by the Hawai`i Sugar Planters Association, issued a report
titled, "The Spreckelsville Beach Problem." HC&S commissioned the
study in hopes of increasing the output of the Lime Kiln. The company
wondered how much sand they could remove from the beaches without
adversely affecting them.
Cox, euologized as a "grand champion of the environment" at his
passing in 2003 at age 86, obliged HC&S's request. He quantified
historic amounts of sand removed, noted beach rock marking former
shorelines (such as at "Baby Beach") and finally recommended ceasing
sand removal from "industrial supply beach" at Spreckelsville and "lime
kiln supply beach" at Kapuka`ulua—the rarely spoken proper place name.
Nevertheless, HC&S ignored Cox's recommendations. In fact, they continued to operate the lime kiln for the next 25 years.
Dramatic shoreline erosion last July and August forced the closure
of Baldwin Beach Park. While many wondered if this was indeed a visible
affect of global warming, multiple reasons were involved.
University of Hawai`i Sea Grant coastal geologist Zoe Norcross-Nu`u
noted that the previous winter was the second calmest in the past 25
years. Normally, the large waves generated from winter storms actually
replenish sand lost during the summer from easterly winds and currents.
Then there was the anomalous mesoscale eddy, or bulge in the sea level
over a 100-square-kilometer area north of the islands last summer,
which was detected through satellite imagery.
Finally, the area of most severe erosion was just beyond the boulder
revetment that once protected the lime kiln, but was left in place when
it shut down. Seawalls and revetments may "fix" the shoreline, but only
at the expense of adjacent beach systems.
A week ago, Holter, who is also the Maui Democratic Party Chair,
invited me to meet with him and U.S. Representative Mazie Hirono (D,
Hawai`i), to discuss the creation of a Patsy Mink North Shore Heritage
Park, honoring the late congresswoman who was born in Paia. Two years
earlier, we had walked the shoreline with Anne Stewart, executive aide
to former Representative Ed Case. He had introduced a bill to study
federal preservation of the coastal region back in 2004, which Hirono
said she'll reintroduce.
With the success of the Maui Coastal Land Trust, and a dedicated
county fund tapping one percent of property tax revenues for open space
land acquisition, there is hope that future generations may also get to
enjoy the unabashed beauty of the wilderness area stretching from Paia
to Spreckelsville. MTW
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