Shoreline Protection

Maui Tomorrow has continued to seek alternatives to shoreline hardening, which can lead to the loss of sandy beaches and coastal ecosystems. These public trust resources are protected by the Hawaii State Constitution. We have also been researching financing mechanisms that would enable shoreline property owners to move away from the shoreline without burdening taxpayers. We are currently working to propose legislation that will address this issue. After our successful lawsuit against shoreline hardening at Olowalu, we continued to work with the Hawaii Department of Transportation to remove seawalls from their default list of erosion solutions, and to instead adopt a range of alternatives that can be implemented over different time frames. Options include re-striping of lanes to move them mauka in the short term, and realignment of highway corridors over the long term. Sometimes statewide issues can affect Maui, but in this case, our efforts are changing the way the state operates.