Beach Advocate Gets Star-Bulletin Recognition

Nice 10 WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE: CHRISTINA HEMMING story by Gary Kubota in the Dec. 23 Star-Bulletin, about a Maui woman who halted development that would have blocked beach access:

In the country town of Paia, she is a rural legend. Christina "Uma" Hemming fought against the county and a developer and won. The beneficiaries of the victory will be the people who use the coastline from Paia to Baldwin Beach.

"She's an amazing person," said Hannah Bernard, president of the nonprofit Hawaii Wildlife Fund. "I really appreciate individuals like her who take on tasks and put their money where their mouth is. ... It's an amazing thing for a person to do."

Friends said Hemming was tenacious and pursued stopping the development, despite personal criticisms and monetary losses...

Click here to read the full story.

Yesterday, coincidentally I received my Obama "One Voice" t-shirt that says if one person speaking out can change a room, it can change a town, state or country. Today, while walking on Kailua Beach, my wife and I glimpsed Obama himself with one of his daughters in front of the beachfront home they're staying in for Christmas.

Can we change shoreline access laws and policies for the better?

You bet we can! But it has to start with you. One person CAN make a difference. In 2009, don't leave it for someone else to be that person. Take a stand. And if you can, please make a small contribution to Beach Access Hawaii, using the Donate link on the right hand side of this page. Mahalo!

Obama Staying in Kailua Beach

As reported in today's Honolulu Advertiser (Dec. 20), President-elect Obama and his family will be spending their Christmas vacation at a beachfront property on Kailuana Place, not far from L'Orange Place -- Ground Zero in the battle for beach access.

Longtime Kailua residents still simmer over the gate that was put up on Kailuana Loop in the early 1990s. Surfers and kids used to have easy access to Castles, a popular surf spot at that end of the beach. Then the Kailuana homeowners put up a spiked gate on a private easement they controlled.

However, those same Kailuana homeowners reap the publicly-financed benefits of living on a public street that our tax dollars maintain for them! If they want their own private beach access, let them pay for the upkeep on their own damn road.

I hope someone will ask Obama if he approves of this kind of "elitist" attitude among the Kailuana Place grinches, who deny beach access to their own neighbors.

MidWeek, Advertiser Articles on Beach Erosion

Call me Chicken Little if you want. But I believe my own eyes, and I can see Kailua Beach is eroding fast in certain spots. I don't doubt some of it is just part of natural cycles. However, it also seems that wherever man meddles with the shoreline, we see more dramatic changes in a shorter period of time.

Here's a link to Ron Mizutani's Dec. 10 column, headlined "Kailua Beach: Going... Gone?"

The Honolulu Advertiser also ran a front page story on Dec. 8 about the potential loss of billions of dollars if we do nothing to address Waikiki Beach erosion and the possibility of rising sea levels. Click here to read that alarming story.

What we need is a Hawaii Coastal Commission that would oversee our shorelines. The current split jurisdiction between the State and the counties at the high water mark is not working. No one is taking direct responsibility for protecting our most valuable resource. Meanwhile, our beaches are slipping away while our politicians -- and the apathetic public -- do nothing about it.

The sky may not be falling. But our beaches and open access ways ARE disappearing.