What would be the overall best way to cross the Kulanihakoi River Gulch in North Kihei along South Kihei Road (SKR) between Kaonoulu and the Humpback Whale Marine Sanctuary Facility?

3/25/18 #kihei
You remember when the ancient dilapidated box culvert just south of Kaonoulu nearly collapsed, but had first the emergency steel plate installed, in 2013 (SEE https://gokihei.org/government/skr-closed-all-day-thursday-in-north-kihei).

But before that was done, KCA met with the Public Works Department (SEE https://gokihei.org/environment/kca-meeting-attendees-had-lots-of-questions-last-71613-evening).

Then the “temporary” bridge was put in place in January, 2015, which we chronicled almost daily (SEE https://gokihei.org/government/alert-11515-upcoming-detour-on-skr-this-month).

The following year it was at the Planning Commission (SEE https://gokihei.org/news/kulanihakoi-bridge-proposal-draws-kca-to-planning-commission-this-morning).

The point is: KCA has been engaging with the County Administration for almost five years now, expressing that staying with their original plan in spite of input showing a better, less expensive solution is at least baffling. Now we see they are proceeding with spending $4.65 M to build a temporary roadway into a culturally sensitive area, place a temporary bridge across the river mauka of SKR, and then build a new ground level box culvert in place of the original on SKR. Ultimately this will be replaced with a raised bridge!

We continue to advise: just drop in a prefab bridge at the original site and forget all these expensive, time consuming, culturally offensive, natural environment unfriendly, flood enhancing actions.


 


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