HONOLULU – Walking the stretch between Sunset Beach and Rocky Point on O’ahu’s North Shore means choosing between a violent shoreline that could sweep you away, or climbing the top of giant geotextile tubes filled with sandbags called “sand burritos,” installed by property owners as temporary makeshift barriers to fight coastal erosion.
Standing on a sandbar separating the murky Pa’amalu stream from the sea, Denise Antolini and I paused to watch a pregnant woman and her husband precariously cross atop these massive sand burritos covered in black fabric. We waited for them to pass before we set off in the opposite direction. One misstep, and you might just fall down the steep embankment onto the shrinking strip of the shore below.
“It’s very, very dangerous to have this kind of lateral access,” said Antolini, a former resident of this coastline. “That’s the only access the public has right now, and it’s a big problem. We need to have this stuff removed and the beach restored so we don’t have to walk treacherously like that.”
One by one, Antolini pointed out the multi-million-dollar oceanfront homes that had collapsed, been demolished, or moved back. Nearly three-quarters, or 73%, of North Shore beaches suffer from chronic erosion – a figure expected to reach nearly 90% within 30 years as sea levels rise to just 10 inches, according to 2020 data. Additionally, 28% of beachfront homes along this key 2.5-mile stretch currently sit within 20 feet of water. With about two feet of sea level rise, that number climbs to roughly 40%. Desperate to protect these investments, landowners have been pushing for temporary fixes like seawalls or sand burritos to delay the inevitable…