Episode 10 - Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands (OCCL)

Winter is coming - as are the ocean swells on the North Shore that create epic surf conditions and sometimes threaten private properties close to the shoreline.  

In this episode, we walk the coastline with Michael Cain, Administrator of the Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands (OCCL), to uncover the complex balancing act between protecting private property and preserving public beaches.

From sea walls collapsing on Oʻahu’s North Shore to a statewide permit system that’s easing the process to restore traditional Hawaiian fishponds, join us as we explore:
 🏝️ Why “all beaches are public” isn’t quite as simple as it sounds
 🌊 The reality of sea level rise and shoreline retreat
 🌾 How communities are restoring fishponds and sand dunes — and what’s actually working
 ⚖️ What happens when conservation, law, and local life collide

🎧 Listen now and discover the people and policies shaping the future of Hawaii’s shorelines.

Transcript

[Music]

Dan Dennison: Aloha and welcome to Hawaii Conservation Kuleana, brought to you by Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resources. I'm Dan Dennison 

Patti Jette: And I'm Patti Jette. We're here to explore conservation issues from land to sea with expert insights and stories from the field. 

Dan: In this episode, we're walking the line - the coastline that is - with the Office of Conservation and Coastal lands, also known as OCCL. 

Michael Cain: Beaches are naturally dynamic. They move. There's long term accretion, sometimes due to sea level rise, sometimes it's just a natural occurrence. And the issue is, when you try to lock a beach into place, it exacerbates the erosion, or it impedes recovery when there are erosive units. 

[Music] 

Patti: Aloha. Today we have OCCL administrator, Michael Cain, thanks for joining us. 

Michael:  Thank you and aloha. 

Dan: Tell us about your background and what led you to DLNR and OCCL.  

Michael: It was roundabout. Raised in Michigan, and my grandfather had actually been one of the early ecologists back in the 1930s and 40s. So I had anticipated going into the natural resource field. Started at University of Michigan in their natural resources program, and then became distracted by life. So as it happens, I'd been volunteering at a homeless shelter and a shelter for runaway kids, and that was 1980s it was at the time when the crack epidemic became really serious in Michigan. We had this crisis, as opposed to, you know, we'd started working with hippie runaways, and now we're dealing with people fleeing really abusive situations. So I became a social worker by default, the volunteer job led to further jobs, and I took that pretty much as far as I could take it without actually being a social worker, because my degree was a generic political science degree. Went overseas for a couple years in the Peace Corps in Micronesia. I enjoyed that, but I wanted to be both back in the United States, but also still be in the islands. So the choices were Hawaii or Guam and I had a scholarship to come to grad school at the University of Hawaii in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. So in another twist, the only job I could find was working at the Crisis Center in Honolulu. So even though I had my degree in urban planning, I was still working like in the crisis intervention field. And eventually I decided it was time that, you know, that's a stressful field. We're dealing with adults that time, like homicidal and suicidal adults and the forensic mentally ill. And I thought if I finally moved to natural resource management, it would be a bit less stressful, like it would be easier working with fish and trees. And it turns out it's also stressful. 

Dan: I imagine some of your social work experience informs of what you do in your current job.  

Michael: Yeah, it does. I'm comfortable going out into communities, even communities that I'm not familiar with, just because I have done that so much, it feels natural to me, although I'm realizing other people who only have an academic background, I'm finding are not comfortable just going out to the community and talking to people. They always want to have a solution first, rather than listen first. And in crisis intervention, we never know the resolution. Your job is to stay with people and help them work their way through. And I know when we go to rural areas with a solution that doesn't work, it's better to go out and work with them so that they can develop solutions that you can support. 

Patti: So tell us a little bit about OCCL and the responsibilities that the division bears, because I know  coastal is obviously implied in the name, but it's way beyond that 

Michael: Yeah, way beyond that is a good way to put it. We're a regulatory agency, overseen with monitoring land uses in the state land use conservation district. Land in Hawaii is divided into different state land use districts: urban, agricultural, rural and conservation - most are managed by the counties. The Conservation District is managed on a state level. So that's unique in the US. I'm going to say 3 million acres, as well as for coastal lands, it's high tide. The high tide line out to three miles. So it's a lot, and we are a small office attached to the chair's office with currently I have five planners, a coastal line specialist, and then some Sea Grant agents, so. 

Patti: How does so when you're saying that it's, you know, the the water line till three miles out, how does that intersect with like DAR and DOBOR? 

Michael: So for us, we define a land use is anything that will impact the land for 30 days or more. Tourist boats or fishing, that's not our kuleana. Whereas, if we build something in the water, the enforcement of regulations falls to us,  

Dan: such as a sea wall, 

Michael: Such as a sea wall, or even if, like DAR, Division of Aquatic Resources is currently working on an artificial reef outside of Waikiki, so that, since that will be a permanent structure, they will need a permit, a conservation district use permit, that will be approved by the board. So we're the agency that will assess the project and then make a recommendation. It's actually our Board of Land and Natural Resources who make the final decisions.  

Dan: And it's not just aquatic resources and ocean and boating and ocean recreation, but you also intersect with forestry and wildlife, state parks, most divisions in some respect.  

Michael: Yeah, we intersect with everybody in some respect. If an area is managed by that division and the work they're doing is consistent with that management plan. We don't follow through with the CDP permits. So in the forest reserve, Forestry and Wildlife wants to put in a fence, they're responsible for environmental compliance. If they want to put a fence outside the conservation outside the forest reserve, then we would need to process permits through our office. 

Dan: One of the hot button issues that we see occasionally is this whole issue of public beaches in Hawaii, and it's often said all beaches in Hawaii are public. Should we take that at face value, or are there some some nuances there that people need to be aware of? 

Michael: Our position is that all beaches are public and should be accessible to the public. I can't say that the law always concurs with us. There are some agreements from the territorial days, such as in Waikiki, that state that some of those beaches are private. I don't concur, but we haven't challenged that in court yet. And then obviously, the military bases claim federal supremacy, and we don't fight them on that. 

Patti: Let's talk about one of the issues, I think, a big issue that you face, which is private land fronting the shoreline, in terms of maybe personal private land, so not necessarily military, but people who are building homes that are now close to the shoreline, maybe they always were, but or maybe they're closer. Now tell me about some of the issues around that, and we've had issues where they fall into the sea. Can that be prevented? What is OCCL’s role in the construction or movement of those homes?  

Michael: I'm going to need to break down that question a bit. In Hawaii. Well, in the United States in general, the state owns property Makai of the shoreline, or seaward of the shoreline. What's unique in Hawaii is how we define the shoreline. It's a well established principle that state owned the states own submerged lands. Beaches are naturally dynamic. They move. There's long term accretion, sometimes due to sea level rise, sometimes it's just a natural occurrence. And the issue is, when you try to lock a beach into place, it exacerbates the erosion, or it impedes recovery when there are erosive events. What we find in Hawaii that a lot of development has been built much too close to the shoreline, and that they've tried to protect their property with sea walls that impound the sand that is needed for a healthy shoreline. As the oceans rise or the land recedes a lot of those sea walls become state property. We don't have the regulations that would force us to have, that would allow us to force properties to remove the walls if they're non conforming, if they were built with proper permits, and then the land receded. What we are finding is that a lot of landowners want to build protective devices on public land, and around 15 years ago, we began issuing temporary permits to allow people to do that with the understanding that they would work for a long term plan and then remove the structures on state land. That has not happened, so we are in court with there's roughly 40 or 50 statewide. So it's a slow process to work through the courts to get them to be removed and depending on the area. I mean, every region is different. Every beach is different. We have houses that were built on the sand dune. We need that sand dune if we want to have a healthy beach. So there's places where we're facing that choice, either we give up public land to protect private investments, or we let the private investments know that we will no longer be letting you use state land to protect your house.

Dan: Let's focus on Oahu’s North Shore for a moment. Last couple of years, it's been in the news after several homes did collapse into the ocean, along with their beach hardening methods. And what happens when a house is on the verge of falling onto the beach, onto public property? In some cases, they have fallen onto public property. A lot of people say, Well, why is the state not helping? What can we do, if anything?

Michael: So we need to ask, what is the state's responsibility? Most of the homes we're talking about are actually in the county's jurisdiction. You know, we have talked with lawyers and economists on like, what routes the state can offer the counties to encourage people to move away. The counties are experimenting with different approaches. Kauai is taking the lead on this idea that we can transfer development rights that allow us to remain but it can't be rebuilt, maintained, and those development rights can be sold to somebody inland in a safer area. What I've been told is that these properties are so valuable and they make so much money renting them out during surf season that there are no financial incentives the state can offer that would compensate for how much money they're making. There are areas where we can promote beach maintenance, meaning we bring sand offshore. That's part of, that there would have been part of that natural system anyway, and build up the beach. That is controversial on some islands, but not every island. We think it's a valid approach, but that approach is also limited by unique conditions of each area. So on the North Shore of Oahu, one swell will move more sand than we've done in the largest projects in Hawaiian history. So it's not possible, the ocean's too strong up there, that works in areas like Waikiki, where it's a bounded system and there are groins that can lock the beach into place so that we won't lose it in a day. Our studies show that it will work in many places. On West Maui, yeah, where there's less sand when there's some movement, but not as dramatic. North Shore of Kauai, like Haena, the sand moves around too much. It you'd spend 50 million and it would work for a week or a season. So where we can, we advocate for these nature based solutions, but there are areas where there are no known solutions beyond retreat.

Dan: Of the 1000s of homes that are along shorelines across the Hawaiian Islands, I assume we're talking about a fairly small number that are facing this dilemma. 

Michael: Small number that are facing this dilemma today. Over the next century, if the sea level rise models are correct, most shoreline homes will be facing this but currently we're facing this on the dynamic shorelines, the ones that change rapidly with each each year, each season. 

Patti: So beyond the shoreline. What are some of the other issues that OCCL is facing? What are some of the challenges that you see throughout the state? 

Michael: It varies year by year. When I started, we were facing a real estate boom. So we were getting nonstop permit applications for residences that, you know, up to 5000 square feet. So that seemed massive to me, and that would turn out to be just real estate speculation. They'd get the permit, flip the house, the new person would get a new permit. I had 10 going on at one time, so that was exhausting. So I actually appreciated the real estate collapse, if I can say that, because I took some of the pressure off. Mauna Kea and Haleakala are in the conservation district. So proposals for new observatories or decommissioned observatories come through our office. So when the solar observatory on Haleakala was proposed and the 30 Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea, that was my full time job for about a year and a half, just running those permits and then managing the contested case, we still face occasional development pressures. Something new this the past year or two is people who have built houses without permits. They've just bought land, built a house, no county permits, no state permits. Yes, and then we only find out when it shows up on Zillow or the real estate sites, and we're like, there's no home there. And then we look at Google Earth and we see a giant home. So that's something new, yeah.  

Patti: So what happens then?  

Michael: we bring those to the board. The one major case we brought to the board, the order was to remove the house. We can consider after the fact permits in some cases, but that was so egregious that we didn't, we didn't want to open the door to other people attempting the same thing.  

Dan: And the house was removed?

Michael: It's an ongoing struggle. 

Dan: That’s what I thought. 

Michael: And that was the most recent board hearing. The landowner was asking for a time extension. 

Dan: Something far less contentious that over the past couple of years. And I know you were kind of leading this, is the streamline permitting system for restoration of Hawaii fish ponds. Talk about that. 

Michael: That was, yeah, that was one of the good projects that makes me like the job. So we had actually been to a conference organized by the Humpback Whale Sanctuary focused on Hawaiian fish ponds, and speaker after speaker got up and blamed the government for getting in the way of them rebuilding their ponds. And we try to ask questions like, well, what does that mean? Who in the government, the government they're getting in the way. So we actually had a grant from Conservation International to look into the issue, and we identified 17 different state and federal regulations that you would need to comply with to rebuild a fish pond. And on paper, they all mesh together, but in reality, you just have to have one go wrong, and the whole thing falls apart. And we know there's no way fish ponds are, you know, they're family owned or community managed. And these people don't have the resources to hire an expensive consultant to talk them through this process. I don't even know if I can make it through the process. So what we were able to do was on the state side, we published an environmental assessment that showed that the restoration of these ponds was consistent with both Hawaiian values and with conservation goals, and that allowed us to issue a statewide permit for the rebuilding of the ponds. So now, when practitioners come in, we tie them into this existing permit, and we try to get it out in about 30 days. Our negative role model was, He’eia fish pond, which had a lot of, like, a lot of a lot of backing, right, a lot of support. And I it took them over a decade to get a permit to breach a wall. So we're like, Okay, this cannot happen, you know? And along with that, there are all kinds of ridiculous conditions that they had to follow. So every work day, they'd have to test the water quality for like methane and ammonia and nitrogen before and after at five spots intside and outside the wall, some of our own divisions at DLNR were requiring studies that would have cost $10,000 to get a permit. So we, luckily, we had a lot of support from William Aila at the time, and we, we consolidated all the state permits the no practitioners just go through us.  

Dna: So it's a real decluttering of the proverbial bureaucracy, so to speak.

Michael: That helped a lot. Yeah, and on the national level, we were able to get fish ponds included in a nationwide permit, which expedites the federal permits. 

Dan: Have you seen a greater number of applicants for fish pond restoration since the new permitting system came in? 

Michael: I think at last count, 24-25 and that's compared to one in the previous 15 years.  

Patti: Wow. 

Michael: So, yeah, no, that really that I can vouch for that works. 

Patti So, you know, we've talked a bit about the challenges, but, what do you find challenging and also kind of invigorating about leading the division?

Michael: It's interesting for me to have a front row seat behind the scenes at what's going on, because when we're in the field, we don't always understand decisions that are coming down the pipeline, and I still don't always like them, but I like having some influence, or at least being at the table. The invigorating parts are when we can work with community groups for the fish ponds, and now we've set up a new dune restoration program that's only three weeks old. So I can't tell you if it's success, a success yet or not, but we anticipate it will be, we’ll be working with community groups to look at other forms of coastal restoration beyond the large, major dune beach restoration projects.

Dan: We know that people form both negative and positive opinions about government agencies, and you mentioned the fish ponds is a positive one, and perhaps shoreline erosion, in some people's mind, is a negative one. What else is OCCL doing? And you do on a daily basis, you know, beyond the community engagement to engender a real sense of positivity, or at least a perception of positivity towards your division or towards your office.

Michael: I mean, most of my day actually is filling out spreadsheets. (laughs) It seems to very positive. It's no, sorry, I'm gonna start with just. Yeah, honestly, somebody's always sending me a spreadsheet to fill out. We're lucky that we're fully stuffed, and that took a lot of hustling to get there, and I try to keep them engaged. I try to keep them, you know, balanced with the exciting and the fun projects beyond the purely regulatory. Because, to be honest, we deal with the telecommunications permits. You can't make those exciting. They have to be done, but it's not a thrill. So last month, I took the whole team to Kaho’olawe, because we've been helping them fund a dune restoration project. So it was a chance for us to go and see what this work looks like in action in a pure environment. I think that was a good we spent three nights there. So it was great on an educational level, but also great on a team building. 

Dan: That's an internal benefit. But what about externally? Anything that you continue to do to really foster positive public perception? 

Patti: But what comes to my mind is that, you know, in the very name of the office is conservation, and I think that that's an issue that's very, very deeply important to everyone who's a resident here, but especially people who have lineal heritage here. And you know, does that give you, like a sort of a deeper sense of kuleana to protect these places? 

Michael: I mean, conservation is a form of zoning, so that causes a lot of confusion, because we're not necessarily a conservation office. We regulate land uses in the conservation district. So actually the name can cause more frustration, because people do turn to us first, and we have to refer we try to do the research and refer them in the right direction. But we're regulatory. Usually you cross my path if you’ve done something wrong. (laughs) Or if you want a permit to do something so it’s, yeah.  

Dan: It’s a little bit of a misnomer or a double entrende I guess. 

Michael: It's accurate, but it can mean multiple things, and that's not always understood. 

Dan: Yeah, yeah. 

Patti: Okay, that wraps it up for this episode. Mahalo, Michael. 

Michael: Mahalo  

Dan: And mahalo to our listeners for joining us today. I'm Dan Dennison  

Patti: And I'm Patti Jette. 

Dan: Our theme music is provided Kawika Kahiapo.

Patti: Thanks for tuning in to Hawaii Conservation Kuleana. A hui hou.