Waikiki Sand Replenishment Barge. The Department of Land and Natural Resources was operating a barge off of Waikiki's Kuhio Beach to dredge deeper water sand deposits to replenish the sand along Kuhio/Waikiki Beach, eroded over the years, to 1985 levels. I will note, however, that the water was rather silty, even all the way down at Queen's Surf and it seemed to me anyhow, to be silting over the coral, causing coral death except in areas protected from the direct deposit of silt. I further suspect that the silty dredged sand will continue to release silt onto the coral for years to come, through ongoing wave action and erosion. It seems a bit sad to introduce a new source of silt just as the coral was starting to grow back after years of damaging runnoff. Thus, even though there is much less open site construction in Honolulu these days, leading to reduced levels of silt, the dredging may have more than compensated.
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