STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2351

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 2245

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committees on Water, Land, and Agriculture and Economic Development, Environment, and Technology, to which was referred S.B. No. 2245 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO BEACHES,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to exclude certain locally sourced beach sand from the definition of "water pollutant" to allow the use of the sand for erosion mitigation on Hawaii's beaches.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Land and Natural Resources, University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program, and one individual.

 

     Your Committees find that Hawaii is losing its beaches at an alarming rate due to chronic shoreline retreat and shoreline armoring and that beach erosion is expected to accelerate in the future.  Efforts to mitigate beach erosion have been frustrated because sand is currently defined as a water pollutant, despite the fact that sand is a natural occurrence along beaches, stream mouths, and channels.  Your Committees therefore find that naturally sourced beach sand should not be considered a pollutant and should be permissible to use when appropriate to help conserve the State's beaches.

 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by clarifying that sand shall not be considered a water pollutant if it is utilized on the adjoining, rather than adjacent, beach or littoral cell for the purposes of beach erosion mitigation, sediment management, beach restoration, erosion control, or dune restoration.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water, Land, and Agriculture and Economic Development, Environment, and Technology that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2245, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2245, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Water, Land, and Agriculture and Economic Development, Environment, and Technology,

 

________________________________

GLENN WAKAI, Chair

 

________________________________

MIKE GABBARD, Chair