A state regulation against transporting certain materials to Moloka‘i to prevent the spread of the coconut rhinoceros beetle will be relaxed for a single ship this year.
Last year, the Board of Agriculture and Biosecurity approved a temporary rule preventing the transport of certain gardening materials — such as soil, compost, tree chips and gravel — to Moloka‘i, the last inhabited Hawaiian island to remain mostly free of the invasive coconut rhinoceros beetle, a devastating pest that has plagued coconut trees on O‘ahu for more than a decade.
But this temporary rule has inadvertently left the Kalaupapa National Historical Park on the north side of the island high and dry.
The park, which preserves Hawai‘i’s historic leper colony, can only receive shipments of essential supplies infrequently: the National Park Service, which manages the park, told the Board of Agriculture and Biosecurity in February that a single barge delivery in the summer carries supplies for an entire year.
That shipment can only arrive in July or August, NPS claims.
“This timing is not arbitrary,” NPS’ request read. “Due to the unique geographical characteristics of the Kalaupapa Harbor, this narrow and shallow harbor requires precise tide conditions for the barge to safely dock and unload its cargo … If the barge is unable to dock during these critical months, the settlement risks missing an entire year’s worth of supplies.”
Baron Chan, chief of the Hawai‘i Department of Health’s Hansen’s Disease Branch, told the board on Tuesday that the roads surrounding the Kalaupapa settlement are unpaved gravel roads. Therefore, particularly after the severe Kona low storms in March, those roads are susceptible to erosion, endangering the scant population of the area.
According to 2024 census data, 67 people live in Kalaupapa, and the Department of the Interior reports there are three patients who live there full-time, while two others live on O‘ahu and return there frequently.
Chan said the primary evacuation route in the event of a tsunami is in danger of becoming impassible.
“There’s also a patient that is in her late 80s that travels the road almost every day, and without that road, she won’t be able to travel,” Chan said. “There’s a lot of other natural and cultural resources that won’t be accessed.”
According to the Department of the Interior, other options to deliver the gravel from a quarry on Moloka‘i are infeasible. Air transport via helicopter would require more than 100 loads to bring all 200 tons of gravel, a dedicated barge between Kaunakakai Harbor on Moloka‘i and Kalaupapa would not be markedly cheaper, and there is no direct roadway connection to Kalaupapa.
Crushing stone into gravel within Kalaupapa would also run afoul of historical preservation guidelines: “We’ve been told it would be very difficult to determine that any specific rock on the surface is not or had not been part of a culturally constructed feature in the past,” reads a DOI report.
Consequently, a barge between O‘ahu and Kalaupapa remains the most effective means for supplies to reach the park.
In February, NPS sent a request to the state Board of Agriculture and Biosecurity to be permitted to send about 200 tons of gravel to Kalaupapa in order to keep the roads usable. To do this, NPS requested that the interim rule be altered to permit gravel to be transported to Moloka‘i so long as it has been fumigated with a certain pesticide — under the brand name ProFume — for at least 20 hours.
But although the Kalaupapa population was nearly unanimously in support of the proposal, according to a Department of the Interior survey, the prospect of relaxing the CRB quarantine generated much skepticism among residents statewide, who testified in droves on Tuesday, urging the board to reject NPS’ request.
In particular, residents took issue that the Department of the Interior only consulted with the Kalaupapa community and not the greater Moloka‘i population.
At the same time, many suggested that relaxing anti-CRB restrictions now, less than one month after two beetles were detected on the island, is foolhardy.
"Beyond the need to actually consult with the larger community, including and particularly the advocates for last year’s importation ban, this petition should also be rejected as particularly untimely," read a form letter submitted by dozens of residents from across the islands. "With multiple recent detections of CRB on Molokaʻi for the first time ever, now is not the time to relax protections against the further introduction of CRB to the island, nor is it the time to distract from or disrupt the active rapid response efforts being undertaken by the Molokaʻi community to detect and eradicate any potential CRB infestations as soon as possible."
Ultimately, however, the board voted unanimously to allow gravel to be transported to Moloka‘i on a case-by-case basis at the board’s approval. For the time being, the Kalaupapa gravel shipment is the only one that will be allowed to reach the island.
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