Three years after the Maui wildfires, the Lahaina Small Boat Harbor is about 44% dredged.
The small boat harbor sustained severe damage during the 2023 Lahaina wildfires, and while limited operations at the harbor resumed in 2025, there’s still much more work to go.
Most recently, the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation began a $5 million dredging project in June. On Wednesday, DLNR communications director Andrew Laurence told Aloha State Daily that project is nearly halfway done, and expected to be completed before the end of the year.
So far, about 8,300 cubic yards of material has been removed from the harbor, which will be disposed of at “the landfill or [an] appropriate offsite disposal/stockpile site,” Laurence said via email.
The dredge is one of the largest individual components of the multi-stage process of fully reopening the harbor. Prior improvements completed in 2024 and 2024 — including repairs to piers, an assessment of the harbor’s water system and a smaller dredge of one boat ramp — collectively cost about $3.5 million, most of which came from DLNR’s special boating funds.
But larger projects are still to come. DOBOR is expected to issue a construction contract in September for a project to replace the harbors front row piers and dinghy dock, which will cost $3.7 million in previously appropriated capital improvement project funds, on top of additional revolving funds. That project is scheduled for completion in August of 2027.
Another $3 million project will make repairs to the harbor’s inner marginal wharf, a project that was in development before the 2023 wildfires, but was indefinitely postponed and now must be re-bid. Now, that project is expected to finally begin in February of next year, and finish six months later, for a total cost of $3 million.
Also next February will begin a $3.5 million project to rebuild the harbor office and ferry pier, which were demolished last year.
The final — and largest — piece of the harbor restoration work will begin June 2027: an $8 million project to repair the harbor’s outer marginal wharf, which will include the installation of new pilings. That project is not expected to be completed until April 2028.
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