All 1,390 burned Lahaina residential properties in the federal debris cleanup program are now cleared.
“That's a huge milestone. It's been eight months in the making,” said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lt. Col. Collin Jones.
This comes months ahead of the original target of January 2025.
“So 1,278 out of the 1,390 are what we call completed, meaning the county has an administrative packet in hand and can begin working with the homeowner on the permitting process,” Jones explained. “So we still have 112 to get to the completion status. So what that looks like, though, is only 16 of those really have significant steps left to take before we can complete the administrative process, which is erosion control.”
Gravel will be spread on those last properties to mitigate runoff and signal closure of their cleanup. Final completion is just a few weeks away.
Jones said the Army Corps is still awaiting soil testing results back from the Department of Health for some properties.
Six inches of soil is scraped during the initial cleanup process and then sampled for metals and contaminants. If results come back inconclusive or indicate a higher level of concentration, an additional 6 inches of soil is removed from the property. Jones said “a very small percentage” of the total lots cleared needed the second step of mitigation based on the test results.
Next, comes wrapping up commercial debris cleanup. Jones said a little more than half of Lahaina’s 159 commercial properties have already been cleared. The rest will happen over the next four months.
“Commercial debris lots are sometimes a little more challenging because the acreage — the size of these lots are larger,” he said. “There's some more complexities there, when you're dealing with a lot more concrete, steel beams, sometimes elevators, sometimes subsurface parking structures. So there's some extra technical care that needs to go to making sure that we safely and safely remove the debris.”
He said extra time is also taken in working with culturally sensitive areas.
“We have our cultural monitors and archeologists in place, and we're going a little it slower with the commercial debris clearing — we have to be that much more deliberate in that area where we know it's rich in cultural significance.”
Local companies and residents have been critical to the debris cleanup, Jones said.
“The community really answered the call. You know, vested heavily in gaining experience and equipment needed to do the job, and rose to the occasion, and in some cases, cleared their very own lot, and in some cases, now are rebuilding on their very own lots.”
A majority of the cleanup workforce has been from Maui, working in Lahaina as sub-contractors.
“It's really vital that we use the local population and in the local workforce here that understands and cares for the land like no nobody else could,” Jones said. “At one point, the local labor force here comprised of upwards of 85% of the actual work laborers that were conducting the debris removal.”
For Lahaina resident Ashley Kahahane, many of her own family members were involved in the cleanup of her ‘ohana's burned land.
“They know the property. They know how it was or how it's supposed to be,” she said. “It was nice having family actually tend to Grandma's property and Aunty's property from day one.”
Kahahane said having ‘ohana involved every step of the way held a lot of meaning and reassurance for her.
“My cousin Isaac, he works for TKH, which is a company that was doing debris removal. One of my cousins, Talia, was a cultural monitor. My cousin, Viliami — he removed the debris in the truck to the dump. And then lastly, my brother, who laid gravel with his team,” she said.
Jones said not only has the community’s involvement been important to the cleanup, but has also developed resources for the future.
“They have experience with the land, they have the trust," he said. "And then, not only when you invest in them and have them build the experience and the capacity that builds redundancy and resilience in the future, in case there is another disaster, that capability and experience resides in the community.”
