Episode 3 - Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation

In this episode of Hawaii Conservation Kuleana, we sit down with Meghan Statts, the Administrator, and Todd Tashima, the Assistant Administrator, of the DLNR Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation (DOBOR). 

Join us for an engaging conversation about the challenges and opportunities DOBOR faces, including staffing shortages, emerging water sports, and the ongoing effort to maintain and improve Hawaii's harbor facilities. Learn about the work being done behind the scenes to ensure a sustainable future for ocean recreation in Hawaiʻi.

Transcript

[Music]

Dan: Aloha and welcome to Hawaii conservation. Kuleana, brought to you by Hawaii's Department of Land of natural resources. I'm Dan Dennison.

Patti: And I'm Patti Jette. We're here to explore conservation issues from land to sea with expert insights and stories from the field.

[Music]

[Meghan Statts] What we're doing is actually making a difference, being able to meet with people, talking to community members, getting out to some of the harbors, and understanding what their concerns are and how we can take those steps to improve a facility, improve a ramp, or just improve in general. I think, to me, is what really invigorates me, and is what I really want to continue doing.

[Music]

[Dan] Today we're talking about all things boating and ocean recreation with Meghan Statts and Todd Tashima from the DLNR Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation. Let's start with you, Meghan, we always ask people tell us about your background, your ʻohana and your early life.

[Meghan] Wow. Where to begin. I was born and raised on the windward side in Kailua. My family's been there for a few decades. Grew up in Kailua, played sports in Kailua, you know, mostly soccer was kind of my my passion, hanging out at the beach growing up. 

[Patti] But I think that we need to ask the question, what high school you went?

[Meghan] Kailua High School. Proud graduate, let's go Surf Riders! 

[Dan] And Todd. Let's start with you in that question, what high school you went.

[Todd] that I don't like to talk about (laughs). I went to Iolani so, and then for college, I went to UH, stayed here and grad school, and then I ended up interning with DOBOR, and I've been there since 27 or 2017, 2018 and I think we're coming up on year number nine total that I've been there in different capacities. 

[Dan]Go back into your your early beginnings and what your childhood was like here in Hawaii. 

[Todd] My childhood was boring. I didn't do much. I didn't actually start doing any outdoor kind of stuff till later on, like high school, middle school, high school, did a lot of hiking, and then in college, I started surfing. So I surf more now, it's easier than hiking. I don't have to clean off all my gear. I just have to wash the board down, wash the salt off. So I do a lot more surfing than hiking now, and that is a nice fit for DOBOR, because we do regulate that activity in the ocean waters that we surf in. 

[Patti] And Meghan, how has your background influenced your sense of kuleana for the natural and cultural resources that DLNR has pledged to protect?  

[Meghan] I think it's played a big part. You know, growing up in Kailua, just, you know, being surrounded by the wetlands, spending, you know, every day, you know, during the summertime at the beach. You know, from the time the sun comes up to as long as we could possibly stay there when we were kids, and just walking down to the beach, I think, played a pretty big role. And I mean, and I wanted to be able to give back to the community and make a difference in being able to help with regulations or making decisions that could you know further the next generations. 

[Dan] And Todd, how about you? How has that background influenced your sense of kuleana? 

[Todd] The surfing I think, has had a big part, because I surf at Kewalo, and so I'm not heavily involved, but I do go to, like, the beach cleanups for friends of Kewalos. They're the community group that operates out there, and they do get involved in a lot of the major issues affecting Kakaʻako and Kewalo area, and seeing just how passionate they are about their causes, it's like, yeah, like we should do as much as we can do on the governmental side.

[Dan] Boating and ocean recreation kind of a broad subject area, but what specifically is DOBOR responsible for?

[Meghan ] So really, the mission of the division is to enrich the lives of people of all ages, residents, visitors alike, by providing the ocean based opportunities. You know, we have our facilities. We've got all the different activities that are taking place in the ocean waters, overseeing the ocean recreation management areas. We also oversee our vessel registration and titling section. So we've got about 14,000 boats that are registered in the state of Hawaii, and we also oversee our boating and education section, trying to get out more information about boating safety. We're trying to get into the schools hopefully in the near future, talking about that, overseeing the commercial and recreational oversight. You know, user conflicts that we continue to, that continue to evolve throughout the years.

[Dan] Todd, a follow up question for you. I think people often, if they're not familiar with DOBOR, they get confused, and they think, we operate, you operate all the harbors in the state. So can you distinguish between which harbors are under your jurisdiction, versus Department of Transportation, for instance? 

[Todd] And others. Okay. And I think Meghan and I can tag team on this, but so DOBOR, I guess we can kind of just go over the history of it, right? So before DOBOR was DOBOR, it was all part of D O T. D O T does commercial harbors, which are your harbors that handle the shipping and most cruise ships. And then they did have the small boat harbor component, but it was just one program. And then the legislature in 1991 decided to split those programs and just leave the commercial site to D.O.T. interstate commerce, and the small boat harbor program, most of them were moved over to DLNR, and so we have 16 small boat harbors. The only small boat harbor that we don't control or don't have jurisdiction over, that is under government operation is Kewalo Harbor. There are some private harbors in the state as well. We don't have those. We've never had those. Ko Olina, Hawaii Kai Marina and rainbow,  

[Meghan] yeah, Rainbow Marina, Makani Kai and Kaneohe. So there are a few that we have here, especially on Oahu, there's more private facilities that don't fall under the jurisdiction of the division of boating and ocean recreation. 

[Dan] So the origins of DOBOR really came out from that enabling legislation moving everything from the small boat harbors, from DOT to DLNR. 

[Meghan] Yes, we got, when we got moved, we moved right into DLNR and became our own division. 

[Patti] And kind of speaking of harbors and other things, what are some of the most important or continuing issues facing the division? 

[Meghan] Yeah, staffing is definitely one of the biggest issues that we have had for a number of years. I think currently, we've got over a 30% vacancy rate, and it's just been really difficult to hire individuals to work in the facilities. One, the, you know, the state doesn't necessarily pay all all that well, right? A lot of us do this job because we are passionate about what we do, and it's hard to try to find people that want to be able to work, you know, coming in at the bottom, where a lot of us had started, right? You start at the bottom, and you work your way up. And so that's been a big issue. The other issue that we have is we just there's so many different types of new activities that are coming out on a regular basis that trying to keep up with them has been a challenge. And so we are trying to work with the legislature and do adaptive management, where we can kind of address some of these issues quickly, rather than having to go through a very lengthy rule amendment process. And Todd could probably talk a little bit more about that.  

[Todd] Our optimistic time frame for getting a rule amendment implemented is usually a year, but most often times it's longer than that. We did have a rule package that actually I worked on when I was interning, and that took about three years from start to actually having something that went into effect. And so, yeah, like Meghan was saying, when you have this, these processes that take that long, if you have a new technology that comes out, like E foils, we canʻt address it as quickly as we would like, and the technology will outpace our ability to regulate. 

[Dan] Todd. Let me ask a follow up question. We'll come back to Megan. You have a legal background, so I'm curious, because in the Communications Office, we field a large number of inquiries from constituents, from the public, and also from the media, about rules violations on shorelines and stuff. Can you just walk through how you're able to find out about those things, first of all, and then how the enforcement part works, and how successful you are in enforcing some of particularly the the egregious, you know, surf schools that are operating without a permit. 

[Todd] How we typically find out about the violations is when people contact us or when they contact DOCARE, and we work very well with DOCARE. DOCARE is the enforcement division for DLNR, and there are some instances where do care will initiate their own investigation with us and let us know that they've observed activity that seems to be illegal. And so we'll work with them. They'll give us a report, and we can take it on the administrative side, and if it's enough for them, they can also take it on the criminal side as well.  

[Meghan] And we have come in front of the board with enforcement actions, some pretty big and will continue to do so. It is a lengthy process to have to do the documentation work in hand in hand with do care and then prepare a board submittal, but we again, we have been successful. We've had a few that we've been able to bring in front of the board, and the board has issued significant fines. 

[Dan] Another issue that comes up frequently is grounded boats, particularly on Maui, it seems, because of the way the winds blow over there. And I think people often get the idea that, well, it's DOBORʻs responsibility to go in there and salvage the boats and get them out of the waterways. That's not the case. And so how is that funding stream supposed to work when it works well?  

[Meghan] It is the owner's responsibility to remove the vessel, and every vessel owner that has a slip or a mooring within the state of Hawaii is required to have insurance, and that insurance should be including insurance for grounding. In most cases, the vessel owners are able to take responsibility and remove those vessels. In some cases, and we've seen a little bit more frequently due to some of the insurance issues that we've been having, that owners don't have the ability to pay for the removal of the vessel, and so the boating division has to come in. And by statute, we have to give the owner the ability to remove the boat within 24 or 72 hours, really just depending on the situation and where the boat is grounded, and if they are unable to do so, then we have to take the steps, either do emergency procurement or put the vessel out a solicitation to remove the vessel, and all of that funding comes out of the boating special fund, which is generated from all the slips, the commercial fees, everything. We try to recoup our costs. But unfortunately, when you're talking anywhere between 50,000 we had one for 800,000 right in Maui, off of Kihei, trying to get reimbursed for that has been really difficult, and we do go after the vessel owners to try to get them to pay back, but in most cases, you're unsuccessful.  

[Dan] So that has a real impact on what you're able to do in terms of improvements in the small boat harbors. 

[Meghan] Yes, it definitely does, because we shouldn't be having to spend funding for a vessel owner that just walks away from their vessel. 

[Dan] So one other question, and we'll move on from here. In the past two years, there have been some real notable boat groundings that have gone to the Board of Land and Natural Resources and resulted in fines of many hundreds of thousands of dollars. But I guess you're finding that a lot of these cases, it's like the proverbial trying to get blood out of a turnip.  

[Meghan] A lot of these people, all they have is the vessel. They don't really have a home. A lot of them are renting right? So when you try to recoup $100,000 from somebody that doesn't have any property or anything, there's nothing that that we can do. We can try to track them down. And we do have some vessel owners that have taken responsibility and have paid us back. But that's very few. 

[Patti] Another thing that I think we hear a lot of questions about is the improvement and maintenance of all of our small boat harbors. Can you talk a little bit about that, prioritizing projects and what kind of backlog you're dealing with?  

[Meghan] We definitely have a backlog. You know, in order to do improvement projects, capital improvement projects, we do have to get funding from the legislature. I would say about right now, there's probably about five to $600 million in deferred maintenance. It used to be around 300 million, but we've seen now that a lot of our bids that are coming in are one and a half to two times what it's normally been. So a cost that would, you know, we would do a repair for, say, $2 million would now be close to four to $5 million and so we have to go to the legislature to ask for funds, and they've been very supportive, as best as they possibly can when you're talking about repairing boat slips in a harbor or dealing with, you know, department of health issues or human services, right? Human Services and Education, stuff like that would normally take priority over a boat harbor or slips being repaired. So we're trying to do our best to balance using the boating special fund to do a lot of repair and maintenance projects. And we're also using the boating special fund to supplement some of the shortfalls that we're having from some of these CIP projects that are coming in so high. 

[Todd] I think it helps. It'll help first, to give some context. So when we transferred DOBOR, which DOBOR, became a division in DLNR in 1991. One, DOT transferred it over with the deferred maintenance, and the legislature didn't provide any funding. So in 1991 that balance was 300 million. So 1991 dollars, which is probably double or more in today's money, and we had been chipping away at it over the years, except that with this year, like Meghan was saying, we we took a look at our estimates again and our engineers based on how the bids are coming in. It's a combination of inflation, higher cost for materials, I think, higher cost for labor, that basically doubled or tripled some of these projects that our engineers were estimating. And so I think it also helps to just kind of give an overview of the process and how the funding works as well, right? So Meghan was saying R and M, repair and maintenance, that we can fund with our operating funds, our special fund, but if it's something that's considered CIP - capital improvement project - that needs to be funded by the legislature and approved by the Governor, and in a lot of instances, people might not understand that we're moving as fast as we can, but they seem to think that we're just sitting on projects. That's that's not the case. It's because we have to follow the CIP process, and because of legislative budgeting, the CIP funding isn't appropriated or allocated until the end of the fiscal year, which is July. So we may have a project come up in January or February, but we won't be able to get any CIP funding, if we even get it at all, until July of that year, and that's when the process can even begin.

[Meghan] Yeah, and if I can just add just a little bit to that, is that our engineers, so we're the only DLNR division that have our own engineers. We currently have two engineers. We're supposed to have three, and our engineers are working on between 30 and 40 projects all the time, right? And the thing that takes so long that I think people really don't understand is the permitting process, right? Anything that you do on in or above the ocean waters requires an Army Corps permit and a Department of Health permit. So a lot of what we're dealing with is just this, you know, on standby, waiting for these permits to be approved, and then as once they're approved, we're moving forward with projects. So I think that's good to understand that we're not just sitting around not doing anything. We are asking for monies to do the improvements, but our engineers are constantly working day in and day out to get these projects done.  

[Dan] There are two projects that really extenuate that now, and so if we can get an update on them, this is being recorded in mid January. It could change by the time this is posted as a podcast, but the two would be the Lahaina Small Boat Harbor, which was, of course, pretty well destroyed or partially destroyed in the line of fires of 2023 and the Pohoiki boat ramp on the Big Island, which was pretty well destroyed during a volcanic eruption. So either one of you, or both of you can address where we're at at this point in time with both of those projects. 

[Meghan] Sure, I'll start with Pohoiki. Pohoiki, I was just there yesterday just to get on site view of what's there and what we're going to be removing, we are moving forward with that. We're hoping to get all of our permits and finalizing and be able to start actually doing the dredging of Pohoiki in February of this year. So that one is definitely moving forward, and we know that the members of the community out there, are very thankful that we're even though it's taking a long period of time, we had to work through a lot of issues to try to figure out what could be the best possible fit for Pohoiki. So hopefully, like I said, by the end of February, we can start that project. 

[Dan] So if you could, for folks who are not familiar with that area, what exactly happened and what's going to need to happen to reopen that boat ramp. 

[Meghan] So when the lava flow came down about seven or eight years ago, there was a large flow that came down right alongside of the Pohoiki launch ramp and the county beach park that was right there. What happened at that point was is there was a lot of sand that shifted from the area and basically ended up blocking the entire boat ramp. So all of the community members out there, all the fishers that would go out to fish, couldn't use the boat ramp. It was completely blocked off. And there is tons of sediment, sand that needs to be removed from the area and dredged down to about 12 feet to create another channel heading out into the ocean waters so that we can reopen the launch ramp out there. 

[Dan] And Lahaina.  

[Meghan] So for Lahaina, we've we've done the repairs to the loading dock wall. We've been fixing the fender ring that's over there. We've had the fuel dock has reopened. They've been really great. We're in the process of rebuilding and reworking the burnt Lahaina harbor office that was just built right before the fires, that our staff only enjoyed for probably about a month. And we do have some funding for projects within the Lahaina small boat harbor that we're looking to do, we are going to need some additional funds. So the govern the Governor's budget, he's got 5 million for dredging and another 8 million, I think, for the outer marginal wharf. So we're slowly moving through this process, working with the insurance company in order to rebuild. So once we start getting some of that financing, then we can move forward and start working on some of those projects. But I don't have an actual timeline for that. 

[Dan] A little bit of anecdote that building was built with an eye toward being hurricane resistant. Did you ever dream that it would need to be fire resistant? Although I've seen the building a number of times, it fared pretty well the inside contents, other than some smoke and water damage were pretty well intact.  

[Meghan] Yeah, yeah. The inside was pretty intact. A lot of soot, smoke, water, but majority of the outside, you know, kind of got burned, singed in different areas. Never thought that that would that would happen, but we are working closely with D O T to rebuild that office, and we're hoping to have that started soon.  

[Patti] All right, so a little bit more of a general question. We'll start with you. Todd, what have you found challenging and, on a flip side, invigorating, about leading the division? 

[Todd] I think one of the biggest challenges is, comes back to the staffing, is just not having enough staff to cover our mandates, our 13 mandates that are in the statute. And another challenge is just when we're trying to implement rules, just that process, right? There's so many steps to go through, and yeah, it's required, but we know what we're trying to get towards, and in many cases, we do have community consensus as well, and we know what, what our end goal is. It's just that we have to go through the process to actually get there, and that's what slows down the rule making. What's invigorating? 

[Dan] surfing (laughs) 

[Todd] Surfing, yeah, it's, it's the rare times when we can get out in the field and actually see just, you know, our jurisdiction, the ocean waters, the activities happening there, and just our rules in practice really right? We're seeing that if we implemented a rule that regulates a particular activity and how that has been affecting and reducing user conflicts. 

[Dan] So a follow up to that, Megan, do you get frustrated because a lot of people don't understand the process. It was not set up by DLNR. Was not set up by DOBOR, but it's oftentimes in statute or in in board rules, you get frustrated trying to explain that to people that you know, we're working as fast as we can, but our hands are basically tied until we get the green light on these things. 

[Meghan] It can be frustrating. But when you get somebody that actually understands what you're telling them and says, you know, I get it. I understand, you know, everybody understands government works slow. We don't try to work slow. It's just that we have to follow the processes, right? And so although it can be frustrating when you get to hear somebody say, I think you guys are doing a great job, and we don't hear it as often as we would like, but when we do hear it, it really does renew that passion for why we are doing what we're doing. 

[Dan] And I hearken back to Lahaina once again. I know that because I was in a lot of these meetings. You had numerous meetings with the voting community on the west side of Maui. Did you find that that was beneficial in calming some of the high emotions that were involved at that time and really helping people understand what you just talked about.  

[Meghan] I think it definitely helped to calm people a little bit. But I think just the uncertainty right of the rebuild, the uncertainty of how long it's going to take is still there, and it's still there today, in talking with community members, boaters from the west side of Maui, and so we'll continue to have those discussions and try to come up with a game plan each time moving forward.  

[Dan] And what invigorates you about your job? 

[Meghan] It's nice to be able to see that what we're doing is actually making a difference. And so for me, I think that's that's the biggest part. I'd love to be able to get out in the water and be out as often as I possibly could. Sometimes that doesn't happen, you know, sometimes, you know, Todd and I are busy with meetings constantly, but being able to meet with people, talking to community members, getting out to some of the harbors and understanding what their concerns are and how we can take those steps to improve a facility, improve a ramp, or just improve in general, I think, to me, is what really invigorates me, and is what I really want to continue doing. 

[Patti] What else would you like people to know about you? Your role here and the division? 

[Todd] It's basically an open offer to contact us if you have questions to try and if they want to set up a meeting, we can sit with them. We can explain any questions they have, just so they get a better understanding of our program, what we're doing, what limitations we're working with, and just any questions about the processes. Because I like explaining the legal processes. Now explaining them and actually getting them to work in practice are two different things. But I have no problem explaining how we get rules implemented, how we do board submittals, how we even go through the legislative process.  

[Meghan] Yeah, I think Todd does a great job in being able to explain everything all legal. I think a lot of what people don't understand is, you know, how we spend money, the capabilities of how we're able to do capital improvement projects, repair and maintenance, right? A lot of it, you know, we get from voters a lot of times as well. You know, I pay my ramp fees, so you guys should be able to fix the ramp but the amount of money that we generate from ramp fees is pretty minimal compared to everything else, and we we do the best that we can with the staffing that we have. Like I said, we only have two engineers, although we're the only division that has engineers, two engineers, working on 30 to 40 projects. And we've got 16 facilities statewide, and we also oversee the ocean waters from the high water mark three miles out. So although everybody thinks about us as the boating division and we manage small boat harbors, there's so much more that we do and that we're tasked with, with our 13 mandates. And trying to find the balance in doing all of that with very, very limited staffing is very challenging, and trying to explain that to people, because everybody wants something done now, right? You're not doing your job. And trying to explain that to them, I think, is trying to get them to understand, I will continue to do that. Explain. This is the process. This is what we're going through. This is what our limitations are, and this is the plan to how to get to the point where we can not have those limitations. 

[Dan] That segues into another question. We know that people form oftentimes negative opinions about government agencies, including DLNR DOBOR. Is there anything beyond what you just said that you're doing personally, or you're encouraging your staff to do to engender a positive flavor into your interactions in a day in, day out basis.  

[Meghan] I think for us, it's really just treat people the way you want to be treated. We have an open door policy. I want our staff to provide the best information, accurate information, right, not the misinformation that goes around. I want our staff to just continue working with the communities. I think there has been some conversations about, you know, we don't really work well with communities or fishers or boaters, that there's always, you know, this kind of butting heads. We want to try to garner that relationship, move that forward and understand we're here to do a job. We are listening. Sometimes our hands are tied. But I want our staff just to kind of continue to kind of explain and get people to understand, really what we do and what some of our limitations are. 

[Todd] If there's any questions, just ask because, yeah, like Meghan said, we do have a lot of limitations. And just, I think people don't realize we have our statutes that are the high level directive on how we operate the program, but we also have our rules, which are about 500 pages, and no one is going to be able to memorize every single page of the rules, the length of the rules, the size of the rule chapters, it can be a little overwhelming, and that's why, like Megan was saying, Just come and ask us we can help them interpreting it, or telling them what the rule means, or how it's supposed to be enforced.

[Patti] So we're moving on to our last question, and that is, you know, both of you, we've gone gotten into a little bit about your backgrounds. You would have opportunities to work almost anywhere. So what drives you to work here at the DLNR?

[Meghan] I think for me, it's been almost 30 years since I started at the division, I started just a little background. I started as a clerk at the Oahu district office in the boating division back in 1995. I've been fortunate enough to learn from a lot of supervisors and predecessors just about how great the division is and what we're able to do as as a division, and being able to move up and being able to work with so many different amazing people throughout the years, to me, is there's no better place to work within DLNR, there's so many amazing agencies that we partner with and get to work with on a regular basis. And so for me, I will close my career out as a DLNR employee and being able to make a difference for the natural resource for the voting division, and do everything that I possibly can to make it better than when I was here. For me is is the most important thing, and I've been blessed to work at the DLNR, and I would encourage others to do so as well.  

[Dan] Todd, let me reframe the question a little bit for you. You came to DOBOR as a legal fellow, right, correct? And that's for people who don't know that's UH Richardson School of Law Legal fellows that are assigned to our various divisions. When you became the legal fellow at DOBOR. Were you looking at a long time tenure with the division, or was this just your two year stint? You were gonna move on to something else, and so maybe that will help frame why you stayed for nine years now. 

[Todd] I actually didn't really have any plans. I didn't know how long I was gonna stay. I didn't even know what exactly I wanted to do, but I had always had known about DLNR, and just growing up, a lot of people know DLNR because they're the police, right? I still get questions where I tell them, Oh, I work at DLNR, and they say, Oh, you're a cop. It's like, No, I don't know. There's all these other employees and divisions in DLNR. We're not all the cops, right? But because, and that comes. Also that kind of says something about DOCARE. They are the face of almost like the face of DLNR, right? And they're out there representing the department, and that's most people's involvement with DLNR. And I think I could say, before I worked for DLNR, that was me as well. It's like, oh, there's DLNR, there's a DLNR truck, right? But now it's like, there's 10 divisions in DLNR. So when someone's like, oh, you work at DLNR, it's like, oh, what? What division? And that kind of helps you narrow it down and say, Oh, so this is what you work on. That's your subject matter area. A big reason I ended up staying was just because I like surfing, and we happen to have jurisdiction over that. So just having that understanding of the ocean helps with the type of work we do, I don't boat, but I still have, like, an understanding of the ocean and just some nexus to the ocean. So it was good timing, and it ended up working out.  

[Patti] All right. That wraps it up for us. Mahalo, to you both. 

[Dan] Mahalo, to our listeners for joining us today. Next time, we'll take a look at the Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement, better known as DOCARE. For now, I'm Dan Dennison, 

[Patti] and I'm Patti Jette.  

[Dan] Our theme music is provided by kavika kahiyapo.  

[Patti] Thanks for tuning in to Hawaii Conservation Kuleana. A hui hou!

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