DLNR: Dozens of vehicles towed at Kahului Harbor during cleanup

Crews with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources finished clearing the public parking areas of Kahului Boat Harbor by removing more than five dozen vehicles, many of them abandoned. Last week, efforts to cleanup the harbor got underway with the removal of debris.

Personnel with the DLNR Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation and Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement were on hand. Local towing operators, under contract to Maui County, put cars and trucks, some without tires or in various states of repair, onto flatbed trucks. DOBOR staff and workers from a private contractor finished the work they started a week ago cleaning up encampments.

For months, DOBOR Maui District Manager Paul Sensano received complaints about the conditions of harbor facilities. An initial clean-up in January was followed by the latest efforts. “It was quite an effort and as we’re winding down certain tasks did not get accomplished,” Sensano said.

More than a dozen vehicles were moved, by their owners, to a private strip of land next to the harbor, but the responsibility for what happens there is the landowner’s, according to a DLNR news release.

Some of the complaints involved illegal activities. Last week one person was stabbed and one man was arrested on an outstanding warrant and two other criminal charges, according to the release.

Several other vehicles, lacking wheels and tires, were dragged by their drivers across the dirt lot and onto the paved harbor entrance road.

DOBOR will be posting signs around the harbor, notifying people that only boat trailers with state permits and the trucks pulling them are allowed in the harbor between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. All others are subject to ticketing or towing.

DLNR reports that social service providers have made numerous visits to the camps at Kahului, attempting to place people into transitionary or permanent housing. However, most decline, according to the department.