On Saturday June 28, 2003 approximately 10 community members participated in the KBAC Kahawai Stream Walk in Waimānalo. The walk was led by Matt Schirman and Rick Barboza, owners of "Hui Ku Maoli Ola" Native Hawaiian Plant Nursery. We all met along the Kalaniana‘ole Highway across from L&L Drive Inn, where the highway crosses this branch of Waimānalo Stream.

Looking downstream at the the abundant native Hawaiian vegetation and clear flowing stream water, it was hard to imagine how the stream used to be. Matt and Rick described how the stream used to a flood hazard, because it was choked with tall california grass and wild cane. After restoration, rainwater now flows harmlessly over a bed of ‘ae‘ae instead of causing flooding problems.

According to Matt and Rick, the ‘ae‘ae also seems to have the added benefit of reducing the nutrients within the streamwater. Preliminary investigations showed that although adundant nitrogen (common in fertilizers) was found upstream of the restoration site, almost none could be found downstream of it!

As the introduced weeds were removed and replaced with native plants, in addition to the stream's flow increasing, native birds have returned. During our short tour of the stream, we saw several ‘Alae‘ula and a couple ‘Auku‘u.

Just downstream of the restoration site, Kahawai Stream merges with Puha Stream, where Matt and Rick have teamed up with one of KBAC's contractors, the Center for Conservation Research and Training, in another restoration effort. Matt and Rick hope to restore the entire v-shaped section shown in the red circle above and ultimately continue restoration all the way to the ocean.

We made our way down Saddle City Road to the Puha Stream site, where we conducted KBAC's Awareness Survey.

You can go here to see how this site compares with others we have assessed using the "Stream Awareness Survey".