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The completed bridge project replacing the culvert on South Kihei Road is now a welcome relief for residents and visitors. The workmanship looks great and the style is close to other historical bridges on Maui. Mahalo to the workers.
There is one concern that is a puzzle to me: The surface of the new bridge appears lower than the natural elevation of the beach sand that it must drain through.
Granted, the new bridge is at least as high as the culvert that it replaced, but I would have thought the project would have been an excellent opportunity to eliminate a possible future problem by raising it as high as possible. Heavy rains and/or a storm surge in the ocean could still easily flood the bridge.
A good example is the "drain" of the Kealia Bird Sanctuary ponds through the Maalaea Bay beach sands. The ocean storm surge overfills the ponds, and with concurrent heavy rains the pond water level encroaches on North Kihei Road. This requires the beach "sand plug" to be manually dug out to drain the ponds, which is against the operational practices of the sanctuary.
In the case of the new South Kihei Road bridge, maybe those in charge did not believe in "global warming" or "sea level rising" predictions.
Just wondering!
David Williams
Wailuku