Table of Contents
What is wrong with the Ala Wai Canal?
Urbanization brought major pollution problems to the Ala Wai Canal. Runoff from streets and fast-growing growing neighborhoods, including trash and chemicals, flowed downhill from Makiki, Palolo and Manoa into the canal and out into the boat harbor. The canal was also filling up with muck again.
How was Waikiki Beach formed?
Most visitors may not know it, but Waikiki Beach is almost entirely man-made. It has had erosion problems since the late-1800s when developers began erecting hotels and homes too close to the natural shoreline and building seawalls and other structures that blocked the natural ebb and flow of sand along the beach.
How dirty is the Ala Wai Canal?
Honolulu’s Ala Wai canal is one of the most polluted waterways in the country. It’s so contaminated that in 2006, a local resident died from bacterial infection after falling into the Ala Wai boat harbor.
What lives in the Ala Wai Canal?
Ala Wai Canal is near Honolulu. The most popular species caught here are Great barracuda, Sixfinger threadfin, and Crevalle jack.
Is the Ala Wai fresh water?
A frequent recommendation, in fact, is that the water in the Ala Wai be disinfected before entering Mamala Bay. The Ala Wai is not a natural stream. Rather, it was dug in the 1920s to drain the wetlands of Waikiki and allow more intensive development of the area.
Is Ala Wai Canal man made?
The Ala Wai Canal is a 2-mile long man-made waterway of variable depth and width located in the Waikiki district of Honolulu that was constructed between 1921 and 1928.
Where did Waikiki get its sand?
But most of the sand on Waikiki and other engineered beaches in Hawaii comes from, well, Hawaii. From dune systems, from other islands and from Waikiki itself, taken from the undersea foreshore right in front of the beach.
What does Waikiki mean in Hawaiian?
spouting fresh water
Etymology. The Hawaiian language name Waikīkī means spouting fresh water, for springs and streams that fed wetlands that once separated Waikiki from the interior.
What does Ala Wai mean in Hawaiian?
waterway
Ala Wai, literally meaning waterway is a man made canal which was created in order to drain the wetlands of Waikiki in 1921.
Can you swim in Ala Wai?
People don’t swim in the Ala Wai anymore. Contact with its murky water—filled with bacteria, heavy metals, pesticides, and who knows what else—can be hazardous to your health.
When was Ala Wai Canal built?
1920s
Forming the northern boundary of Waikiki, the Ala Wai Canal is a manmade waterway that was built in the 1920s to drain the swamps and rice paddies in the coastal wetlands that were fed by the streams coming from Makiki, Palolo and Manoa valleys. Dredging of the Ala Wai Canal took place from 1921 to 1928.