Improve Small Scale Beach Restoration in Hawaiʻi

Hawaiʻi is updating how we manage and restore our beaches. The proposed Small Scale Beach Restoration (SSBR) Program would create a statewide framework for permitting small-scale beach management activities including beach nourishment, sand pushing, backpassing, bypassing, dune restoration, and temporary groins.

SSBR would replace the existing Small Scale Beach Nourishment (SSBN) Program, approved in 2000, which focused primarily on beach nourishment. The new program reflects a broader approach to beach restoration and management and provides guidelines for evaluating proposed projects on state land within the Conservation District, often makai of the certified shoreline. Importantly, activities considered under this framework are intended to be temporary in their effectiveness in response to coastal erosion hazards.

For Surfrider, this is an important opportunity within our Hawaiʻi Beaches Forever effort to manage beaches better: improving how we care for Hawaiʻi's beaches today while ensuring interim management strategies support, rather than stand in the way of, long-term adaptation tomorrow.

Many of the activities covered by SSBR are already allowable and permittable today, often through separate pathways and with varying levels of oversight. The question isn't simply whether these tools should exist. It's how we make sure they are used appropriately, protect public beaches and communities, and help move Hawaiʻi toward long-term solutions.

What is Small Scale Beach Restoration?

Small Scale Beach Restoration is a framework for permitting relatively small-scale activities that move, place, or manage sand along the shoreline. The proposed SSBR program expands beyond the existing Small Scale Beach Nourishment program to cover a broader range of beach management techniques.

The activities covered by the proposed program include:

Beach Nourishment – Placement of beach-compatible sand to rebuild lost and narrowed beaches. Nourishment projects may include dredging offshore sand sourced from the same littoral cell as the proposed placement area. Sand must meet the program’s sand quality and sand-match guidelines regardless of its source.

Sand Pushing – Moving sand through mechanical means to the dune or upper beach. This typically involves moving sand from the lower to upper beach to manage backshore erosion and wave run-up impacts, rebuild dunes, berms, and beach slopes, or occasionally move sand from behind the shoreline back to the active beach following wave overwash.

Sand Backpassing – Moving sand within a littoral cell, typically through mechanical means, from an area of chronic or seasonal sand accumulation—such as a stream mouth—back to its source.

Sand Bypassing – Moving sand, typically through mechanical means, around an obstruction to artificially facilitate the natural movement of sand along the shoreline.

Dune Restoration – Working with the natural processes of sand accumulation and vegetation growth to encourage the buildup of healthy dunes over time. Dune restoration proposed as part of nourishment, sand pushing, backpassing, or bypassing can be reviewed through the SSBR program.

Temporary Groins – Small structures extending seaward from the shoreline that are primarily buried in sand. Under SSBR, these groins would be limited to five years or less and could only be considered where they are demonstrated to be appropriate for the location, do not contribute to downdrift erosion, and do not limit lateral beach access. Approved groins would require monitoring and a removal plan

These activities can play a role in managing Hawaiʻi’s beaches in the short term, but they can also alter natural beach processes if used in the wrong place or without adequate safeguards and further prolong the very real need to explore and advance long term solutions such as retreat and relocation. That is why where, when, why, and how these activities are permitted matters—and why Surfrider is working to ensure SSBR protects Hawaiʻi’s beaches and communities while supporting the transition toward long-term adaptation.

The State has been working to update the existing SSBN framework for several years. An earlier version of the proposed program was challenged through a contested case proceeding, and SSBR has since undergone revision. The current proposal has addressed some of the concerns out of that contested case with stronger treatment of protected and sensitive areas, site-specific review, shoreline certification requirements, standardized BMPs, and greater oversight of activities such as sand pushing.

SSBR is now moving forward as part of the Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands' broader update to Hawaiʻi Administrative Rules Chapter 13-5, which governs activities within the State Conservation District.

Making SSBR Right for Hawaiʻi

While there are improvements in the current proposal, there are also many areas that need significant improvement.

Surfrider has convened a small working group of shoreline advocates, scientists, and legal experts to review the proposal and engage with OCCL throughout the process. Our work is focused on four key areas:

Enforcement & Accountability — Ensure permit conditions are enforceable, monitoring is meaningful, and there are clear consequences when projects fail or violate permit conditions.
Long-Term Adaptation — Better connect interim beach management strategies to long-term adaptation, relocation, and restoration of natural beach processes so short-term actions don't become perpetual fixes.
Community Engagement & Public Oversight — Create meaningful opportunities for communities to understand proposed projects, participate in decisions affecting their beaches, and hold applicants and agencies accountable.
Eligibility & Sensitive Areas — Clearly define where these tools are appropriate, where they are not, and strengthen protections for sensitive ecosystems, cultural resources, iwi kūpuna, and public trust resources.

Ultimately, SSBR should be a tool for better beach management—not an excuse to avoid the difficult decisions Hawaiʻi must make about its changing shoreline. Getting this program right means creating strong guardrails for what we do on our beaches today while building a bridge toward the long-term solutions we need tomorrow.

Get Involved

The public will have opportunities to help shape the final program. OCCL plans to hold public meetings on each island, beginning with Maui later this summer, as the SSBR and broader HAR Chapter 13-5 updates move forward.

Surfrider will share meeting dates, opportunities to provide testimony, educational resources, and ways to take action as they become available.

If you have questions about this process and want to learn more, please email Hawaiʻi Regional Manager Hanna Lilley- hlilley@surfrider.org