Puna residents and lawmakers are eager to get boats back in the water when the Pohoiki Boat Ramp reopens in late 2025.

The boat ramp — the ocean access for boaters in Puna — was rendered unusable in 2018 when lava from Kilauea’s Lower East Rift Zone eruption raised a sandbar in front of the ramp. Since then, area fishermen have been forced to launch from Hilo and sail around the island to work in Puna waters, an expensive and time-consuming process.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Boating and Oceanic Resources has long been developing plans to reopen the ramp by dredging part or all of the newly formed beach. On Thursday the department announced that it had awarded a $9.2 million contract for the dredging project to Goodfellow Bros., with work expected to begin in February.

The project is anticipated to be completed in November.

“In one word: finally,” said Puna Council member Ashley Kierkiewicz, who has previously expressed her frustration with the slow pace of lava recovery projects. The frequent delays and changes to the boat ramp project have left her “cautiously optimistic,” and she said more delays could still set back the schedule even more.

“I think people here will really start to believe it when they start staging equipment,” Kierkiewicz said.

DOBOR has not yet secured all necessary permits for the project, and plans to complete that process in January. Kierkiewicz said she believes the state has performed ample due diligence for the permitting process to go smoothly.

The project’s current planned form is a far cry from what Puna residents had identified as their preferred solution in meetings during 2023. While DOBOR engineer Finn McCall described the project in a statement as involving “restoring a wide entrance channel for the existing boat ramp,” residents strongly favored a larger-scale enterprise that would dredge out the entire beach, about 175,000 cubic yards of material.

In fact, the DLNR secured the roughly $40 million necessary for a dredging of that scale in 2023, only for Gov. Josh Green to impose a series of budget cuts that slashed the project’s funding down to $5.4 million.

Puna Rep. Greggor Ilagan said Goodfellow Bros. bid was the lowest proposal for the project, and it still outstripped the budget by nearly $4 million. However, he said DOBOR was able to pull additional money from department funds to make up the difference.

Ilagan thanked DLNR and particularly McCall for their efforts in getting the project off the ground, even while lamenting the bureaucratic processes that led to such lengthy delays.

“We had a very willing state department to work with, but this is the process we all have to work under,” Ilagan said. “I hope people can see that these projects just take a long time even with a willing state government.”

Whether the remainder of the beach will be dredged after the channel is completed remains to be seen.

“My main focus right now is to get the channel dredged, and I have no plans for after that,” Ilagan said. “We need to provide that access to the water as soon as we can. … We’ve got to focus on the dredging, and we can reassess what we do afterward.”

That access will be welcome to Puna residents and fishermen. Ku‘ulei Kealoha Cooper, a resident who has been a vocal advocate for the project for years, said she was “elated” to hear that the project is finally going forward after so many setbacks.

“Our fishermen have to get back into the water so they can get back to feeding their community,” Cooper said, adding that the reopened ramp will save fishermen over $800 per trip in gas alone.

Cooper said she hopes the channel can be a “Phase 1” of a greater project to restore the bay, but added that DOBOR has a maintenance budget that can be used to ensure the channel remains open. Residents and engineers had previously been concerned that the tidal motion of the bay could cause sediment to refill any channel relatively quickly.

But Cooper said those concerns have lessened of late. Residents have monitored the depth of the bay over the years, and it seems that the fine sand that characterized the beach after the eruption has largely drifted away.

“If you go down there you’ll see it’s all boulders there now,” Cooper said.

A side effect of the project is that it will also remove the “hot ponds” that had formed following the eruption, enclosed pools that had been a popular recreation spot for some and an unsightly breeding ground of bacteria for others.

“At least now there will be some water circulation,” Cooper said. “But the point is, the lineal descendants here have expressed their need, and food must come before recreation.”

Beyond the dredging project, Ilagan said he has some ideas for future plans for the bay, but said he’d keep them close to his chest until after the ramp is reopened. But, he said, he wants to figure out some longer-term projects to determine the next 10 years of Pohoiki.

“We’re investing a lot into the bay already, there has to be more we can do for the area,” Ilagan said.