Soil erosion, overfishing, and urban pollution persist

To help save the reefs of Hawaii (U.S.), get active with these groups:

Ahupua`a Action Alliance

American Oceans Campaign

Coral Forest

Earthwatch

Environmental Solutions International

Friends of the Puako Reef

Hawaii Audubon Society

Hawaii Green Party

Hui Malama O Mo'omomi

Life of the Land

Pacific Whale Foundation

Reef Education Project

ReefKeeper International

Save Our Seas

Sierra Club

Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund

University of Hawaii Marine Option Program

University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program

Project Ocean Pulse: Kauai eighth-graders team with conservation groups and state and university scientists to survey Anini Reef and write a survey manual for volunteers everywhere. Photo: Save Our Seas

Hawaii's reefs overall have suffered for decades from agricultural development, tourism, dredging, and overfishing.

While overfishing is the main menace to Oahu's reef health, significant damage has occurred to reefs off Waikiki and Honolulu where protected estuaries and wetlands have been scraped and bermed into harbors, parks, and beaches around hotels. Lanai's reefs are generally healthy, but a broad spectrum of impacts from construction, tourism, and agriculture threaten those off Molokai and Kauai. Kahoolawe's reefs are just starting to recover from incessant military bombing that continued, incredibly, up to 1994, and reefs around the island of Hawaii are just starting to recover from decades of discharge from sugarcane waste.

Poor seamanship is another perennial reef-wrecker: In June 1996 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Exxon was entirely to blame when its Exxon Houston tanker collided with an Oahu reef in 1989 after breaking loose from its moorings in rough seas; the crash polluted miles of coastline with 30,000 gallons of spilled oil. Exxon had attempted to shift some of the responsibility for damages to the mooring equipment's manufacturers.

And if oil doesn't spoil a coral's day, how about weapons of mass destruction? In December 1997, Defense Cleanup reported that efforts to wash plutonium out of contaminated coral soil on Johnston Atoll, a coral-reef island chain 825 miles southwest of Honolulu, were botched by planners using tap water for the job instead of seawater. The plutonium is left over from when a failed atomic missile was deliberately exploded on the launch pad in 1962, spraying the island with the lethal element. The atoll is also a designated chemical weapons disposal area that at one time held 2,000 tons of mustard gas, VX nerve gas, and sarin, which the government is cheerfully disposing of by incineration.