Local conservationists and scuba divers say they found coral colonies off Kewalo Basin “obliterated” last week after commercial divers warned them to stay away because diving there would be dangerous during their work.

The work crew was aboard a large gray boat anchored above the reef off Kakaako Waterfront Park and the workers did not identify themselves, according to Kate Heffner, a divemaster at Waikiki Dive Center. Soon after the crew left, Heffner and other divers encountered severe, extensive damage to the coral where they had been. 

“It’s not a little destruction. You swim up to it and it’s quite distinct,” Heffner said Wednesday. “Coral heads toppled over. Large masses of coral that are very unnaturally positioned upside down. It was pretty upsetting to see.”

Some of the damage also appeared to have been caused by an anchor, based on the tracks on the seafloor, Heffner added.

State aquatic resource officials are aware of the situation but as of Tuesday they still had not done a site inspection, according to Department of Land and Natural Resources spokesman Dan Dennison.

Meanwhile, volunteers with the nonprofit group Ocean Alliance Project have been surveying the damage at two main coral areas, gathering film and video footage that they hope might be used in a state investigation.

The group also hopes to obtain an emergency permit from DLNR to restore as much of the viable coral as it can before the animals die, Ocean Alliance Executive Director Dylan Brown said. Often coral only have a few days to live after they’ve been severed from a reef, he said.

Brown shared underwater footage he shot Tuesday showing healthy coral heads, then a patch that had been damaged and reduced to rubble:

The group hopes that anyone with information on the vessel, which was 80 to 90 feet long and had a crane aboard, might come forward, Brown said.

An Ominous Warning

Heffner said that she first encountered the boat and its crew on June 25 when she arrived at the reef with customers for a night dive.

A smaller pontoon-style boat approached her group, she said. 

“They came over and radioed our boat and said, ‘Hey, make sure you stay on the east side of the pipe because we’re working on the west side of the pipe,’” Heffner said. “I don’t know what they were doing. We were just told it was dangerous and to not come over there.”

She said that she immediately feared for how the work might impact the fragile marine ecosystem.

“If it’s dangerous for recreational divers, it’s got to be dangerous for coral and marine life,” she said.

Brown said the damage occurred at two separate areas approximately 60 feet long by 15 feet wide.

 “You just see obliteration of fairly large sections of reef. You have coral ripped off and smothering other corals that have been growing for hundreds of years,” he said.