A flood-control project in Moanalua Valley and two on Kaua'i are among 122 nationwide that were identified as substandard in documents released Thursday by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Officials on O'ahu and Kaua'i said they are addressing the maintenance problems identified by the Corps, and expect to have them repaired and approved within months.

The three Hawai'i projects were cited for maintenance problems in recent years, prompting the Corps to label them "unacceptable," a designation that bars them from receiving federal repair funds and prevents nearby residents from receiving federal aid in the event of a catastrophic flood.

However, federal and local officials emphasized that the maintenance problems never posed a hazard to residents.

"There was no threat of imminent failure or threat to the public," said Joseph Bonfiglio, chief public affairs officer for the Army Corps of Engineers' Honolulu district. In fact, one of the levees on Kaua'i functioned as planned during a heavy rain last year, preventing an estimated $3 million in damage, he said.

On O'ahu, the cited project involved about 1.6 miles of concrete-hardened stream banks protecting some 600 homeowners along Moanalua Stream, from the Moanalua Valley Neighborhood Park to the Moanalua Golf Club.

A 2003 inspection following heavy rains that caused some flooding much lower in the valley found numerous cracks, holes, settling and uplifting along the concrete channel.

Left unchecked, the damage could have kept expanding, eventually causing large chunks of concrete to be dislodged and block the channel during another heavy rain, said Jim Pennaz, chief of the civil works technical branch in the Corps' Honolulu district.

Karen Scharfenstein, who has lived in the area since 1980, said the stream has never overflowed its banks in that time, but that old-time residents remember an earlier flood that caused some damage.

"They still talk about that and worry that it could happen again," Scharfenstein said. "But in all the time I've been there, the waters only came close to reaching the top of the concrete once."

Tyler Sugihara, assistant chief of road maintenance for the city's Department of Facilities Maintenance, said a city contractor has just completed a $1.4 million project to repair the damage to the concrete. The city hopes to have the flood control project inspected by the Army Corps of Engineers this month.

If the work is approved, the project could have its unacceptable rating removed. That would mean the city and area residents would once again be eligible for federal funding and Federal Emergency Management Agency aid, said Bonfiglio, who emphasized that county officials in Honolulu and on Kaua'i have been very cooperative in trying to fix the problems.

Scharfenstein, however, said residents still would like the city to stop some erosion problems that are occurring along the non-hardened parts of the stream bank.

"There's supposed to be a 2- or 3-foot pathway next to the concrete that keeps getting eroded away," she said. "The residents plant things there to stop the erosion, and the city comes and tears them out because they could be intrusive. We'd like someone to work with us to fix the problem."

KAUA'I PROBLEMS

On Kaua'i, the two projects labeled unacceptable were along the Waimea and Hanapepe rivers. Both were cited in 2004 inspections for a variety of maintenance problems, including silt-filled riverbeds, vegetation growing on levee walls, concrete cracks and some drain valves that were inoperable, said Kaua'i county engineer Donald Fujimoto.

Fujimoto said that he first learned about the levee issues on Kaua'i when Corps of Engineers personnel came to his office in December 2005. He said the county searched for the maintenance manuals that would have been developed when the federally-built levees were turned over to the county, but they could not be found.

"We basically had to develop our own maintenance plan," he said.

Because county procurement processes can take a long time, the county decided to do the repairs and maintenance in-house, working overtime on weekends. Fujimoto said the county is hoping to have the levee work completed by March.

"I think we've got a good handle on this. We did quite a bit already. The (county) road crews said they've never seen the levees this clean. That may be because they didn't realize we were responsible for maintaining it," he said.

Ed Renaud, Kaua'i's superintendent of roads, said most of the work has been done. The levee walls have been cleared of problem vegetation except for a half-mile section of the upper Hanapepe River western levee.

"Hanapepe is just about there," he said.

He said there are still some voids in the Waimea River levee wall that need filling, and a section of the Waimea River near the swinging bridge at the upper end of the levee needs to be dredged of accumulated silt — work that should start this week. Most of the valves and drainage mechanisms have been replaced or repaired, he said.

CLEANING UP

Artist Joanna Carolan, whose studio sits along the Hanapepe River levee in Hanapepe Town, said she welcomes the work. Carolan said she had been maintaining the section of levee in front of her property, planting groundcover approved by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, the agency with which she had been discussing levee maintenance.

She said county crews have been working weekends, including Sundays.

"They've been out here cleaning the levee. They've been working really hard, and I really appreciate that," she said.

Pennaz of the Corps' Honolulu district said there are about 25 flood-control projects on O'ahu that are regularly inspected by the Corps.

"We monitor them all annually and the sponsors are doing a pretty good job of keeping them maintained. I think we've got a lot less problems and issues with them than on the Mainland," Bonfiglio said.

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com and Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.