Waikiki Sand Replenishment

Talk about deep sand beds! This one is 10,000 cubic yards! Here's the article about replenishing the sand in Waikiki. Thought you sand aficianados would be interested:

Waikiki Sand Article

 

Interesting. I wonder why they dry it first?
Does bring up a good question. Why did the original sand leave?
This may just be a temporary solution.

 

Is this robbing Peter to pay Paul?

 

It dosn't say where the get the sand so they may dry it to prevent introducing non-native organisms.

 

I believe they are pumping the sand from a location nearby offshore in Honolulu. So I'm also not clear why they are drying it out first. Perhaps they're drying it out because it's going on the beach right where all the tourists and other folks lay out to get a tan. If that large volume of wet sand was dumped on the beach, wouldn't it start to smell or something? At the very least, it wouldn't be fun to put your towel down on wet sand...

Why are they replenishing? Well, from what I know Waikiki actually used to be a swamp and not the pristine white powdery beach we all know from post cards. Real estate developers starting in the 1920's & 30's started filling in the swamp to build hotels and such. Therefore I believe they need to refill the sand because of the natural tidal activities and currents of that area (not to mention a few of the 6 million+ tourists a year who take a cup of san home for souveniers!).