The famed "Magnum P.I." mansion torn down and being redeveloped as Obama's retirement oasis has taken advantage of loopholes to keep a wall up along the sea, circumventing local laws designed to preserve disappearing shorelines.
The report by ProPublica detailed the project, including the purchase of the home by Marty Nesbitt, the close confidante of former President Barack Obama who had run his campaigns and now runs his charitable foundation. Officials say the property is being built for the Obamas, per the report.
"Why are we, on the one hand, warning the public about climate change and professing to value beaches, and on the other hand allowing major renovations of a shoreline that was on its way out?" University of Hawaii at Manoa coastal geologist Chip Fletcher told ProPublica.
The property is on Oahu and the famed beach in front of it is the one actor Tom Selleck was seen strolling on in "Magnum P.I." That beach leading up to the still-standing seawall is now entirely drowned.
"We should be taking seawalls out, not rubber-stamping more and more of them," Earthjustice environmental attorney Isaac Moriwake told ProPublica.
Seawalls like the Obama-connected property destroy beaches because it limits the rise of water inland on coastal areas, smashing waves up against them and pulling sand back into the ocean, per the report.
Nesbitt has asked to build the seawall higher to protect the property but has faced local opposition.