The petitioners’ first witness is Marti Townsend, program director and staff attorney for KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance.

She said she’s concerned about erosion, sea-level rise and shadows on the beach. She’s testifying not as an expert on land use law but instead as an injured party — someone who would be impacted by the hotel redevelopment.

“It was a particularly awful experience, the smell of dead fish, the gray sand and the murky water,” she said of a recent Spring Break trip to Waikiki with her children during beach replenishment activity.

The more the shoreline is developed and hardened, she said, the more often the beach will need to be replenished and the less the public will want to use the area.