A contingent of Kaua’i County officials went to Hanamaulu last night to talk trash.
At an evening meeting in the King Kaumualii Elementary School cafeteria, the county’s head of solid waste, Troy Tanigawa, and others, including Ron Boyle of Earth Tech, the Honolulu consulting firm that did a landfill site study for the county, tried to explain why Hanamaulu was the right place for a new landfill.
The meeting followed a bus tour last Saturday of the site behind Kalepa mountain on Grove Farm Co.-owned land.
Wally Rezentes Sr., the top assistant to Mayor Maryanne Kusaka, pointed out to the restive crowd of approximately 50 people that the site is only proposed so far.
“There has been no decision made at this date on where the (landfill) will be. I can assure all of you that no decision has been made. We are listening to you,” Rezentes said.
He said picking a site will be “a long process,” with public hearings before the County Council still to come.
“We are quite a bit away from any final determination of where the site will be,” Rezentes concluded.
Tanigawa had just begun explaining that the county had spent two years working on a site study (with Earth Tech) when a man in the crowd asked the question that seemed to be on everybody’s mind: “Why Hanamaulu? That’s what I want to hear!”
Boyle tried to answer by explaining that the Kalepa site was evaluated and scored based “on environmental, technical, social and cultural criteria.”
According to an Earth Tech press release, the Kalepa site is “a suitable location” for a landfill. Some advantages of the site “are its central location and the supportiveness of the current landowner for … development,” the company said.
Butall is not rosy if the Kalepa site is the county’s final choice. Noted Earth Tech, “Some drawbacks … are potential impacts on traffic congestion and potential reduced capacity due to a limited site area (97 acres, as opposed to the average sought of around 133 acres).”
County officials held a similar information meeting Tuesday night in Kekaha to explain to the residents there why the current Kekaha landfill needs to expanded and used until 2007.
“We only had about 10 people” at that meeting, and they had “a mixed reaction” to expansion plans, Rezentes said.
County spokeswoman Beth Tokioka said the biggest complaints in Kekaha revolved around the landfill’s appearance.
“There were some residents who had aesthetic concerns. They want (the county) to improve the appearance of the landfill” and surrounding areas, Tokioka said.
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net
