LIHU‘E — The island’s only landfill may operate another 10 years before closing down for good. With the clock ticking — and after a few extensions and expansions — the county has yet to find a site for the next
LIHU‘E — The island’s only landfill may operate another 10 years before closing down for good. With the clock ticking — and after a few extensions and expansions — the county has yet to find a site for the next landfill.
Compounding the problem, a materials recovery facility — which would divert solid waste from the landfill, buying it more time and potentially avoiding a vertical expansion — has fallen behind schedule and will only be ready by 2015, according to County Engineer Larry Dill.
The county Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan, adopted in September 2009, calls for a MRF in the inaugural year of the five-year plan. The administration is also out of sync with many other suggestions for the first year of the plan, according to a “disappointed” County Councilman Tim Bynum, who was not short on harsh words for the administration during an informational special meeting at the Council Chambers Tuesday.
“We are entering year three (of ISWMP), and we are at the beginning,” Bynum told Dill.
The ISWMP, a 305-page document, focuses heavily on diversion of solid waste from the landfill, including recycling measures and opportunities.
“Within the first year, we didn’t hire the staff that was anticipated, we didn’t start the MRF, we didn’t implement green-waste pick up in year two,” said Bynum, adding a plan for a composting facility has been apparently abandoned, that the administration has not co-located HI-5 facilities at transfer stations and has not made much progress with business recycling or profitability for the county.
“It’s very frustrating to be entering year three of a five-year plan and basically, we haven’t done year one,” he said.
The cost of doing business
Some council members have told the administration that besides missing out on the environmental benefits of recycling, it is costing taxpayers millions of dollars to keep expanding the Kekaha Landfill.
The original cost to build the landfill’s first phase, which lasted 40 years, was $6.95 million. The first lateral expansion, recently closed after 18 yeas in operation, cost $16.3 million. The current expansion now in use cost $9.59 million and is estimated to close in three years. The subsequent expansion, set to begin operations in December 2014, will cost $10.94 million and is estimated to last more than three years.
Once the final lateral expansion fills up, there’s an option to seek approval to increase the landfill’s vertical height to 120 feet from 85 feet above sea level. The current height has already been raised twice: from 37 feet to 60 feet in 1998, and to 85 feet in 2005.
Siting a landfill has been no easy task for the administration. With roughly 10 years until Kekaha Landfill reaches capacity, councilmembers have been pushing for more recycling islandwide to allow more time for a new landfill siting, permitting and construction.
New landfill
Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. announced last year the siting of the new landfill in Ma‘alo, near Wailua Falls. But the administration has been keeping quiet about Ma‘alo.
A consultant is currently conducting an Environmental Impact Statement, which will include a feasibility study for the landfill siting and an 80-acre Resource Recovery Park. The EIS will look at eight different sites chosen In 2001 by consultant Earth Tech; Kekaha-mauka, Pu‘u o Papai, Umi, Koloa, Kipu, Kalepa, Ma‘alo and Kumukumu. Despite looking at all the sites, the EIS will likely focus on one of the sites.
The RRP would include a composting facility, a center for hard-to-recycle materials, a reuse center, an education center and a MRF.
Dill said a MRF would likely be operating by 2015, with the possibility of being ready by 2014.
But tying the MRF with “five different animals” could potentially delay it until 2021, when a new landfill would be in operation, according to Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura. Besides, the EIS is focusing on landfill criteria rather than RRP criteria, she said.
Councilman KipuKai Kuali‘i said it would be easier to identify smaller parcels of land rather than an 80-acre property to accommodate a RRP with all other facilities. Spreading out the facilities could give the administration more options as far as accessibility and willing landowners, he said.
MRF
Former Deputy County Engineer Arnold Leong, active when Yukimura was Kaua‘i’s mayor in the early 1990s, had some strong opposition to building a MRF, saying it is “unrealistic” and not economically viable. “We don’t have enough materials,” he said.
Yukimura said that even if the county breaks even financially by building a MRF, it would still be better than sending solid waste to the landfill.
Councilman Mel Rapozo said recycling will cost the county money, but not doing it will cost more.
Leong said building a new landfill is “not the way to go,” and also criticized a burn plan that would disperse hazardous ashes into the air. He suggested that council look into a plasma arc facility, which is being considered in a few location on the Mainland. A plasma arc facility burns solid waste at high temperature, converting it to gas that may be used as fuel.
Leong said he visited a state-of-the-art MRF in San Francisco, Calif., that closed down years ago.
A lot of materials that are being recycled in the country come from abroad, he said. Some of these materials can only be recycled two-to-three times before being becoming completely unusable.
In the case of the San Francisco MRF, containers were being shipped out and then returned because the recyclable products were deemed unusable. The city ended up paying for round-trip shipping and burning or burying much of the waste it had recycled, Leong said.
Education
Leong said when he used to work for the county, federal officials threatened him with a six-month jail term becasue of 14 years of landfill violations. Leong got away with doing time, but the county spent $30,000 in recycling educational programs that ran for an entire year.
On Tuesday, after the council meeting, the administration announced through a press release a Road to Recycling 2012 tour bus series as a effort to raise awareness about recycling.
On Wednesday, the county sent another press release asking the public for help supporting proper use of the Kaua‘i Recycles bins. There have been recent reports of the bins being used by commercial institutions, which should be using hauling services or taking their recycling to Kaua‘i Resource Center in Ahukini or to Garden Isle Disposal in Nawiliwili.
