The Honolulu Planning Commission continues to wrestle with the city’s request for an extension to find an alternate site for the 34-year-old Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill in Kapolei which is scheduled to close in 2028.
Since August, the ongoing contested case hearing has focused on the request by the city Department of Environmental Services in December 2022 to amend a special-use permit that the state Land Use Commission granted to the city in 2019.
If the request is approved, the prior deadline of Dec. 31, 2022, to find an another landfill site would be extended to Dec. 31 — just over seven months away.
“This is the date when the applicant is required to identify an alternative landfill site,” Commission Vice Chair Ryan Kamo said at a Planning Commission meeting Wednesday.
But before a commission vote to adopt formal documents related to the city’s request, city Deputy Corporation Counsel Jeffrey Hu objected to one sentence within the panel’s formal “Findings of Facts” document — essentially, that other sites for a landfill, including federally owned lands, remained possibilities for a new landfill.
Hu reiterated that except for possible locations on federally owned lands, no other landfill sites were immediately available.
“My main concern is the accuracy of this Finding of Fact,” Hu said, noting the city wished to amend the document’s language to include prior city testimony that only “certain federal sites remain possibilities under these restrictions.”
In October 2023, city ENV Director Roger Babcock testified before the Planning Commission on the city’s need to find an alternate landfill.
Babcock’s testimony related to amending or rescinding an existing state law, Act. 73, that placed restrictions on locating waste disposal facilities, particularly those close to conservation lands or half-mile “buffer zones,” near residential areas, schools or hospitals, as well as near airports or tsunami-inundation zones.
During his testimony, Babcock said it might be too difficult to amend this state law, at least for the time being. Rather, the director said, a new landfill site might be acquired through eminent domain of private property or on land owned by the military or federal government.
Babcock later added that the city was currently only looking at federal lands for its future dump site.
At Wednesday’s meeting, lawyer Cal Chipchase, representing Ko Olina Community Association Inc., and state Sen. Maile Shimabukuro, noted Babcock did testify that the city “has the power of eminent domain.”
“And that is one of the matters that they considered, and opted not to pursue it further,” Chipchase said. “And so the availability of sites is not limited to federal sites, it’s limited to other sites that the city could condemn, if it so chose.”
Commissioner Kai Nani Kraut agreed, saying the city’s requested citation be included within the document, but that the sentence in question — namely, that “other sites” could be available — should remain unchanged.
Ultimately, the commission voted to adopt the amendment.
The city previously confirmed that the Planning Commission has crafted a draft decision in this case. However, the commission has until June 3 to issue its final written decision.
Meanwhile, the city’s search for an alternate landfill site has been made more difficult in recent weeks.
In April, the Navy announced it will not allow the city to locate a new landfill on Waipio Peninsula near Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
The Navy’s decision, via an April 12 letter signed by Adm. John C. Aquilino, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, was based on concerns regarding the site’s proximity to near-shore waters and “the Navy’s mission critical operations and training activities in the vicinity of the Waipio Peninsula,” the city stated in a news release.
Starting in 2023, the city says Mayor Rick Blangiardi and city Managing Director Michael Formby engaged in discussions with Aquilino and other U.S. military leaders to gain assistance in siting a new landfill on Oahu.
Four possible alternate sites — all on federally owned land in West Oahu and the Windward side — were under consideration, city officials say. Those sites included Lualualei in Waianae, Iroquois Point and Waipio Peninsula near Pearl Harbor, and a property near Bellows Air Force Station in Waimanalo.
The city says it’s also eliminated considering federal lands for landfill sites along the Waianae Coast. And for its part, the military has “excluded” Bellows-area lands, too, the city officials said.
At the commission meeting, Vice Chair Kamo questioned Deputy Corporation Counsel Hu over the loss of the Waipio Peninsula as a possible site for a city-owned dump.
“Does that change your outlook as to finding a new location by the Dec. 31, 2024 deadline,” Kamo asked.
Hu replied, “That’s definitely a huge setback. It changes my personal outlook. I haven’t had the chance to speak with ENV or the (city) administration, so I’m not sure what their plans are currently, but it is definitely a huge setback in my opinion.”
