Officials hash out Kekaha landfill ideas

Amidst calls by Kekaha residents for the county to integrate a solid waste management plan and to find a new landfill, county officials said their priority is to expand the Kekaha Landfill before it reaches its capacity by 2009.

Without approval of the plan by the state Department of Health, the county will have no choice but to shut down the landfill, opening the way for a public health hazard and imposition of stiff fines, Mayor Bryan Baptiste and other county officials said.

Baptiste, County Engineer Donald Fujimoto and Solid Waste Program Administrator Troy Tanigawa voiced those concerns during a Thursday meeting at the Waimea Neighborhood Center on a draft environmental assessment on the proposed expansion.

Kaua‘i County Councilman Mel Rapozo said he was worried the public’s concerns might not be included in the final environmental study.

He urged the 50 or so audience members at the meeting hosted by the county and Earth Tech, a Honolulu consultant, to submit written comments or e-mails to the consultant before a 30-day public comment period ends Aug. 24.

Baptiste said he sympathizes with those concerns, but said the county doesn’t have the luxury of time, not with a January 2009 deadline looming for the opening of the expanded landfill.

Between then a now, environmental tests have to be done, and county and state government permits need to be secured for the facility to open, he said. “We don’t have the time,” the mayor said.

The proposed expansion would extend the life of the landfill by 12 years, until 2021, giving the county time to identify a landfill site, get all the government approvals and build it.

During that time, county officials hope to have in place as well an alternate waste disposal project — possibly a waste-to-energy project or a combination of that technology and another and stepped-up recycling — to dispose of the county’s solid waste.

Councilman Jay Furfaro, who also attended the meeting, said the county may be putting undue pressure on itself in trying to beat the deadline.

“What if they are off on their calculations (to beat the deadline by Dec. 11, 2008 to ensure the expanded facility opens in January 2009),” he said. “It is a tight window.”

The amount of solid waste to the landfill can be reduced now by stepping up recycling and reuse programs funded by the council, Furfaro said.

With more waste diverted, the life span of the landfill could extended beyond 2009, Furfaro said.

When Furfaro asked the consultant and Fujimoto what emergency plan could the county employ should the landfill not be expanded by the deadline, Fujimoto told them none.

“We don’t have a contingency and may face huge fines, or have to ship the stuff (off Kaua‘i). The contingency is to make this deadline,” he said.

The proposal would add 33 acres to an exiting 32-acre phase II landfill site.

The county proposes to expand the second phase to include three trash storage cells, with one cell to expand the fill area of the second phase into an existing leachate lagoon and on adjoining acres.

A second phase calls for filling in an area between a landfill that has already been closed and the existing landfill.

The third cell would expand the fill area of the second phase over the closed landfill.

The maximum height of these areas would be no greater than 85 feet, according to the draft environmental assessment report.

The project would be developed at a cost of about $30 million.

Kekaha resident Patrick Mclean said the county won’t be motivated to locate the new landfill in some other part of the island or to investigate alternate waste disposal technologies if the proposed expansion allows the existing landfill to be used until 2021.

“They want to have it working for 12 years. Why not seven years?” Mclean asked.

Fujimoto said the county wants another five years of use out of the enlarged landfill to accommodate debris from any natural disaster in the future.

If the project is to move ahead, the conclusions supporting the expansion plan will have to be verified, said Kaua‘i County Councilwoman Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho.

Based on the size of the project and the work involved, she challenged a conclusion that the project might not produce any significant adverse impacts on biological, cultural and water resources.

While the study concludes the project might not have significant adverse impacts on employment in Kekaha or affect its demographics, she said the project could motivate people to move because they may not want to live by an enlarged landfill.

She also contested a finding that the proposed project could bring long-term public health and safety benefits to Kekaha.

“I don’t know what kinds of data they used in order to arrive at these conditions,” she told the audience. “But I think you should know what these conclusions were.”

Fujimoto said the data are based on the premise that the expansion is occurring with in the boundaries of the old landfill and the existing landfill. “We are not changing the use,” he said. “We are increasing the footprint by a couple of acres for cell one (a storage area for trash). But other than that, we are not really changing the use or the activity at the landfill.”

Rapozo said, however, the height of the landfill could prove a danger to planes at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Mana, and wondered whether the report alluded to that.

“The last time I heard, it was five feet way from the flight path” he said. Fujimoto said he would check into it.

Even though the plan was the focus of the meeting, audience members seemed in the county’s progress in finding a new landfill site and the status of the integrated solid waste management plan developed by R.W. Beck, a county consultant. The plan has yet to be officially adopted by the county.

Kekaha residents said — and Baptiste and county officials agreed — that they have had to deal with smell, pollution and noise from the Kekaha landfill since it opened 1953, and that it was time for the landfill to be put elsewhere.

Kekaha resident Glenn Molander said assurances were made years ago that the landfill would be closed one day and turned into a park or golf course.

“They really glossed it over as being a real positive thing,” he said. “And, of course, here we are now.”

Westside residents also have complained repeatedly about some county trucks speeding through their communities and garbage flying out of the vehicles and littering the roads.

Baptiste and Fujimoto said they would contact the state Department of Transportation and the county’s Public Works Department to correct the problems.

Even so, Molander said he felt Kekaha residents are not any better off now than they were years ago.

Fujimoto said Molander is mistaken if he thinks government isn’t listening.

“One thing has changed,” he said. “People have heard you, whether you realize it or not.”

Fujimoto and Baptiste said Mainland communities have been compensated by government agencies for having landfills in their neighborhoods, and that Kekaha, or any other island community that has a landfill in it, could reap similar benefits.

Baptiste also said residents could receive a percentage of tipping fees that are collected at a landfill. That money, he said, could be used for public improvements like a swimming pool that could benefit a community.

Rapozo said because Kekaha has been the site of the landfill for so long, he wondered whether that benefit could be applied retroactively for the region.

Fujimoto said the council could get involved, as the amount of compensation could be set by the it.

Kekaha community leader Jose Bulatao Jr. added his voice for a way to compensate Kekaha for having been a host to the island’s only landfill for so long.

A presidential order signed by former President Bill Clinton in 1994 can compensate minority populations and low-income community residents who have shouldered “a disproportionate share of negative impacts:” from a project such as a landfill, Bulatao said.

Baptiste said Hanama‘ulu residents referenced the same presidential order when they protested against having a new landfill on the mauka side of Hanama‘ulu town six or seven years ago.

Baptiste said while studies have identified Kekaha as to best place for a landfill, partly due to good weather that helps facilitates garbage disposal, with Kipu coming in a close second, the studies don’t consider the impact of the facility on residents who live by it.