Facing a year-end deadline to choose a site for a new solid-waste dump to replace the decades-old Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill in Kapolei, Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi announced Friday that his administration had submitted a formal request to the Honolulu Planning Commission for a two-year extension.

“The significance of this decision and what it means to the people of Oahu, especially the residents of the Leeward Coast, is not lost on anyone, and we remain committed to exhaustively exploring all options in fulfilling the Planning Commission’s directive to find a different landfill site,” Blangiardi said in a statement. “Our request for a two-year extension is in the best interest of all Oahu communities, because this administration will not, under the difficult circumstances, simply default to an extension of the Waimanalo Gulch landfill.”

At a late Friday afternoon news conference inside Honolulu Hale, Roger Babcock, director of the Department of Environmental Services, said the requested extension past the Dec. 31 deadline would allow the city more time to narrow its sights on a single property that would pose no risks to groundwater resources or to the environment or the community at large.

The Waimanalo Gulch landfill is slated to close in 2028. Babcock said a new site might include a large enough parcel currently owned by the military, though he stressed the difficulty in obtaining federally owned land.

“These are all military lands, and the military is reluctant to give up lands,” Babcock said, adding that the city continues to look for a suitable site for a landfill, though he would not disclose possible locations. “We want to give more time for a review.”

Blangiardi remained adamant on his desire to see Waimanalo Gulch closed for good. “There’s a lot of emotion on the subject,” he said. “The city needs to look at other alternatives.”

Yet the city’s effort to find that long-sought alternative landfill site has been mired in both official rejection as well as the mandates of a recently enacted state law.

The city’s Landfill Advisory Committee, formed to evaluate six proposed and publicly undisclosed landfill sites, did not recommend any of the six sites to replace the Waimanalo Gulch facility. The committee in October rejected all of the sites following a presentation by Board of Water Supply Manager Ernie Lau and Deputy Manager Erwin Kawata, who urged the committee not to place any landfill in the “No Pass Zone,” an area that covers the interior of the island where Oahu’s potable water aquifer is located.

The prior sites — all proposed for Central Oahu and the North Shore — were in the No Pass Zone.

Likewise, the city says any new landfill site must conform to Act 73 and its restrictions on waste disposal facilities, particularly near conservation lands or near “buffer zones” in the vicinity of residential areas, schools or hospitals.

A state law since 2020, Act 73 states that “no waste or disposal facility shall be located in a conservation district except in emergency circumstances where it may be necessary to mitigate significant risks to public safety and health.”

The act also states that “no person, including the state or any county, shall construct, modify or expand a waste or disposal facility including a municipal solid waste landfill unit, a construction or demolition landfill unit without first establishing a buffer zone of no less than one-half mile around the waste or disposal facility.”

The city says that due to the state-imposed restrictions of Act 73, all prior landfill sites had been “thoroughly re-evaluated,” essentially stalling the search. On Friday, Babcock stressed the city would also seek to “ease state regulations limiting landfill sites on Oahu.”

As far as environmental safety concerns, particularly in the wake of reported fuel leaks at the Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage facility, Babcock previously said that technology used in the construction of landfills exists to safeguard such things as the island’s drinking water supply.

To that end, the Environmental Protection Agency requires a Class D solid-waste landfill such as Waimanalo Gulch to have a protective liner that includes a clay-based liner and a thick plastic liner in addition to a collection system that allows for the safe removal of leached chemicals and similar materials known as leachate.

Babcock had stated the city’s plan was to double the liner systems to provide the same level of protection required of a Class C hazardous-waste landfill.

According to the city, the Waimanalo Gulch Landfill, which opened in 1987, takes in approximately 250,000 tons of waste per year, with roughly 72% being ash and residue from the HPOWER plant, where waste that is not recycled is burned to generate electricity.

The city has said that once the Kapolei dump is closed for good, it “must conduct post-closure care and monitoring of groundwater, stormwater, leachate and landfill gas for at least 30 years.”

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Staff writer Timothy Hurley contributed to this story.