The Honolulu Planning Commission is expected to take public testimony today on the city’s request for a two-year extension to find
a replacement site for
the nearly 40-year-old Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill in Kapolei, which is slated to close by 2028.
On June 28, the board voted to continue public comment on the city Department of Environmental Services’ formal request — first submitted in December — to amend a previous state-issued special-use permit granted in 2019. The request would extend the prior deadline of Dec. 31, 2022,
to Dec. 31, 2024, in order to identify an alternate landfill site.
The commission expects further testimony today over the city’s requested time extension, during a scheduled contested case hearing. At the hearing, the board will take several pleadings filed with the city’s Department of Planning and Permitting over the landfill matter, which allows only those who’ve filed to participate — namely, as interested parties or “interveners,” according to city staff.
The filings to DPP and the Planning Commission were required by a June 13 deadline following a 14-day filing period.
The filings include one jointly from Ko Olina Community Association Inc.
and state Sen. Maile Shimabukuro — whose Senate District 22 covers Ko Olina to Kaena — on motions to
recognize them as existing parties and a petition to intervene. Similarly, Schnitzer Steel Hawaii Corp., located nearby, submitted a motion for more time as well as a petition to intervene.
Meanwhile, the city’s effort to find an alternative landfill site has been mired in official rejection as well as mandates of a recently enacted state law.
Six prior sites for a new landfill were rejected last October following a presentation by Board of Water Supply Manager Ernie Lau and Deputy Manager Erwin Kawata, who urged Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s Landfill Advisory Committee, formed in 2021, 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 that zone.
Similarly, any new landfill site must conform to Act 73, a state law since 2020, and its restrictions on waste disposal facilities, particularly near conservation lands or near “buffer zones” in the
vicinity of residential areas, schools or hospitals.
The city also is investigating the use of federal lands.
Roger Babcock, the city’s Environmental Services director, previously told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the city initially did not consider using federally owned lands “because of ongoing military activities and/or structures that would present significant challenges when siting a landfill, and due to the fact that acquiring or receiving permission to use federal land for landfilling purposes would take a very long time and would ultimately impact our ability to meet deadlines in our special-use permit.”
Still, Babcock said his department is now focusing its search on federally owned lands that may include
military properties.
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 says.
Additionally, the city says once the Waianae Coast 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.”
The meeting will be held at 1:30 p.m. at Mission
Memorial Auditorium, Mission Memorial Building,
550 S. King St.
