The Honolulu Planning Commission gave its approval Wednesday for the city to continue using Oahu’s only landfill until it’s filled to capacity, regardless of when that might be.
A final decision still must be affirmed by the state Land Use Commission, which had asked the city panel in 2012 to make a recommendation.
The 5-0 decision could lead to the end of a decades-
long dispute between the city and residents in the West Oahu community who have long argued that the Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill poses a danger and health threat. West Oahu residents and businesses said they were promised the city would shut the landfill and put its replacement elsewhere.
Attorneys for U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D, Hawaii), the Ko Olina Community Association and state Sen. Maile Shimabukuro (D, Kalaeloa-Waianae-Makaha) raised objections to the vote.
Richard N. Wurdeman, who represents Hanabusa, a former Waianae Coast state senator, said he will ask the LUC to reject the commission’s decision.
The commission’s decision essentially removes from the city’s existing special-use permit a section that says no municipal solid waste — only ash and residue from the waste-to-energy HPOWER plant —
would be accepted after July 31, 2012.
The Hawaii Supreme Court ruled in May 2012, however, that the state acted improperly by imposing a deadline for the landfill’s closure despite the continuing need for the facility to operate beyond that date. The court kicked the matter back to the LUC, which remanded it back to the Planning Commission for its recommendation.
The commission on Wednesday inserted several new conditions to the special-use permit that had been proposed by the Ko Olina Community Association, including language requiring that the city select an alternate site for the landfill’s replacement site by Dec. 31, 2022. The commission gave no timetable for opening the new landfill. Another new condition requires the city to file semiannual reports updating the city and state commissions instead of annually, as it needs to do now.
Calvert Chipchase, attorney for the community association and Shimabukuro, asked why the commission did not give the parties involved in the contested case a chance to present their positions orally, and why there was no public discussion on the changes made.
Wurdeman, meanwhile, raised an objection to commission Chairman Dean Hazama participating in the vote, arguing that he had “already formed an opinion in this case” in support of keeping the landfill open, according to statements he made in an August Honolulu Star-Advertiser article.
Hazama said the commission members were given the written briefs filed by the parties, negating the need for further discussion. As for Wurdeman’s criticism, Hazama said his comments were taken out of context and that Wurdeman was overestimating his influence over other commission members.
Commission member Cord Anderson, who asked for the additional conditions, said he felt uncomfortable assigning a specific date for the landfill’s closure because he believes that date should be tied to the facility’s capacity. He said he felt more comfortable putting a deadline on coming up with an alternative site. Hazama said he concurred with Anderson, citing “the lack of another landfill or any other option.”
“We really have no other choice, in my opinion,”
Hazama said. “We have to have an operating landfill. … The reality of the matter is we need a landfill. We just can’t put it in someone’s back yard, we can’t dump it in the ocean. We have to comply with whatever (Environmental Protection Agency) standards and Department of Health standards require.”
But Hazama also said the city has an obligation to identify another landfill as it had been directed to do previously by the land-use panels. But from what he’s seen in the annual reports and other written materials, he said, “I’m not so sure … we’re up to a point where we need to be as far as finding that.”
Anderson said it was “disheartening” to find little evidence that the city has made much progress on an alternative site since 2012, when a committee identified 11 sites.
City Environmental Services Director Lori Kahikina told the Star-Advertiser that there currently is enough capacity at the landfill to keep it open at least 20 years without any additional cells, but added, “I don’t think we can expand it again.”
The city has diverted about 80 percent of the island’s waste away from the landfill, and things that cannot be reused, recycled or burned — primarily ash and ash residue — are being placed in the landfill, she said.
Kahikina objected to the suggestion that the city has not made progress on an alternative site, but she declined to provide details.
According to the Environmental Services website, the Landfill Site Advisory Committee in September 2012 came up with 11 possible new sites after examining more than 400 locations.
“The next steps are for the city administration to further evaluate the sites, submit recommendations to the City Council for review and approval, and develop environmental impact statement(s) specific to the selected site(s),” the website said. “The public would be able to provide input during the City Council hearings and (in the) EIS.”
