Rapozo: County facing ‘crisis’

LIHU‘E — Kaua‘i County Councilman Mel Rapozo said this week the county faces a “crisis” because the Kekaka Landfill will be full by the end of the month.

During a council meeting at the historic County Building, Rapozo blamed Mayor Bryan J. Baptiste’s administration for not moving quicker in securing a permit from the state Department of Health.

The permit would allow for the vertical expansion of the facility and continued use of it for another five years.

“This is not a laughing matter,” said Rapozo, who was joined by council Chair Kaipo Asing, Vice Chair James Tokioka and Councilman Jay Furfaro in voicing their concerns about the need to find a solution soon.

Should the landfill reach capacity and the state permit is not granted, workers with Waste Management Inc., which operates the facility under a county contract, will stop taking garbage. Garbage could pile up throughout island communities, creating a severe health hazard, said Rapozo.

Rapozo said he also was upset about the situation because county officials have given assurances for a number of years that securing the permit was not a problem, and yet at this late date, no permit has been granted.

But Troy Tanigawa, the county’s solid waste program administrative officer, said county officials began working on obtaining the permit as far back as April 2003, and that he expects the permit to be in hand before long.

“We (Mayor Bryan Baptiste’s administration) feel the urgency. We don’t take it lightly,” and that the situation will be worked out as soon as officials with the county consultant, Earth Tech, based in Honolulu, send other data to DOH officials.

That information is likely to be sent by the middle of this month, thus triggering the awarding of the DOH permit, Tanigawa said.

In the meantime, county officials have a contingency plan — that of using the remaining three feet at the top of the landfill. The space, which would be used to facilitate the closing of the landfill one day, can accommodate up to 240 tons of garbage daily for an estimated 200 days, Tanigawa said.

Rapozo said the announcement last week by a representative for Waste Management that the facility’s garbage capacity was at an end caused him concern.

Rapozo said he called DOH official Gary Siu on O‘ahu Thursday morning, and was astounded to hear the government official report the county had submitted the permit application to DOH on Sept. 30.

“What Mr. Siu told me this morning (Thursday) is quite scary,” Rapozo said. “The handling of this process is not acceptable.”

Tanigawa said he personally hand-delivered the permit application, which was worked on by the consultant and signed by county leaders, to DOH officials in Honolulu on July 24.

Tanigawa said he is on top of the permit-application process, and has been in touch with DOH officials nearly every day.

Whether the county submitted the permit application on July 24 or Sept. 30 is irrelevant, Rapozo said.

What bothers him, he said, is that county officials have given assurances for a number of years that they would get the permit long before the landfill fills up.

“Even if it is July, I am frustrated,” Rapozo said.

Council members said they would officially ask Siu to attend an upcoming council meeting to explain when the application was sent to DOH, and to discuss other matters.

Furfaro said he wanted in writing from Siu all the conditions the county must comply with to secure the permit.

The delay in granting the permit may be due to a broader interpretation by DOH officials of information sent to the agency thus far, Tanigawa said.

Rapozo said Siu told him that the permit application had technical deficiencies and didn’t contain sufficient data.

Through a study, which would provide the basis for the permit application, the contractor evaluated numerous conditions at the landfill, including the foundation, the amount of trash, and “side slopes” of the landfill,” Tanigawa said.

He said DOH leaders want more data before any landfill permit expansion is granted.

“They (DOH officials) want technical information, engineering-related information,” Tanigawa said following the council meeting.

He said he hopes to get that information to DOH officials by the middle of the month, so that the permit can be processed as quickly as possible.

The county has very few options with regard to disposal of the debris between now and when the landfill fills up, Rapozo said.

Using barges to ship the garbage to O‘ahu would mean the county would need to obtain a trash transfer permit from the DOH, and getting that permit is also a lengthy process, Rapozo said. In addition, the barges would need to be sanitized, he said.

Asing said shipping garbage off Kaua‘i doesn’t seem viable to him, because the space on barges bound for Honolulu is limited.

Asing and others said they want to resolve the matter as soon as possible, and offered to appropriate funding to hire temporary personnel to help Tanigawa with processing the permit.

Asing said he didn’t want to blame the administration for the problem, noting the council, the legislative branch, and the administration, the executive branch, have different functions.

But Councilman Joe Munechika said he believed the matter of resolving the crisis falls squarely on the shoulders of the Baptiste administration.

Lester Chang, staff writer, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or lchang@pulitzer.net.