LIHU‘E — It may be recycled trash talk, but Kaua‘i still needs a new landfill — and soon. With the Kekaha Landfill set to close permanently by December 2020 and without a fully functional recycling network or processing plant, the
LIHU‘E — It may be recycled trash talk, but Kaua‘i still needs a new landfill — and soon.
With the Kekaha Landfill set to close permanently by December 2020 and without a fully functional recycling network or processing plant, the county is still struggling to site a new landfill.
In the latest public discussions among county lawmakers and officials, the mayor’s pick last year — the third proposal in 10 years — was seemingly downplayed to more of a potential site than an official selection.
The administration gave Kaua‘i County Council members an update on the landfill siting situation Oct. 28, but the presentation by County Engineer Donald Fujimoto may have resulted in more questions than answers, prompting the council to schedule a special meeting in a few weeks dedicated to the siting and construction of a new landfill.
Fujimoto told council members that consultant AECOM — under a $1.85 million contract — has been given the go-ahead to proceed with an Environmental Impact Statement for the new landfill. But he did not specify whether the EIS would be conducted just for the Ma‘alo site or for all eight sites provided by a consultant in 2001. He also announced that the EIS for a new landfill would include a Resource Recovery Park.
Running an EIS concurrently with siting the landfill puzzled some council members.
“I feel like the basic understanding of planning is not there,” Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura said. “My understanding is you do a feasibility and siting before you do an EIS.”
The EIS should also include a consideration of alternatives and the reasons a site was picked, she said.
“You kind of mix feasibility into an EIS, and I think you have mixed purposes,” Yukimura said. “It’s going to complicate the whole planning process and actually make it more expensive.”
Council members also criticized combining the landfill and the recovery park in the EIS.
Fujimoto said community support for a resource recovery park was so strong that there were people offering to provide a site for the facility.
Yukimura, however, said it’s ironic that tying zero-waste principles to the landfill may delay building zero-waste infrastructure.
Where?
On Sept. 10, 2010, Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. officially announced the administration would no longer pursue Umi, a site in Kalaheo near Kaua‘i Coffee’s fields. In the next breath, he announced Ma‘alo as the administration’s newest pick. The site is approximately 2.5 miles north of Lihu‘e, above Kapaia and Hanama‘ulu.
Carvalho said the administration would be working with the Hanama‘ulu community and reaching out to stakeholders, including business and agriculture leaders.
Following the announcement, a community meeting was held Oct. 11, 2010 at King Kaumuali‘i School in Hanama‘ulu, where the majority of public testimony opposed to the project.
In 2001, consultant Earth Tech identified eight sites for a potential new landfill: Kekaha-mauka, Pu‘u o Papai, Umi, Koloa, Kipu, Kalepa, Ma‘alo and Kumukumu.
The administration proceeded with Kalepa, but community opposition and environmental justice issues — which include concerns over siting facilities like landfills and power plants near lower income communities — nixed the site.
In 2008 the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Landfill Site Selection selected Umi as the top ranked site.
But community resistance, an unwilling landowner and indications that the state Land Use Commission would not approve the site — LUC classified the land as Important Ag Land — prompted the administration to drop the site.
On the other end of the spectrum, Kalepa sat as the least desirable site, in 7th place (MACLS did not rank Kekaha-mauka). Ma‘alo was ranked right above Kalepa, in sixth place.
Geographically, Kalepa and Ma‘alo are right next to each other, buffered by an agricultural land corridor less than a mile wide. If environmental issues were a reason to drop Kalepa 10 years ago, they could potentially apply to Ma‘alo.
When Carvalho announced last year that Ma‘alo was his choice for a new landfill, Kalepa resurfaced as a sidekick 50-acre resource recovery park, painted by Carvalho as some sort of recycling Disneyland, including a visitor center.
“A materials-recovery facility, greenwaste processing, composting, and other diversion strategies can and will be pursued in connection with this siting process. As I envision it, this resource park is so innovative that it may even include a visitor and/or educational center,” he said in the Sept. 10, 2010, announcement.
Hele on to 2020
A siting study reportedly began in September and will proceed until February. The study will include a landfill criteria evaluation, a preliminary engineering evaluation, a community criteria evaluation and a siting study review and summary, according to Fujimoto’s presentation.
From February to August, an aerial survey and a geotechnical investigation of the selected proposed site is supposed to be conducted. This phase will encompass the conceptual design for a landfill and resource recovery park.
The final environmental assessment and an EIS public notice will be released in February. After a final EIS is completed, community outreach and informational meetings will be conducted. The EIS phase is supposed to end October 2013.
The administration’s action plan presented by Fujimoto places 2020 as when the new landfill would become operational.
The administration scheduled land entitlements from October 2013 to August 2015. Land acquisitions are supposed to begin December 2014 and end December 2015. An 18-month period for the landfill’s final design will then take place, from December 2015 to June 2016.
Between December 2016 and December 2017, the county will seek to secure Department of Health permits.
Immediately after that, a six-month construction bidding period will follow.
Once the procurement is over in June 2018, construction will commence and is scheduled to last until December 2019.
May 2020 is the set date when the DOH is supposed to give the new landfill its final approval.
Trashing recyclables
This fiscal year, the county slashed funding in the Capital Improvement Projects budget for a materials recovery facility.
The reason was because the facility would not be built in the next 12 to 18 months. Many other projects were also cut from the CIP budget following this reasoning.
The administration, however, also made clear those projects being dropped were not being abandoned forever.
Council members, reacting to the administration’s slashing of the recovery facility’s funding, cut the budget for automated curbside recycling, approximately $14,000 per month.
Curbside recycling started as a pilot program which was supposed to last one year. Private company Garden Isle Disposal was contracted for $2,000 per month to separate and recycle the materials, but after one year GID asked to amend the contract because company officials said there was less volume than previously expected — they make a profit by selling it overseas — and much of it came in contaminated.
The contract was amended and increased to about $14,000 per month, which was considered high by council members, who preferred to postpone curbside recycling until a MRF is built.
Councilman Mel Rapozo said he would rather see a multimillion-dollar islandwide recycling effort than spend the same amount extending the life of the Kekaha landfill now in use.
• Léo Azambuja, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or lazambuja@ thegardenisland.com.
