Race is on for new landfill

Company and county interested in Kipu site

According to a site-selection study, Kaua’i County is approximately five years away from a new landfill.

And according to the county’s own estimates, the life expectancy of Kaua’i’s only landfill, at Kekaha, is four to six years.

We’ll do the math: If the Kekaha dump only lasts four more years, the island may have to survive for one year without a landfill.

So the race is on to select a site, buy or lease it, perform an environmental impact statement and get a new landfill going, all before the Kekaha site fills up.

A consultant’s recommended schedule for a new landfill, though, assumes that movements to acquire land and begin an environmental impact statement (EIS) were to have begun by February of this year. They didn’t.

Consultant Earth Tech Inc., of Honolulu, looked at seven sites from Kekaha to Kealia and ranked them based on several factors (environmental, convenience, proximity to highways, proximity to water sources, cost to develop, etc.), as outlined in the Kaua’i Municipal Solid Waste Landfill Siting Study.

A site across Kaumuali’i Highway from the existing landfill had the highest score (420). But the landowner, the state of Hawai’i, doesn’t want to sell or lease to the county the prime agricultural acreage.

The site with the second-best score (396) was in Kipu, just outside Puhi along Kaumuali’i Highway near the Kipu Road intersection. Grove Farm is willing to sell or lease the land to the county, the underlying aquifer is used for drinking water.

Other concerns with the Kipu site. as identified by the consultants, include traffic congestion, the need to realign Kipu Road if this site is chosen, and surface water runoff into Hule’ia Stream. High rainfall (nearly 70 inches a year) increases potential leachate quantities, the report states.

Still, the county and a private developer are interested in the Kipu site. The Legislature this year approved the issuance of up to $5 million in special-purpose revenue bonds (the state spends no money on them or incurs any debt) for Central Kaua’i Sanitary Landfill to develop a Kipu dump.

The company proposes to use 250 acres to construct a landfill to last 75 years, according to the legislation awaiting Governor Ben Cayetano’s signature.

In order to guarantee a 30-year lifespan, any new landfill site chosen must be at least 133 acres, Earth Tech calculates.

All of the island’s interior, shoreline areas and flood-prone places were eliminated from consideration as landfill sites by exclusionary factors. They include proximity to urban areas, state conservation district, airports, streams, shoreline, tsunami inundation areas, flood zones and areas with slopes greater than 33 degrees.

Of the seven sites, only those on Grove Farm land (Koloa and Kipu) are available to the county for lease or purchase, the study indicates. The site at Kekaha, Gay & Robinson land near ‘Ele’ele, Alexander & Baldwin-owned land near Numila, land owned by Amfac along Ma’alo Road in Kapaia, and private property above Kealia, all identified as potential landfill sites, are not for sale or lease, according to the study.

The study estimates a new landfill would cost $7.5 million to build at Kekaha and $10.3 million at Kipu, with annual operating costs over $2.6 million at either facility. It estimates the combined planning studies, permitting and EIS process to cost just under $1.3 million.

The entire process of getting a new landfill ready to accept trash, the study estimates, takes six and a half years for a facility designed to last 30 years.

The county “must develop a new municipal solid-waste landfill to handle wastes beyond the four to six-year capacity at the existing Kekaha Municipal Sanitary Landfill Phase II,” the study concludes.

In 1999, Kauaians generated 67,590 tons of solid waste that ended up in the landfill. By 2020, estimates are that the island will crank out 110,000 tons of garbage a year.

Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).