Suit arises over equipment used to store island trash

The Seattle-based company being threatened with state and county penalties for storing solid waste at Campbell Industrial Park rather than shipping it to the mainland is facing seizure of the storage containers.

Williams Scotsman Inc. of Maryland filed a lawsuit in state court yesterday against Hawaiian Waste Systems LLC for return of the storage equipment.

The Maryland-based company said in the lawsuit that it leased trailers, containers and other storage structures to Hawaiian Waste Systems in November. It says Hawaiian Waste Systems has failed to pay the lease rent for the equipment, making the agreement null and void. It is entitled to take immediate possession of the equipment and containers.

Representatives from Hawaiian Waste systems could not be reached for comment.

Because it did not get federal approval to ship the waste to its intended destination in a landfill in south-central Washington until last month, the company has been storing the trash in shrink-wrapped bales at two facilities in the Campbell Industrial Park area. That prompted a citation for a $40,400 fine from the state Health Department for failing to begin shipping the trash and for storing it at un-approved sites.

Harassment lawsuit filed

The federal government has filed a sex discrimination lawsuit on behalf of a female firefighter employed at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai.

ITT Corp., a high-technology engineering and manufacturing company based in White Plains, N.Y., was named in the suit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court here by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The commission says the woman was sexually harassed and then retaliated against for complaining about the harassment.

It said male co-workers and supervisors repeatedly made overtly sexual remarks and watched sexually explicit television programs and videos at work in the woman’s presence.

ITT spokeswoman Jenny Schiavone declined to comment on the suit because it is a legal matter.

The firefighter, who has worked for ITT since 1998, was one of two female firefighters at the time she complained of harassment. People like her are trailblazers, said Anna Park, a regional attorney for the commission.