The city will move forward with its plan to continue using the Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill into the near future with the hope that it won’t need a new location down the line, Mayor Kirk Caldwell announced Monday.

A condition of a permit that allowed the city to operate the West Oahu landfill when it first opened in 1989 called for the city to look at potential future sites in other parts of the island.

The 72-page “Assessment of Municipal Solid Waste Handling Requirements for the Island of Oahu,” released Monday, shows the same 11 sites initially identified in 2012 by a community advisory panel but rejiggers their rankings based on scoring that focused on a technical and logistical analysis, the report’s executive summary states.

But Caldwell insisted his administration won’t need to look further at the alternative locations and will instead focus on finding more ways to further reduce the waste going into the existing site with the ultimate goal of not needing a landfill for everyday use “and to just have it there for emergency purposes,” he said.

The decision to put off a decision is based largely on the notion that, based on current recycling and other diversion tactics, coupled with projected population through 2040, there is enough capacity at the current landfill to accept waste through 2038. Conservatively, the city won’t need to start looking for an alternative site to develop until 2028, the report says.

“It does not make sense to site a landfill now because things can change in 20 years from now,” Environmental Services Director Lori Kahikina said. “Technology can change, so we might not need as big a landfill.”

The city currently generates about 1.2 million tons of trash annually, but only about 71,000 tons ends up at the landfill due to recycling and waste burned at HPOWER, Kahikina said.

“There is no way as mayor that I would allow another landfill to be located on the west side,” Caldwell said. “They carry enough burden as it is with Waimanalo Gulch. They have the HPOWER facility out there. They have a lot of things out on the west side … and to add an additional burden by locating a landfill out in that area is off the table, for me.”

But the mayor said he also doesn’t think it makes sense to truck the city’s trash to Kailua, Waimanalo or the North Shore.

The Department of Environmental Services intends to solicit proposals for three contracts that would deal with white goods, ash residue and glass, the three components of the solid-waste stream left after the HPOWER waste-to-energy plant burns much of the solid waste.

Kahikina reiterated Caldwell’s comment that the city will always need a landfill as a backup.

“Our permit mandates that we have to have a backup system,” she said. “HPOWER has three boilers, and every year the boilers need to go down for a minimum of three weeks’ maintenance.”

Josh Stanbro, the city’s chief resilience officer, said the analysis shows the city will be able to move away from the need for a daily landfill in the future “and move toward other alternatives.”

The city has been seeking extension and expansion of the landfill for a number of years, over the strong objections of the Ko Olina Resort, state Sen. Maile Shimabukuro (D, Kalaeloa-Waianae-Makaha), U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (Shimabukuro’s predecessor) and other community leaders.

After being entangled in bureaucracy and lawsuits with stops at the state Land Use Commission and the courts for more than a decade, the city’s request is now again before the Honolulu Planning Commission. It’s unclear when the commission will take up the matter.

Area Councilwoman Kymberly Pine said the city needs to “stay focused on keeping its promise to the people of the Waianae Coast and close the dump forever.”

Pine said, however, that like Caldwell, she does not support opening a new landfill anywhere. “We must push ourselves to be a leader in the world for recycling our trash, minimizing our trash and turning our trash into clean energy.”