Briefing in August will cover sewage expansion, transport

The City Council plans an informational briefing next month to discuss expansion plans at the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant and the city’s announcement that it will haul raw sewage sludge from Honolulu to outlying areas to relieve overcapacity issues at the facility, Council Chairman Ernie Martin said.

"We will be scheduling an informational briefing on this particular item to really discuss exactly where the Department (of Environmental Services) is in terms of its expansion plans at the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant and why only now, at this point in time, that they’re stating that it’s so imminent that they need to transport the sludge to these other facilities," Martin said.

An informational briefing likely would be held the first week of August, when committees are scheduled to hold their regular monthly meetings, Martin’s office said Tuesday.

The Department of Environmental Services had planned by the end of this month to begin hauling sludge from Sand Island to treatment facilities in Kailua, Honouliuli and Waianae as a temporary fix while a second egg-shaped "digester" was being built at Sand Island to process the sludge. The new digester was expected to come online by late 2013.

Tim Steinberger, director of the Department of Environmental Services, testified last week the city had begun design and planning for the second digester and requested $26 million for it, but the money was taken out of the budget by Councilman Romy Cachola over concerns about the plant’s operator, Synagro Hawaii, and reported health concerns surrounding the fertilizer pellets being produced by the company’s "in-vessel bioconversion" process.

Martin, who was the Council’s budget chairman until late June, said the money was removed partly over Cachola’s concerns but also because the Council did not feel enough planning and preparation had commenced on the work for the second digester.

"They hadn’t done the type of advance planning that they should have done, and that’s why we’re in the situation we’re at now, where they’re going to have to truck the sludge." Martin said.

Steinberger has said the Council was informed that trucking the waste material to the three proposed sites was an immediate possibility, given the situation at Sand Island. In a May 31 letter to the Council, Mayor Peter Carlisle said he considered it "paramount" to protect the city from fines resulting from the Sand Island facility being unable to deal with its capacity issues and emphasized that without funding for a second digester, his alternatives were limited.

State lawmakers have been critical of the city’s move. Republican Rep. Cynthia Thielen says she thinks an environmental assessment is required before hauling can begin. In a letter to the city administration on Monday, Thielen (R, Kailua-Kaneohe) cited the 2009 state Supreme Court ruling on the Hawaii Superferry in stating that an assessment is needed to address the potential secondary impacts on the affected communities.

Thielen sent a separate letter to Martin on Monday asking that the Council reconsider its deletion of the $26 million for the digester from the budget.

"The Council’s action has put the Kailua students and neighboring community at health risk," she wrote.

Martin noted that the budget for the 2012 fiscal year, which began July 1, already has been passed and signed into law by the mayor, but added that the Council is willing to consider the money for the project when it crafts the 2013 fiscal year budget. Steinberger has stated the city plans to request the money next year.