Mayor Kirk Caldwell said Tuesday he does not believe another landfill on the island will be needed because technology is advancing at a rate that the city will soon be able to get rid of the most objectionable, if not all, solid wastes without putting them into the Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill at Kahe Point.
That would mean the city would keep open the landfill, a sore point between various mayors and Leeward Coast residents, who have demanded for more than a decade that it be closed.
But Caldwell, in an interview with the Star-Advertiser, insisted that the extended life of the city’s only municipal landfill would be temporary.
"I want to eliminate the need for an everyday landfill. That’s still my goal," Caldwell said. "I think we are on the way to doing that."
The completion last October of a third boiler at the HPOWER plant in Kalaeloa paves the way for as much as 90 percent of the city’s solid waste to be converted to energy, with a good part of the rest being recycled, he said.
Installing a $10 million sludge intake facility at HPOWER would allow the waste-to-energy facility to accept sewage sludge, diverting what residents consider the smelliest and most objectionable waste away from the landfill, Caldwell said.
Funds have been approved for the intake facility, but it still needs a permit from the state Health Department before it can be constructed, the mayor said.
At that point the landfill would only be kept around in the event of natural disasters or other emergencies.
"This is a slow march to reducing and, I’m hoping, eliminate anything more going into the landfill," Caldwell said.
The intake facility "would eliminate the need to locate a landfill anywhere else on this island and basically shutting that landfill down to all but things … that would be placed there after a hurricane or a tsunami, which hopefully will never happen."
Last April a blue-ribbon committee completed an 18-month study, releasing a list of 11 potential alternatives to the Waimanalo Gulch landfill site, a controversial list that included military reservation land in Kahuku and an operating rock quarry site in Kailua.
At a City Council Budget Committee meeting earlier Tuesday, city Environmental Services Director Lori Kahikina was asked about a $500,000 budget appropriation for the technical analysis needed to complete the site selection study for an "Oahu secondary landfill."
Kahikina said while the blue-ribbon committee specifically did not include the existing landfill area on its list, she wants the technical analysis to include it.
The committee recommendations included some unrealistic sites such as the military properties, she said. "There’s no way we’re going to get those properties," she said.
Including the existing landfill in the study would at least make it "an option," she said.
The Ko Olina Community Association has been trying to shut down the landfill through the state Land Use Commission and city Planning Commission, a move being fought by city attorneys.
Waste Management Inc. has the contract to operate the landfill through Dec. 31, 2024.
In 2009 the LUC approved a permit allowing the landfill to be fully functional through July 31, 2012, at which time it was to accept only ash and residue from HPOWER.
The city appealed, leading to the Hawaii Supreme Court to send the matter back to the LUC, which then sent it back to the city Planning Commission. A hearing in December was continued until April.
