The city’s request for a two-year extension to locate a replacement site for the 34-year-old Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill in Kapolei drew opponents as well as supporters to a hearing over those future plans.

Following its June 28 meeting, the Honolulu Planning Commission continued public comment Wednesday on a formal request from the city Department of Environmental Services — first submitted in December — to amend a previous state- issued special-use permit granted in 2019. The request would extend the prior deadline of Dec. 31, 2022, to Dec. 31, 2024, in order to identify an alternate landfill site.

The existing 200-acre landfill is scheduled to close by 2028.

At Wednesday’s hearing, the board heard pleadings over the landfill extension from interested parties — or interveners — that included attorneys representing residential neighbors, an adjacent business as well as the city.

Jeffrey Hu, a city deputy corporation counsel, said Environmental Services’ request for an extension was necessary to conform with state law, including Act 73.

Enacted in 2020, that state law placed restrictions on locating waste disposal facilities, particularly close to conservation lands or near half-mile “buffer zones,” in the vicinity of residential areas, schools or hospitals as well as near airports or tsunami zones.

“Act 73 added additional restrictions and further limited potential areas for new sites,” Hu said.

In addition, Hu noted six prior sites for a new landfill were rejected last October following a presentation by Board of Water Supply Manager Ernie Lau and Deputy Manager Erwin Kawata, who urged Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s Landfill Advisory Committee not to place any landfill in the “no pass zone,” an area that covers the interior of the island where Oahu’s potable water aquifer is located.

The prior sites — all proposed for Central Oahu and the North Shore — were in that zone.

Now, Hu said the city is taking “a hard look at amending Act 73 and eminent domain options” as well as investigating the use of federal or military-owned lands for a new landfill site on Oahu.

Schnitzer Steel Hawaii Corp., a metal recycling firm at 91-056 Hanua St. in Kapolei, also testified in support of the city’s two-year extension and a new landfill.

“Schnitzer operates Hawaii’s largest metal recycling facility and is the largest commercial user of the Waimanalo Gulch Landfill,” said Joyce Tam-Sugiyama, Schnitzer’s lawyer. “The evidence will show that Schnitzer’s operations provide a vital service to the state.”

She added that the company recycles roughly 120,000 tons of “end-of-life vehicles, old appliances and other metal scrap per year.” In addition, she said in processing the metal scrap that “roughly 20,000 tons of that is produced as … automobile shredder residue, and it’s a nonrecyclable waste.”

“And it’s waste that cannot be sold or recycled and it needs to go to a landfill,” Tam-Sugiyama said, adding that the state Department of Health requires such waste be disposed in a landfill. “And the only landfill in Hawaii that currently accepts ASR is Waimanalo Gulch, that is until there is another municipal landfill that is open to accept it.”

She said that keeping a landfill on Oahu — instead of shipping that solid waste out of state — will keep costs down for local companies like Schnitzer Steel and will prevent other things such as illegal dumping around the island.

Meanwhile, Ko Olina Community Association Inc. and state Sen. Maile Shimabu­kuro — whose Senate District 22 covers Ko Olina to Kaena — opposed the city’s extension request.

The association provided numerous written comments that included the ongoing delays to identify a new site; the history of violations at Waimanalo Gulch, including a 2012 accidental release of municipal solid waste; and quality-of-life impacts on nearby residents including odor, litter, traffic and noise.

The group also suggested that the Planning Commission require Environmental Services to report quarterly in person to the panel on its efforts to select a new landfill.

Moreover, Calvert Chipchase, a lawyer representing the Ko Olina association, told the panel the existing landfill itself sat on lands originally zoned for agricultural uses.

“Waimanalo Gulch Landfill has sat on agricultural land, but it’s not in agricultural use, obviously,” he said.

However, he noted since 1989 the city has been granted an exception to operate the landfill on agricultural land for nonagricultural use.

Using land that is zoned agricultural for other uses, “comes with conditions … and those conditions are, in large part, intended to protect surrounding communities from the impact of nonagricultural use on agricultural land,” Chipchase said.

He said the prior state- issued special-use permit granted in 2019 was “one such condition” that required the city to “identify a new landfill site by Dec. 31, 2022.”

Chipchase said in fairness to West Oahu communities such as Ko Olina, it was both time to find a new landfill site and close down the old one.

Although the commission took this initial testimony Wednesday, a more in-depth presentation of evidence — that much like a legal trial will include witness testimony and legal exhibits — did not occur, as the meeting was timed to end at 5 p.m. Those future presentations on this matter are tentatively scheduled to occur by October and November, city staff noted.

Waimanalo Gulch Landfill takes in approximately 250,000 tons of waste per year, with roughly 72% being ash and residue from the HPOWER plant, where waste that is not recycled is burned to generate electricity, the city said.

Additionally, the city said once the Waianae Coast dump is closed for good, it “must conduct post-closure care and monitoring of groundwater, stormwater, leachate and landfill gas for at least 30 years.”