The Honolulu Planning Commission meets today to consider the city’s two-year extension to find an alternate site for the 34-year-old Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill in Kapolei.
Those plans involve 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, to identify a new landfill site.
The existing 200-acre landfill near Ko Olina is scheduled to close by 2028.
Today’s commission meeting continues a contested case hearing, which is similar to a court proceeding, that was first held Aug. 9.
Previously, the board heard pleadings over the requested landfill exten- sion from interested parties, or intervenors, including attorneys representing residential neighbors, an adjacent business and city representatives.
At the August meeting, Jeffrey Hu, a city deputy corporation counsel, said Environmental Services’ request for an extension was necessary to conform with state laws, including Act 73.
Enacted in 2020, Act 73 placed restrictions on locating waste disposal facilities, particularly close to conservation lands or near half-mile “buffer zones”; near residential areas, schools, hospitals or airports; and in tsunami zones.
“Act 73 added additional restrictions and further limited potential areas for new sites,” Hu said.
IN ADDITION, Hu noted that six prior sites for a new landfill were rejected in October 2022 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.
Hu said the city was looking at ways to amend Act 73, pursue “eminent domain options,” as well as investigate the use of federal or military-owned lands for the city’s new landfill site. But others oppose the landfill site selection extension.
Among them, the Ko Olina Community Association Inc. provided numerous written comments to the Planning Commission over the ongoing delays to identify a new site; the history of violations at Waimanalo Gulch, including the accidental release of municipal solid waste; and quality-of-life impacts on nearby residents including odor, litter, traffic and noise.
Although the commission took this initial testimony in August, a more in-depth presentation of evidence — similar to a legal trial, including witness testimony and legal exhibits — is expected today.
AT THE END of this presentation, the panel is expected to deliberate on the evidence from all interested parties. However, it was not clear whether a final decision over the city’s requested two-year extension would occur at the hearing.
“Staff isn’t sure if the commissioners will make a decision that day,” Curtis Lum, a city Department of Planning and Permitting spokesperson, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser via email.
Earlier this month the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced completion of required upgrades to the Waimanalo Gulch Landfill after more than a decade of federal oversight meant to bring the city’s only municipal landfill into compliance with laws to protect public health and natural ecosystems.
The city, which owns the landfill, and Waste Management of Hawaii Inc., which operates it, made the upgrades under a 2019 consent decree with the EPA, U.S. Department of Justice and state Department of Health. The consent decree followed stormwater diversions that flooded hundreds of millions of gallons of contaminated water into the ocean in December 2010 and January 2011.
Raw sewage, sewage sludge, blood vials and syringes were among the things that washed up on the beaches of the Ko Olina Resort and elsewhere along the Waianae Coast for weeks, closing several beaches.
By 2015, Waste Management pleaded guilty to criminal violations for negligent discharge of pollutants over seven days in violation of the Clean Water Act.
The commission meeting begins at 9 a.m. at the Mission Memorial Auditorium, Mission Memorial Building, 550 S. King St.
Honolulu Star-Advertiser reporter Timothy Hurley contributed to this report.
