The state Board of Land and Natural Resources recommended Friday that Maui County be given permission to use a former cinder quarry in Olowalu to store ashes and other fine debris from the disaster area of Lahaina.
County officials said a final decision on the Lahaina Wildfire Final Disposition Project site will be made later, as they expect to consult with the community and hold open houses regarding the proposal first.
Testifiers both online and in the BLNR’s boardroom in Honolulu raised concerns about the potential impact on the Olowalu community, the iwi kupuna, or burials, in the area, and the nearshore environment.
At issue is what to do with the ash and debris left behind after theU.S. Environmental Protection Agency finishes its ongoing work removing hazardous materials.
The ash, officials said, is known to contain elevated levels of contaminants such as arsenic, lead and asbestos.
“The ash and debris currently spread over the ground at various properties and exposed to the wind and rain is posing a threat to the people and pets which may come into contact with it,” said Shayne Agawa, director of Maui County’s Department of Environmental Management.
The county’s solution is to develop a 12.3-acre landfill within a former cinder quarry 5 miles from Lahaina and next to the closed Olowalu landfill, about 1,000 feet mauka of Honoapiilani Highway.
The county plans to install two impermeable liners that will “meet the most stringent of environmental standards” to keep the debris within the landfill, Agawa said.
It would be “the Cadillac of disposal sites,” he told the board. “We’re overly designing this to above standard. There are going to be redundant mitigation measures and monitoring for years to come.”
Construction of the site will take about six to eight months and be used only for debris from the Aug. 8 wildfire, which killed at least 99 people and damaged more than 2,200 buildings, Agawa said.
Mark Cardwell of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said that while larger fire debris items such as concrete, brick and steel will be recycled, the ash and upper topsoil will be collected and placed in a plastic-lined dumpster.
Once a container is filled, he said, it will be wrapped like a burrito, sealed with glue and trucked to Olowalu, where it will be staged in a lined area adjacent to the new disposal area for temporary storage until the containment area is built.
After all of the debris is brought to the site, the facility will be closed, landscaped and monitored for 30 years, Agawa said. Left behind will be a parklike, grassy mound that some have suggested could be a memorial to the victims of the fire.
Scott Crawford, director of Maui marine programs for the Nature Conservancy, said that while TNC has not taken a position on the project, it does have concern about its impact on the Olowalu reef and hopes “all possible protective measures” will be pursued.
Crawford said the 939-acre reef at Olowalu plays a vital role in the ecology, community and economy of West Maui. He said it boasts a stunning diversity of coral, harbors the largest known population of manta rays in the U.S. and is a primary source of coral larvae for the reefs of Lanai, Molokai and West Maui.
The reef is already being stressed by climate change and other issues, he said.
“We are concerned that adding a landfill near the ocean filled with ash and debris from the fire at Lahaina could add an additional stressor that could eventually have seriously detrimental impacts on this vital reef ecosystem,” he said.
Marti Townsend of the environmental law firm Earthjustice agreed that the proposal’s proximity to the ocean is concerning, as well as its location above groundwater.
The project, its risks and alternatives need more discussion within the community, Townsend said.
“This situation poses some real trade-offs. And the only people who should be making those kinds of trade-offs are the people who live in Lahaina or Maui Komohana (West Maui),” she said.
Agawa, the county official, seemed to bristle at the suggestion that the county would be contributing to polluting the environment. He said he was born and raised in Lahaina, and he lives in Olowalu.
“I love Olowalu. I’m from there. I live there right now. I drink the water from the aquifer that people are saying going to be contaminated by this. My kids drink the water. We not trying to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes when we’re saying we’re doing the best for the environment,” Agawa said.
“So I just want you folks to know that when you talk about Olowalu, we’re talking about my backyard, too. My kids’ backyard, where my kids swim almost every weekend because the Lahaina Pool burned down,” he said.
Agawa called the site a safe and ideal location to store the debris, allowing the ash that likely contains human remains to stay in West Maui rather than be trucked to the island’s main dump, the Central Maui Landfill, over 25 miles away.
In its unanimous action, the Land Board approved an immediate right-of-entry permit to the county, which would expire after one year or after execution of a set-aside of government lands by a governor’s executive order, whichever happens first.
The board also recommended that Gov. Josh Green issue an executive order setting aside the land to the county.
The action, however, could be overturned by a two-thirds vote of either the state House of Representatives or Senate or by a majority vote by both.
