Opposition to Maili landfill expected

>> Mayor's landfill veto gains support

Waianae Coast residents are expected to turn out in force tomorrow to oppose a proposed construction and demolition waste landfill at Pacific Aggregate's Maili Quarry -- again.

Landfill opponents had testified at two city Planning Commission hearings that the landfill would create dust, noise, flooding and traffic issues. And many are against any kind of landfill on the Waianae Coast.

PERMIT MEETING The state Land Use Commission meets at 10 a.m. tomorrow in Kapolei Hale's 4th Floor Conference Room, 1000 Uluohia St. Pacific Aggregate's request for a special-use permit to operate a construction and demolition landfill at its Maili quarry is the only item on the agenda.

"Everybody wants recycling ... but hardly anybody does it," said Larry Wilderman*, president of Sphere LLC, which operates under the name Pacific Aggregate.

If it receives an OK from the Land Use Commission, Wilderman said his company will seek state Department of Health permits to process and recycle concrete and other building projects, as well as to operate a construction and demolition landfill at 87-701 Paakea Road. If those permits are received, the landfill is at least a year and a half from opening, he said.

Landfill and recycling operations wouldn't make any more dust or noise than there is now at the quarry, Wilderman said. A retention pond would hold rainfall from a 100-year storm event and keep it from flowing off the property. And the company is willing to pay for extra police patrols of traffic on Hakimo and Paakea roads to ensure speed limits are enforced, he said.

Wilderman also said the landfill would have capacity for 13 million to 15 million cubic yards of construction debris, would create jobs for 15 Waianae Coast residents and would provide an alternative to Oahu's only operating construction-debris landfill.

"Originally, less than a handful of people had a problem with us doing what we're going to be doing," Wilderman said of a process that's gone on for several years. "Now it's pretty much the whole community."

The Waianae Neighborhood Board, Mikilua Farm Bureau and the state aquaculture director are opposing the landfill.

At a January community meeting, some residents questioned the quarry's practice of accepting coal ash from the AES Power Plant, because it has traces of arsenic in it.

That ash had been acceptable as fill material at the quarry without any special permit, because its concentration of arsenic was within U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for an industrial site, said Steve Chang, state Health Department solid and hazardous waste administrator.

However, Chang informed Pacific Aggregate that the Health Department will be raising its standards for use of the ash and the quarry can't continue to receive it after April.

"Nothing has changed in the ash. The Health Department wants to change the standards," Wilderman said. "We've never done nothing illegal here and we're not going to."

CORRECTION Saturday, March 4, 2006 » Larry Wilderman is president of Sphere LLC, which does business as Pacific Aggregate. His name was misspelled in a story on Page A6 in Wednesday's morning edition and on Page A4 in the afternoon edition. Please see the applicable Corrections Page for more information.