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Kauai Council critical
of solid waste program

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By Anthony Sommer
Star-Bulletin

LIHUE -- The Kauai County Council, in a rare confrontation with the administration, let Mayor Maryanne Kusaka know yesterday it believes she has not followed through on previous attempts to implement a new solid waste program and it is reluctant to give her a blank check now.

The county's only landfill, located outside Kekaha, is filling up at the rate of 70,000 tons per year and is expected to be full by about 2005. The county administration wants to find a site for a new dump, build a new facility for processing trash that can be kept out of the landfill and beef up its recycling program.

But the administration has been saying that for a long time and hasn't produced anything, councilmen told the mayor, who was in the meeting.

"I feel like I'm Charlie Brown and you're Lucy and you're promising this time you'll really hold the football," Councilman Gary Hooser told Jean Camp, a consultant hired by Kusaka.

"We had a solid waste plan in '94," Hooser said. "Why hasn't it moved forward? After six years, why should I trust the county to get it done now?"

Councilman Billy Swain was taken aback when the mayor's staff suggested yet another position that didn't appear on the charts Camp had just shown them.

"This thing is only two hours old and already you're adding another position," he said. "That takes away some of your credibility."

Camp asked the Council for a vote "in principle" that would create several new supervisory positions in the solid waste management department, give the go-ahead for a minor expansion of the county's existing landfill to extend its life for a few more years and show its support for a solid waste disposal facility that would divert trash from the landfill.

After four hours of discussion, the topic was continued for two weeks. The county has two solid waste efforts going on concurrently. It is doing a study to find a location for a new landfill.