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Whatever
Happened...
Question: Whatever happened to the multimillion-dollar recycling center built for Kauai County that has been vacant since its completion in mid-1999? Kauai recycling center
tentatively set to
open in JulyAnswer: The center, a complex of several buildings at the Lihue Airport, is empty and padlocked, but the latest plan calls for a "very tentative" opening date of July 2001, and the county has hired a coordinator to get it going.
Officially, it's the "Kauai Resource Exchange and Buy Back Center." Unofficially, critics called it "the county's white elephant."
The federal government paid $2.2 million to build the center. So far, the facility has been in use for exactly one day, when a Hollywood film crew rented it for a base camp earlier this year.
Plan A was to find a private company to rent and manage the facility and sublet space to companies that would refurbish and resell goods otherwise destined for the landfill. But no companies were interested.
Plan B is for the county, rather than a private company, to run the facility and, like Plan A, rent space to vendors.
Facility manager Allison Fraley, 33, was hired with state money. She worked six years for a California nonprofit company that set up recycling programs for state, county and local government.
Fraley is working up a program for the facility, including space for "material reuse" companies (small businesses that refurbish thrown-away products), recycling and an extensive education program with heavy emphasis toward children.
"I can't go into any details because everything has to be approved by the attorneys," Fraley said. Which may be why she emphasized that the July 2001 opening date is "very tentative."
Ever wonder what happened to a person, event or issue
that has been in the news? We'll try to find out
for you if you call the City Desk
at 525-8640, email to citydesk@starbulletin.com
or write us at P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu 96802.
Whatever happened to . . . runs Wednesdays.