The Senate handed environmentalists a victory yesterday by shelving a bill that would have permitted construction of garbage dumps over drinking water supplies. Senate puts hold on bill
By Richard Borreca
to allow dump in Kunia
rborreca@starbulletin.com
Senate President Robert Bunda (D, Wahiawa-North Shore) strongly supported the bill, which was opposed by the Sierra Club, the Honolulu City Council and the city Board of Water Supply.
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City ordinances forbid garbage dumps over aquifers, and the Sierra Club argued that a water supply below a landfill could be contaminated by poisons leaching out from the trash.
City Councilman Mike Gabbard had said Bunda's bill was aimed at blocking a city attempt to "derail plans by Central Oahu Recycling and Disposal Facility to site a 100-acre landfill in Kunia on land currently owned by Campbell Estate."
"At present there is no current landfill technology that can provide an unconditional 100 percent guarantee that hazardous substances in a landfill over the city's aquifer will not enter our previous drinking water supply," Gabbard said.
Yesterday, Sen. Lorraine Inouye, water and land use committee chairwoman, asked that the bill, which had been poised for passage, be sent back to her committee, effectively halting it for this year.
Bunda said the bill, SB 1532, could be modified and brought back during the 2004 legislative session.
"We thought we had addressed some of those major concerns. We thought that by strengthening some of it, it would have been more palatable," Bunda said. "But people were concerned about the environmental concerns, and we took that to heart."
Bunda said that besides a possible Kunia site, he had been contacted about possible garbage dump sites in his district, including a "giant crevasse" in Poamoho near Helemano.
The real problem, Bunda said, is that the city's only functioning garbage dump is in Waianae at Waimanalo Gulch, and it has reached capacity.
The search for a new dump is compounded by geological research, Bunda said, that shows that nearly 70 percent of Oahu's land is over an aquifer.
"Right now the landfill by itself is up to capacity, and we are just accommodating the city," Bunda said. "This bill raised the issue of where we are going to put our trash. We are at capacity. Somehow we have to address it."
