Permit loosens belt for
Waimanalo Gulch landfill
Oahu has a place to put its garbage for the next five years, thanks to state Department of Health permit granted yesterday that allows a 15-acre expansion of the Waimanalo Gulch landfill.
The permit comes just in time, since the city had estimated that the currently permitted 79-acre landfill, which accepts all of Oahu's municipal solid waste, would be full by the end of this month.
The landfill on the Waianae Coast accepts waste from city collection routes, private collection companies, and residential and commercial self-haulers, and ash from H-Power. It is owned by the city and managed by Waste Management of Hawaii Inc.
By filling in "nooks and crannies" in the existing landfill, it can be made to last through the end of June, said Joe Hernandez, Waste Management's district manager for the landfill.
It will take 10 working days to prepare the first "cell" of the expansion site for receiving garbage, Hernandez said, and "by the third week of June we should be putting waste in."
Procedures at the expansion site will be generally the same as those at the current landfill, Hernandez said.
The Department of Health is requiring that the city review and revise its mud- and dust- prevention program and operations plan as needed. A final closure plan is required by May 1, 2005.
Waianae Coast residents loudly protested the city's proposed expansion of the landfill, saying that when the city began using the landfill there in 1989 it had promised only to use it until the permitted portion was full, estimated to be 2004.
The city originally sought to expand the landfill by 60 acres, or about 15 more years of use. But it announced this year that it would only seek five more years at the site and begin looking for a new landfill site.
City Environmental Services Director Frank Doyle said yesterday he was "very pleased" to receive the permit.
State Health Department