Hearing to discuss
Ala Wai dump siteThe 1,800 cubic feet of dredged
material is not hazardous waste
A lawmaker who has expressed concerns about disposal plans for the last dredge material from the Ala Wai Canal says she now believes the state's plans are adequate.
"I'm not as inclined to vigorously oppose it," state Sen. Suzanne Chun-Oakland after she recently visited the proposed dump site on the Diamond Head-makai side of the Honolulu Airport reef runway.
Chun-Oakland (D, Kalihi-Palama) and nine other lawmakers had asked in April that the state Department of Health hold a public hearing on the proposed disposal method for the last 1,800 cubic feet of Ala Wai dredge material.
That hearing will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. tomorrow at Moanalua High School Cafeteria.
The Health Department then will decide whether to issue the necessary permit to the Department of Land & Natural Resources, which is overseeing the $7.4 million Ala Wai dredging project.
Although it is not hazardous waste, the sediment in the Kapahulu end of the canal did not pass the Environmental Protection Agency test for disposal at an open ocean dump site like the 184,000 cubic yards of material removed from the canal between August and May. Work stopped in June because there was nothing left to do but that area.
Although there are elevated levels of lead, from leaded gasoline, and chlordane, from termite control, in the last segment of the canal, "it's not toxic, not even hazardous. It's pretty minimal," said Neil Williams, vice president of American Marine Corp., the project contractor. "In San Francisco they use stuff like this for backfill."
Instead, at the Ala Wai, American Marine workers will mix the muddy dredge material with cement to a clay-earth consistency and bury it in a 130-square-foot, 3 1/2-foot-deep hole on airport property. The hole will be completely lined with high-density polyethylene that is 30 percent thicker than what is used to line the Waimanalo Gulch landfill.
The work could begin within a week of Health Department approval and will take about a month to complete, Williams said.