City not ready
on landfill plan

A councilman will ask to
extend a deadline for
choosing a site until Dec. 1

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By Diana Leone
dleone@starbulletin.com

The Honolulu City Council needs more than three months to decide where to put the next city landfill, Councilman Rod Tam says.

Tam, chairman of the Public Works Committee, said last week he will ask the state Land Use Commission to extend its June 1 deadline for naming a landfill site until Dec. 1.

The Land Use Commission imposed the deadline on the city a year ago, when it granted a permit to extend use of the current Waimanalo Gulch Landfill until May 2008.

Land Use commissioners said at the time they intended to force the city to make its decision in a timely manner, so it would not put pressure on the commission to approve a permit at the last minute again.

Tam also said the Public Works Committee will hold two meetings this month to inform the public about the Council's landfill selection process:

>> 7-9 p.m. March 29 at Kapolei Hale.

>> 7-9 p.m. March 30 at the Kailua Recreation Center.

Three of the landfill sites recommended by the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Landfill Siting are on the Leeward side, at Maili, Makaiwa Gulch and Nanakuli. The fourth site is at Ameron Quarry in Kailua.

Tam said in his opinion, Waimanalo Gulch, the current landfill, is still under consideration because of a state Office of Information Practices opinion that the mayor's committee removed it from consideration improperly. On Wednesday the city Department of Planning & Permitting mailed requests for comment on "any social, economic or environmental implications you may anticipate" from locating a landfill at the Ameron, Maili, Makaiwa Gulch and Nanakuli locations.

All 32 Oahu neighborhood boards, 15 community associations, owners of the landfill sites, and adjacent landowners received the memo requesting comments by April 2, a city staffer said.

Mayor Jeremy Harris' draft capital improvement budget contains $6.3 million for land purchase and design of a new city landfill, the memo said.

At its March 10 meeting, the Public Works Committee will outline its plan for deciding where to put the landfill, Tam said. The mayor's committee was an advisory body with no decision-making power.

Ameron Quarry in Kailua is the only location being considered that has an active business, said Ray Sweeney, a communications consultant and lobbyist for Ameron. The company does not want the landfill there, he said.

Other landowners are: Makaiwa Gulch, James Campbell Estate; Nanakuli, Shige International; and Maili, Sphere LLC.