Council has until Dec. 1
to pick new landfill siteCity officials promise to provide
monthly updates on progress
The state Land Use Commission voted yesterday to give the City Council until Dec. 1 to name the site of its next landfill.
The commission's original deadline for the landfill decision was June 1, but it granted the six-month extension after city officials promised to provide monthly progress reports.
"We're going to have a very happy community," said Kamaki Kanahele, president of the Nanakuli Homestead Association and part of a Waianae Coast group, the Hokupili Foundation, that wants the city to look harder at technologies that could reduce the need for landfills.
Kanahele said he was particularly encouraged that the commission asked the city to report monthly on its progress toward finding viable trash-reduction technologies, as well as locating a new landfill.
The city's current landfill at Waimanalo Gulch on the Leeward Coast is permitted until May 2008. Replacement sites recommended last year to the City Council by a citizen's committee are Maili, Nanakuli and Makaiwa Gulch -- all on the Leeward Coast -- and Kapaa Quarry in Kailua.
Mayor Jeremy Harris gave the City Council responsibility for making the final landfill site selection.
Rod Tam, chairman of the City Council's Public Works and Economic Development Committee, spearheaded yesterday's request for the time extension.
"We believe a thorough and exhaustive evaluation of all recommended sites, as well as new technologies and an islandwide recycling program, be undertaken by the Council before any individual site is selected," Tam said.
The majority of people who testified to the commission yesterday asked members to approve the time extension.
Wade Wakayama, president of Ameron Quarry in Kailua, said the extra time would allow his company to calculate the cost of operating changes it would have to make if a landfill displaced its operations.
Others, including city Director of Environmental Services Frank Doyle, testified against more time.
Waianae resident Cynthia Rezentes served on the task force that recommended four potential landfill sites to the City Council in December. She told the Land Use Commission yesterday that documents produced by her group provide the City Council with adequate information to locate a new landfill.