Ex-manager guilty in city
dumping at incinerator

A former city supervisor has pleaded guilty to charges he ordered city employees to crush and bury 214 tons of household appliances at the Waipahu incinerator.

Peter Kealoha Jr. entered his pleas on May 12 before District Judge Christopher McKenzie to 24 counts of disposing of solid waste without a permit, a petty misdemeanor.

McKenzie granted Kealoha's request to defer his guilty plea for six months. If he remains trouble-free and complies with other conditions imposed by the court, Kealoha can ask to have the convictions stricken from his record.

McKenzie also ordered Kealoha to pay a $2,400 fine -- $100 per count.

Deputy Attorney General Dwight Nadamoto opposed the deferral, arguing that Kealoha's conduct occurred over a 24-month period and was not simply a "one-time" deal.

Kealoha and his deputy public defender, William Bagasol, could not be reached for comment.

The city's internal investigation revealed that Kealoha, a refuse disposal facility superintendent who later resigned, ordered the burials beginning in early 2001 to clean up the incinerator site at the makai end of Waipahu Depot Road.

Under Kealoha's direction, the city also amassed at the site about 6,000 empty propane tanks and buried in a landfill hazardous bricks and ash from defunct incinerator chimneys.

At the time, there apparently was a dispute between the city and the recycling company contracted to haul away the appliances, which led to the appliances being stockpiled and later compacted and buried, Nadamoto said.

In December the city reached a settlement with the state Department of Health, agreeing to pay $425,000 for violating solid- and hazardous-waste rules at the Waipahu site.

The city has paid the entire amount and agreed to provide $117,000 worth of in-kind services such as trucking or hauling away hazardous materials at sites identified by the state, said Steve Chang, chief of the solid- and hazardous-waste branch of the Department of Health.

Most of the cleanup at the Waipahu incinerator was completed a while back, including removal of contaminated soil and bricks, Chang said. The appliances and propane tanks were either recycled or sent to metal recyclers, as they were supposed to be, he said.

Carroll Cox, head of the environmental watchdog group EnviroWatch, who alerted the city to the illegal dumping, said he had mixed emotions about Kealoha being the only one held criminally responsible for what happened at the Waipahu site.

No one else above him who knew or should have known what was happening was implicated, Cox said.

"He was a hero for the city but not for the people," Cox said. "Kealoha shows us how city employees go down with the ship with their loyalty, and I applaud him for that. He did a very good job, but shame on him when you look at the total impact he subjected the community and taxpayers to."

Kealoha's sentence will not deter similar dumping in the future, and the settlement likewise will discourage others from coming forward and speaking out about this kind of activity, Cox said.

As part of the settlement, the city recently submitted to the state for its review a closure plan for the incinerator site -- a requirement when the city stopped using the facility in 1994. The state will review the plan and the city's compliance with the cleanup before any plans to reuse the facility can be considered, Chang said.