With a key endorsement from the Sierra Club in hand, mayoral candidate Ann Kobayashi is attempting to distinguish herself from Mayor Mufi Hannemann on environmental issues.

Kobayashi, a City Council member, has been critical of the city's major environmental issues - such as curbside recycling, the island's burgeoning landfill and a lawsuit over the waste-water treatment system - expressing opinions that mostly differ from Hannemann, who is seeking re-election.

Kobayashi supports the closing of Waimanalo Gulch Landfill - while Hannemann fought hard to keep it open and will seek a 15-year expansion - but remains vague on when it should be shut down.

“;I had voted (to keep the landfill open), but only for two years,”; Kobayashi said yesterday, referring to a 2005 City Council decision. “;But in the meantime, there doesn't seem to be a move to change the technology at HPOWER. If we had started this new technology years ago, we would now have expanded it and we could have been rehabilitating that land.”;

The HPOWER plant at Campbell Industrial Park burns garbage to generate electricity.

Kobayashi also points to a pending 25-year solid-waste plan that the Hannemann administration has failed to complete. That plan, more than a year overdue, should form the foundation for the future of Oahu's rubbish, she said.

“;It would be the first thing we do because it's the basis for our whole island,”; she said.

Kobayashi won the endorsement of the Hawaii Chapter of the Sierra Club, an organization that has clashed with Hannemann several times in the past. Along with Councilman Donovan Dela Cruz, her campaign manager, Kobayashi introduced several environmental measures last year, such as banning plastic shopping bags and requiring new buildings to be more environmentally friendly.

But many of those measures are stuck in committee.

Curbside recycling also got off to a slow start.

In a news release yesterday, Jeff Mikulina, the outgoing director of the Hawaii Chapter of the Sierra Club, criticized Hannemann's campaign advertisements on the issue.

“;These advertisements are still running where Hannemann is claiming to bring curbside recycling to Honolulu,”; said Mikulina, who is leaving the Sierra Club to head the Blue Planet Foundation. “;The opposite is true. ... Hannemann was the main impediment to curbside recycling.”;

In 2005, Hannemann scrapped plans for a new curbside recycling service, but took up the issue again after voters overwhelming approved a ballot question to implement curbside recycling in 2006.

Since then, Hannemann has advanced the program, beginning in Hawaii Kai and Mililani, but says islandwide recycling could take longer than expected because of logistics with pickup trucks and bin distribution.

Kobayashi said implementing curbside recycling would be one of her priorities.

“;The Council has been waiting for curbside recycling as long as I have been on the Council,”; she said. “;There is no reason not to do it. There just needs to be a commitment to do it.”;

Perhaps one of the biggest dilemmas facing the city is a pending decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that would force the city to spend $1.2 billion to upgrade two waste-water treatment facilities.

Hannemann says the upgrades are unnecessary and would bankrupt the city.

Kobayashi says upgrades are inevitable.