Posted on: Wednesday, April 11, 2001

Big Island mayor names nominees to environmental commission

By Hugh Clark
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

HILO, Hawai'i — Five months after Big Island voters decided to create a Department of the Environment, Mayor Harry Kim announced his nominees to a nine-member advisory commission.

The mayor still has not appointed someone to head the department, which will oversee solid waste, sewage treatment and recycling programs. Those functions are being handled by the Department of Public Works until the new entity is set up.

The nominees to the commission include two former public works officials: Hugh Ono, a past director, and Riley Smith, a former deputy director. The others are: Barbara Bell, a former country clerk; Mack Asato of Hamakua, a county road construction supervisor; Samuel Kawamura of Hilo, a retired state drafting technician; Lou Ann Jones of Puna, a teacher; David Kimo Frankel of Volcano, a former statewide head of the Sierra Club; Peter Martin of Ka'u, a former airline pilot and president of Big Island Citizens for Equitable and Responsible Government; and Carolyn Witcher of Kona, who served as chairwoman of a Mainland sanitation district before coming to the Big Island.

Kim has said he considers the management of the county's solid and sewage waste among his most important challenges. Voters apparently agree, approving a charter amendment last November that created the Department of the Environment.

One major environmental issue is the eventual closure of the Hilo landfill at a cost of $12 million. Whether solid waste from East Hawai'i will be hauled halfway across the island to North Kona, or diverted to a proposed garbage-to-energy plant, is undecided.