Kaua'i, private landfill firm fight for new dumping site

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau

KIPU, Kaua'i — Kaua'i County and a private firm are competing for the same site for a new landfill.

Kaua'i County and private firm Kaua'i Sanitary Landfill LLC are competing for Grove Farm land in Kipu to create a new landfill. Jan TenBruggencate • The Honolulu Advertiser

Either way, Kaua'i will need a new landfill within five years. That's when the existing Kekaha Sanitary Landfill is expected to be full.

It is a story being repeated across the state. Landfills are expensive, and they're filling up fast. Honolulu has proposed a 60.5-acre expansion of its Waimanalo Gulch landfill in Kahe Valley. The first 86.5 acres are 80 percent full.

On Kaua'i, the Kekaha facility, on state land, already has been expanded twice: once laterally, when the county put a new landfill next to the original, and then vertically, when the county got permission to pile the trash higher.

But further landfilling at Kekaha is no longer an option, said Troy Tanigawa, county solid waste coordinator.

Although the new Kaua'i Municipal Solid Waste Landfill Siting Study ranks a site near the old Kekaha landfill as the best on the island, state officials have told the county to look elsewhere.

The second choice is on Grove Farm land in the Kipu area, about a mile west of Puhi on former cane lands between the highway and the Hul«'ia River valley.

It meets most of the requirements: The site is away from residences; has minimal slope; and is not in a flood or tsunami zone, wetland, conservation land or near an airport.

The only problem is that both the county and privately owned Central Kaua'i Sanitary Landfill LLC want it. The county landfill site study identifies 146 acres that are desired. The landfill company wants 75 acres of the same land.

The county is proceeding as if it will run the new landfill, and Grove Farm Chief Operating Officer Allan Smith said the firm is open to such discussions.

But the private landfill operation, headed by Honolulu resident Bob Awana, is already in discussions with Grove Farm.

It is not clear how the issue will resolve itself.

The state Legislature this year approved allowing the use of $5 million in state special purpose revenue bonds for the Central Kaua'i Sanitary Landfill on the assumption it would be the county's primary facility for solid waste.

"All nonhazardous waste on Kaua'i, including the county-collected waste, will be accepted at this new landfill and residents will be allowed to dispose of their solid waste at no charge," the bill says.

While Gov. Ben Cayetano had not signed the financing bill last week, the deadline for a veto has passed, his office said.

Awana, the former government affairs chief for the firm Waste Management Inc., said he has no contract with the county, but does have contracts with private waste haulers. Even if the county doesn't send its trash to the facility, the project will proceed, he said.

According to Awana, there would be a heavily landscaped buffer to prevent drivers on Hulemalu and Kipu roads from seeing the landfill.

Awana said his firm expects to separate waste into three categories: Some would be recycled and shipped from the site, some would be landfilled like traditional municipal waste facilities, and a third classification would be trash capable of decomposing. It would be run through a state-of-the-art facility called a bioreactor.

In a bioreactor, carefully controlled amounts of air and water are introduced to the waste to help it decompose. Instead of being entombed for eternity, after five years the waste can be safely mined and used as a soil amendment, Awana said. That frees up space for more waste, extending dramatically the life of a landfill.

Awana could not address specifics about when he expects to be able to open his landfill. The county study has a June 2006 deadline for opening its landfill — about the time Kekaha will be full.