Posted on: Sunday, August 4, 2002

EDITORIAL
Landfill expansion stinks for Leeward

As city officials continue to bicker over the best alternative waste management technology, the Waimanalo Gulch landfill in Nanakuli is apparently less than three months from full to the brim.

To buy more space and time, the city wants the state Department of Health to OK an extra 30 feet of garbage to crown the landfill's 400-foot trash summit.

It would appear that the Health Department doesn't have much choice but to approve considering the lack of ready-to-go alternatives.

And that positively stinks for Leeward residents, who are caught in a dispute between the city administration and the City Council.

The Harris administration wants to expand its H-POWER plant, which burns trash and converts it into electricity. Sure, the ash ends up in a landfill, but it doesn't have to. Plasma arc technology can heat the ash and turn into "glassphalt," which can be used as a building material.

The council says before the city commits to expanding H-POWER, it should conduct a $100,000 evaluation of plasma arc. The theory is we might not need more H-POWER if plasma arc can do the job.

Now, ideally, a system of alternative waste programs would have been in place before the landfill hit capacity. But they weren't, and now money is so tight that it's a struggle getting a commitment to just one alternative.

Meanwhile, it's clear that Leeward residents are fed up with the political inertia that has left no alternatives but to expand the Waimanalo Gulch landfill. Perhaps if the trash were about to be dumped in Kailua, Pacific Heights, Kahala, Hawai'i Kai or town, we'd see some action.