Trashy leavings on Kapa'a road
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau
KAPA'A, Kaua'i — The trash heaps along the road leading to the Kapa'a Refuse Transfer Station are layers deep.
Jan TenBruggencate • The Honolulu Advertiser
Old mattresses, broken furniture, washing machines, car parts and other trash lean up against the "No Dumping" sign.
County officials promise additional enforcement to stop the illegal dumping of mattresses and other objects on the road leading to the Kapa'a Refuse Transfer Station.
Area resident Dave Armstrong worries that the trash is unhealthy as well as unsightly — a breeding ground for mosquitoes, rodents and disease.
"No one is ever prosecuted for littering or illegal dumping," Armstrong said.
County Solid Waste Coordinator Troy Tanigawa said it's a long-standing problem at the Kapa'a site.
"We've had ongoing problems. People do a lot of illegal dumping over there," he said.
One problem is that the transfer station has a limit on the size of items it can accommodate. It can't take anything that's bigger than 3 feet in any direction — the stuff won't fit the chute.
Residents can haul trash 10 miles to the Lihu'e Refuse Transfer Station, but many don't. They simply drive a few feet outside the transfer station gate and dump it on the roadside. Others dump their trash there at night.
Tanigawa said the county's roads crew occasionally collects the trash, but it is a continuing problem.
For a time, they simply bulldozed it onto the site of the long-closed Kapa'a Landfill, but now they haul it to the Lihu'e station or to the county's landfill at Kekaha, he said.
His solution is twofold. He hopes to increase security, catching illegal dumpers and prosecuting them.
And in the longer term, he hopes to upgrade the transfer station to handle larger items.
"Unfortunately, that will probably take two or three years," he said.
The county now has a contractor that takes appliances and junked cars at the county's Puhi Metals Recycling Center. Residents are expected to deliver their old appliances, or "white goods," to the center, but Tanigawa said the Kapa'a transfer station may accept them to minimize the illegal dumping.
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at (808) 245-7825 or jtenbruggencate@honoluluadvertiser.com.
