Firm still wants Ma'ili landfill
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Leeward O'ahu Writer
A company that wants to open a third landfill on the Wai'anae Coast is being criticized by local residents and farmers who continue to oppose the plan six years after it was proposed.
Sphere LLC, a private company doing business as Pacific Aggregate, is seeking permission from the City and County of Honolulu to establish a landfill on its quarry property off Pa'akea Road.
The company is using a 150-acre coral mine at the Ma'ili site for the disposal of waste coal ash. But it needs a special use permit to dump construction and demolition debris at the site.
The Wai'anae Coast has O'ahu's only two landfills — the city's Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill near Ko Olina Resort, and the private PVT Landfill site, also in Ma'ili.
Demonstrating residents' sensitivity to the issue, the Wai'anae Coast Neighborhood Board at its Feb. 3 meeting passed a motion objecting to any landfills, new or existing, within the Wai'anae district.
At a public hearing on the Pacific Aggregate proposal the next day, the city Planning Commission moved to continue the hearing to next Wednesday.
Lucy Gay, who heads the Leeward Community College's satellite campus in Wai'anae, summed up the sentiments of many regarding the Pacific Aggregate landfill proposal: "It's a dump," she said. "People here don't want another one."
The company first floated the idea in 1998. Then, as now, farmers in the area objected to the proposal because they said it could harm the quality of the area's water and air. It was feared that dust from the landfill could spread to neighboring farm fields.
"More than 300 neighborhood farmers, residents and supporters are united and oppose this landfill on Pa'akea Road," Leonard Oshiro, president of the Mikilua Farm Bureau, wrote in a petition presented to the neighborhood board.
"The impacts of the proposed landfill/recycling center will decrease our quality of life, and compromise our safety and welfare."
Folks here have also expressed concerns about noise, odors, pollution and the increased number of heavy trucks carrying materials to the site over substandard roads.
"I haven't heard any residents who are in favor the landfill," said resident Johnnie Mae Perry. "They oppose it for health and traffic reasons, and Wai'anae Coast residents are just tired of this being the dumping site of the island."
However, the company promises it will not only adequately deal with each and every concern the community has raised, but the landfill will provide work for about a dozen area residents as well as contribute $25,000 to area schools for each 100,000 tons of debris it takes in (the company has estimated it could take up to 200,000 tons of material a year).
Pacific Aggregate has outlined plans to protect ground water and air quality, as well as ways it will control wastes, fires and noise. Since no municipal solid wastes or green wastes will be accepted and construction and demolition debris has no smell, odors from the landfill will not be a problem, the company says.
"We will address all the concerns and issues of the opposition," said Sphere LLC technical consultant Jim Wise, who has presented proposals to the community outlining how the company intends to eventually return the quarry to viable agricultural land.
"They are all extremely reasonable and effective."
Reach Will Hoover at 525-8038 or whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.
