Lingle bill gets tough with junk dumping
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Staff Writer
The stuff appears as if by magic.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
An unspoiled country or coastal roadside is suddenly home to a refrigerator, buckets oozing fluid, an ugly pile of busted concrete.
Kapa'a Quarry Road leads to a legal dump, but the roadside is littered with refuse that didn't make it all the way.
"One day, a month or two ago, there was a whole
living room set, complete with a TV and couch," said Kailua resident Jim Wood, who works with a group of residents trying to keep the Kapa'a Quarry Road clean.
Gov. Linda Lingle, in her State of the State address, said roadside dumping needs to stop.
"As an island state with an economy based to a significant extent on tourism, the environment remains a critical part of our economic well-being," she said. Her administration submitted Senate Bill 2850, which would make illegal dumping of solid waste a felony. It is now a misdemeanor, except in the case of hazardous waste.
The new bill may not go far enough for Carroll Cox, president of EnviroWatch, which has exposed cases of illegal dumping on O'ahu.
Under the bill's language, the felony would apply if the dumping exceeds 10 cubic yards, if the perpetrator has two prior dumping convictions and dumps more than a cubic yard, or if the cleanup costs more than $1,500. It cites the dumper and the person hiring or arranging for the dumping.
"We don't even have the resources to catch a person the first time," Cox said.
But government agencies and community groups are trying.
"I think the most important thing we're doing is coordinating government, private business and community groups to address the problem," said Honolulu recycling coordinator Suzanne Jones.
On the Big Island, police are stretched to the limit with other crimes and there is essentially no enforcement against illegal dumping, said Paul Buklarewicz, executive director of Recycle Hawai'i.
"We're just trying to encourage people not to do it," he said, but he concedes that long distances between legal dump sites is an issue on his island. Meanwhile, his group is working with community organizations on cleanups in a number of areas.
"In Ocean View, we have a pretty big problem with tires, and with people dumping into the lava tubes," he said.
But on the windward side of O'ahu, some dumping occurs within sight of the city's refuse station, apparently just because it's inconvenient to drop off trash during the station's legal hours, said Wood, the Kailua resident.
Jones, the recycling coordinator, said the city is considering extending the station's hours to make it more convenient, but she said there are city refuse stations open seven days a week — and illegal dumping continues. "The impacts of illegal dumping on the community and the environment, the strain on our tax dollars, are multifold. It just has a demoralizing effect on the community," Jones said.
It's a serious enough problem that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a year ago dispatched Fred Burnside to Honolulu as supervisory agent in charge of the Pacific Rim Environmental Resource Center.
"We're helping the state establish their own environmental crimes task force," he said. He called the dumping of regular waste, hazardous waste and the water pollution associated with dumping of materials such as solvents and waste oil a "pronounced problem."
At Envirowatch, Cox said even mundane items are an issue. "Every TV has lead in it," he said.
Often, businesses are dumping materials on roadsides, beaches and isolated private properties to avoid having to pay the cost of dumping at an approved landfill, or simply to avoid the inconvenience of transporting material to somewhere like the city's Waimanalo Gulch landfill or the recycling facilities at Sand Island, Jones said.
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.
