"If it is too difficult a political decision for them to make, I would be happy to relieve them of that responsibility," Harris said. "But we obviously can't continue with this irresponsible political posturing."

He called Councilman Rod Tam's suggestion that Koko Crater be used as a landfill "ridiculous," and said the industrial site was also "laughable."

"It leads me to believe there is some other political machination going on, that the council is throwing out these absurd sites in order to direct the landfill to some predetermined site or company," Harris said.

Council chairman Donovan Dela Cruz said he remains confident the council will select a site on Wednesday, when a final vote is scheduled.

"It's going to be with a heavy heart and with some reluctance, but the council will be able to make a decision," he said.

It appears very unlikely that the choice will be Koko Crater. Harris and Councilman Charles Djou said using it for a landfill would violate terms of a deed through which the Bishop Estate — now known as Kamehameha Schools — transferred the property to the city in 1929 for use as a nature preserve.

And by the deadline late yesterday for preparing Wednesday's meeting agenda, no council member had submitted a floor draft that would allow the council to vote on that site. It would require six council members to agree to an unscheduled consideration of the site, and no one has publicly said they would vote in favor of such a maneuver.

At least seven options will be on the table, including expanding the Waimanalo Gulch landfill or creating a new one at the Ameron quarry in Kailua, a coral mine in Ma'ili, Makaiwa Gulch near Makakilo, or on a parcel in Nanakuli. The Campbell site — between the H-Power incinerator and the ocean — is also a possibility, along with a suggestion that the site be chosen but limited to use as a transfer point for shipping garbage to the Mainland.

Tam and Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi also introduced a new possibility: they sponsored a bill that would ban all city landfills from the island, and scheduled it for a preliminary vote Wednesday.

Tam, who spent much of the day fielding phone calls from angry people concerned about the Koko Crater proposal, insisted his only objective is to allow everyone a fair opportunity to voice opinions.

He had called a news conference Tuesday and announced that he wanted Koko Crater to be considered at a special public hearing Monday, but yesterday distanced himself from the proposal.

"I didn't suggest it; I said that people suggested it," Tam said. "There's a difference, but I realize quite frankly that people need to make it a controversial issue, which it's not really a controversial issue. All I'm trying to do is embrace the public hearing process. When people have suggestions, who am I to say the suggestion is good or bad? Would you tell your wife that her suggestion is good or bad? Then you must be brave."

He would not say who had suggested he propose using Koko Crater for a dump, but said he agreed to float the idea after hearing from at least one person he knows on the Leeward Coast, and from anonymous phone callers.

"They're tired of being picked on," he said, noting that four of five sites recommended by an advisory panel are on the Leeward Coast. "No one wants it in their back yard, but they want to put it is someone else's backyard."

But Djou said it makes no sense to abruptly introduce new possibilities, since the council has had nearly year to review those sites, and the advisory panel forwarded them after studying a total of 44 sites for a year before that.

"It doesn't help the discussion at all," Djou said. "Everybody needs to take a deep breath, calm down, and just rationally look at the recommendations of the blue ribbon panel, and make a decision. We need a little bit of maturity and adult supervision here, and we'll get through this. But the last several days here have just been a circus."

Mayor-elect Mufi Hannemann declined to comment on the situation. "It really would be premature at this time," his spokeswoman Elisa Yadao said.

Carroll Cox, president of EnviroWatch Inc., said the thought of using Koko Crater for a dump "goes beyond absurd."

"There's just a lack of words to describe it, because there are so many things involved here, but logic was not one of the factors that influenced it," he said.

Tam, Kobayashi and others have repeatedly blamed Harris for the city's landfill predicament because he promised earlier that the Waimanalo Gulch dump would close in 2008. Harris said yesterday that he had agreed to that date as a compromise to win approval of an earlier expansion, but that it should not preclude the council from seeking to extend it.

"Waimanalo Gulch is the best technical site; it has the least environmental impact, the least community impact," Harris said. "It's the right thing to do from a scientific and environmental standpoint."

Many nearby residents, and the Ko Olina resort across the highway, have vehemently objected to expanding the dump. Cox said he believes strong lobbying by the resort have left the council paralyzed, but Djou and other council members say they have serious doubts about whether an expansion would be legal.

The state Land Use Commission, which oversees permits for landfills, has not directly addressed the possibility.

The commission said in April that it couldn't rule on a council request to clarify that issue, because picking a site is beyond the commission's authority and there has been no formal request to expand Waimanalo Gulch.