WAI'ANAE — Leeward O'ahu residents don't want another landfill in their midst, said the more than 85 people who gathered last night in a show of solidarity and strength of common purpose.

"Why do we have 5 percent of the O'ahu population and 95 percent of the dumps?" resident Rodlyn Brown asked at the community meeting at St. Phillip's Episcopal Church-Wai'anae.

A community group called the meeting to organize opposition to a proposed second landfill in Ma'ili. By the time it ended, numerous names were added to the 2,000 already collected on a petition; attorney Andrea Heckler promised free legal counsel and an attempt to get an injunction; and area resident and a representative of Mayor Mufi Hannemann, former Honolulu City Councilman John DeSoto, pledged the mayor's support.

The meeting was the result of a recent grassroots movement in Wai'anae led by a group of elders who say they are tired of the Leeward Coast being saddled with the island's landfills.

"We are just fed up," said Lily Cabinatan of Wai'anae. "And we know we haven't fought like the other side of the island — the Windward side — and now we're going to fight like them. Just because we've been so nice and accommodating, they're just dumping everything on us."

Cabinatan said residents were elated last July after it appeared the government would not be issuing a permit to a private company to operate a second landfill in Ma'ili.

But in December the community was stunned to learn the permit issue was back on the table and could be granted by the state Land Use Commission as early as next month.

The Wai'anae Coast has O'ahu's only two landfills: the private PVT Landfill site in Ma'ili and the city-operated Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill in Nanakuli, across from the Ko Olina Resort.

The focus of the community's current collective ire last night was the prospect of a third landfill, in a quarry at 87-601 Pa'akea Road in Ma'ili.

Since 1998, Sphere LLC, a private company doing business as Pacific Aggregate, has sought city approval to convert its quarry property into a landfill.

Residents and area farmers have repeatedly raised concerns about odors, pollution and an increase in the number of trucks hauling debris to the landfill on the already congested four-lane Farrington Highway — the only thoroughfare in and out of the coast.

DeSoto said the mayor asked him to attend the meeting as his "ears and eyes."

DeSoto said he had discussed the landfill with Hannemann before the meeting and was told Hannemann opposes any new landfills on the Wai'anae Coast.

No one from Sphere LLC attended the meeting. A message left at the company's headquarters for a comment was not returned.

State Rep. Maile Shimabukuro, D-45th (Wai'anae, Makaha), stood to say that as far as she knew, all of the area's state and county representatives opposed the landfill proposal.

Before she left to attend another area meeting, Shimabukuro said she and the other representatives support the Wai'anae Coast Neighborhood Board's opposition to the landfill.

Two years ago the board went on record as opposing any landfills, new or existing, inside the Wai'anae district.

In the past Sphere representatives have insisted the company would effectively deal with all the community's concerns. Those assurances included safeguards for groundwater, air quality and odors, in addition to various means of controlling wastes, fires and noise.

The company also said it will provide work for area residents and contribute $25,000 to area schools for every 100,000 tons of debris it takes in. It said it expected to take in around 200,000 tons a year.

No one at last night's meeting seemed moved by such overtures.

"They can keep the money," Cabinatan said.

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.