EIS to review alternatives, Umi remains ‘prime target’

Proposed Kalaheo landfill site questioned

By Michael Levine - The Garden Island

Published: Thursday, December 17, 2009 3:10 AM HST
LIHU‘E — The Kaua‘i County Council wasted no time Wednesday morning, questioning Mayor Bernard Carvalho’s decision to move forward with siting a new landfill at the Umi site near Kalaheo and grilling the county’s consultant for answers about the selection process.

Hours later, roughly 100 Kalaheo residents took their turn, attending an informational meeting at Kalaheo School Wednesday night.

While the public meeting was the second of its kind in less than a month, the council’s discussion during its final regular meeting of 2009 was the legislators’ first opportunity to weigh in on the controversial proposal, first announced in late August when Carvalho signaled his support for the recommendation made by a 15-member advisory committee tasked with ranking potential sites.

In the months since then, Kalaheo residents have come out strongly against the siting. Kaua‘i Coffee Company, a subsidiary of Alexander and Baldwin, the current landowner of the proposed landfill site, has said putting a 127-acre landfill in the middle of its coffee operation would undermine its image and make it difficult for the company to compete.

In late November, around 250 people packed the Kalaheo School cafeteria for a public meeting, with dozens offering myriad reasons why the proposal is a bad idea, and councilmembers wondered Wednesday whether an unwilling landowner would delay the process to beyond the 2017 date currently projected for closing of the Kekaha Landfill.

Tom Shigemoto of A&B testified to register opposition to the proposal and said it might be “prudent” for the county to look elsewhere because unfriendly condemnation will likely be necessary before permitting can even begin.

“There seems to be a number of items that will consume a lot of time while we have a must-complete date,” said Council Vice Chair Jay Furfaro, pointing out that the MACLS stated in its final report that “Any final siting decision must take into account the importance of not only the need for a landfill, but the loss of the potential use of the selected property as well as its reuse potential when the landfill is closed.”

Councilman Daryl Kaneshiro wondered if it is “premature” for the county to identify a single site, and Tim Bynum said the county should not “put all our eggs in one basket.”

“It is becoming apparent that there’s other issues out there that we need to address,” County Engineer Donald Fujimoto told the council. He said the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Landfill Site Selection was not meant to be the final answer but designed to identify important issues. “We’re at the beginning of the process.”

Brian Takeda of the Honolulu-based design, engineering and management firm R.M. Towill Corp. said the committee and consultant weighted 26 criteria and ranked the potential sites, but said that work is not a substitute for the Environmental Impact Statement that comes as the next step in the years-long process.

Fujimoto said the EIS for the Umi site, described by Furfaro as the “prime target,” would also encompass a review of two or three of the top-ranked alternatives, and that the county is still negotiating the terms of a contract for the EIS.

For more information, visit www.kauai.gov/newlandfillsite.

• Michael Levine, assistant news editor, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or mlevine@kauaipubco.com. Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, contributed to this report in Kalaheo.