Editorial: Deadline for new landfill in Oahu

One of Oahu‘s most persistent questions – “Where can a new urban landfill be placed?” – has returned to the front burner. With a deadline of 2028 for the current facility to close, it is inexcusable for the current city administration to keep stepping into the can.

A good decade ago, former Mayor Peter Carlisle appointed an advisory committee to select a replacement site for the Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill. The search had already provided additional motivation in 2011: A January flood had washed medical waste and other rubbish from this same municipal landfill into the neighboring area of ​​Ko Olina.

Even before this disaster, the dump’s shrinking capacity had made most of the Waianae Coast hardliners. They would not allow another landfill to be placed on the west side.

This committee identified HC & D’s Kapaa quarry, then owned by Ameron Inc., as its first choice. Another search consultant, hired under Carlisle’s successor Kirk Caldwell, revised the site rankings.

Caldwell himself wanted to continue working at the existing site while alternative uses for the debris buried there could be found. He had hoped that alternative diversions for garbage would mean that no new landfill would be needed, except for emergencies.

Before technological solutions could emerge, the State Land Use Commission issued the final special use permit for Waimanalo Gulch, which expires on March 2, 2028.

And now, Mayor Rick Blangiardi has the new Landfill Advisory Committee, which will meet for its first meeting on Monday at 2 p.m. The public can register to participate online at 808ne.ws/landfill and visit the city’s website (www.honolulu.gov/opala/newlandfill.html) to learn about the process.

So far, the government has cut a list from 12 potential locations to four – two near the North Shore, one between Makakilo and Waipahu, and one near Wheeler Army Airfield.

All of these changing site lists are telling you that no one wants any of these things around them. And yet – given the limits of the recycling market and the fact that not everything from the city’s HPOWER plant can be tapped to ashes – the overflow has to go somewhere.

If no technological solution emerges, a replacement landfill is required. It is best for the audience to take advantage of the chance the city offers to have their say.