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Group Memory - July 11, 2006GROUP MEMORY EIS Public Scoping Meetings Welcome and Introductions, Meeting Overview, Purpose, and Guidelines Adoption The facilitator welcomed and thanked everyone for attending this Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) Public Scoping Meeting for the Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill (here in after Waimanalo Gulch) Expansion. The purpose of the meeting is to obtain a list of concerns and issues from the community that need to be addressed in the EIS process. The facilitator explained that comments made at these meetings will be recorded on the newsprint at the front of the meeting and asked that the persons making the comments make sure that they were recorded accurately. Questions will be answered time permitting. Questions not answered will be posted on the City and County’s website along with answers. The web address is (www.opala.org). The following people were in attendance and introduced: Wilma Namumnart from the Refuse Division of the Department of Environmental Services; Brian Takeda and Kevin Polloi from R.M. Towill Corporation, who is serving as the City’s EIS consultant; and Paul Burns and Russell Nanod of Waste Management of Hawaii. Handouts provided included the meeting agenda, a tentative EIS public input schedule, and comment forms. Written comments will be accepted until August 10, 2006 by sending the comment forms to the address provided on the form (City and County of Honolulu, Department of Environmental Services, Refuse Division, 1000 Uluohia Street, Suite 212, Kapolei, Hawaii 96707). (Comment time has been extended to August 30 due to date change of Kapolei public scoping meeting to avoid conflict with the Kapolei Neighborhood Board meeting.) It was explained that four EIS Public Scoping meetings will be held on the following dates: (1) July 10th at Nanakuli High and Intermediate School; (2) July 11th at Benjamin Parker Elementary School; (3) July 26th at Kapolei Hale (changed to August 10); and (4) July 27th at Mission Memorial Auditorium. Once the public scoping meetings are completed, an EIS Preparation Notice will be posted in August/September 2006 on the website with a link to the document, and a 30-day public comment period will be provided for community members to send in their written comments. The anticipated completion date for the Draft EIS (DEIS) is the end of 2006 / early 2007. DEIS Public Workshops will be held within 10 days of publication of the DEIS. Once these workshops are completed, a 45-day comment period will be provided before the final EIS is set to be completed by mid-2007. An overview of the meeting agenda was posted and reviewed by the facilitator and included the following: · Meeting Overview The following meeting guidelines were presented by the facilitator and accepted by the group: · Courtesy to each other. Remarks by the City and County of Honolulu, Department of Environmental Services, Refuse Division Wilma Namumnart of the City and County of Honolulu’s Department of Environmental Services explained that the public scoping meetings are intended identify the community’s concerns that should be addressed in the DEIS. Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill is the only operating City landfill for rubbish and H-POWER ash on the island of Oahu. This is an island-wide issue, so preparation of the EIS must involve community input at an island-wide level, including communities that are directly affected because of their close proximity to the landfill, as well as other communities located further away but are also reliant on the landfill. Two of the four public scoping meetings will be held in the Leeward/Waianae region at Nanakuli High and Intermediate School and Kapolei Hale, while the other public scoping meetings will be held at the Benjamin Parker Elementary School in Windward Oahu and at the Mission Memorial Auditorium in Honolulu. Permits for solid waste operations are issued every 5 years, with the current operating permit for Waimanalo Gulch expiring in May 2008. A number of events have occurred since 2003, when the last EIS for the expansion of the Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill was completed. We acknowledge that some want the landfill to close by May of 2008. However, in 2006, Mayor Hanneman vetoed Bill 037, which sought to close the Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill. Reasons cited for his decision were that a new landfill site will not be ready by 2008, and for the foreseeable future, the City needs to have a landfill site that is able to handle municipal solid waste, H-POWER ash and other refuse that cannot be further reduced, recycled, or reused. Waimanalo Gulch was determined to be the best alternative from an environmental and cost standpoint. Thus, the focus for the four Public Scoping meetings is to identify the concerns and issues that should be considered in the EIS process for the expansion of this facility. Last fiscal year, Oahu generated over 1.5 million tons of rubbish, of which over 600,000 tons was converted to electricity at H-POWER, about 500,000 tons were recycled; over 200,000 tons went to private landfills, and the remaining tonnage was sent to the existing municipal landfill at Waimanalo Gulch. Every day over 1,500 tons of refuse and ash from H-POWER must be landfilled. This need and its importance in maintaining public health and safety is the reason for seeking the expansion of Waimanalo Gulch. Development of Scoping Issues and Questions/Comments: ISSUES: The following issues were raised for inclusion in the DEIS: · Need for active recycling program that would cut down the need for a landfill; need for a sensible plan – this needs to be addressed as part of closing the landfill as early as possible · Need to determine how the DEIS will tie-in to a comprehensive, Solid Waste Integrated Management Plan (SWIMP) update that the city is supposed to prepare · Need to look at other places, especially Europe, and how they dispose of their waste, the kinds of incentives/taxes/sanctions they use to reshape people’s attitudes at the curbside · Need for finite planning – Hawaii should be at the cutting edge and shouldn’t worry about costs to keep it a paradise · EIS should address all alternatives that are out there · Expansion should be limited to a specific time and coupled with a plan to reduce the waste stream · Need to explore all viable alternatives · Need to look at as a facilities management problem and apply technologies correctly (especially as pertains to smells and debris) · Need to provide for air quality monitoring, testing as it corresponds to traffic at the site, and along the route to/from the site · Need to consider the fact that landowners and developers were fully aware of the landfill’s existence pre-development (A landowner present noted that he felt landowners had been told the landfill would close when they bought and had depended on these representations in making their decisions.) · Need to address leachate problem and the $2.8 million fine that has been imposed by the Department of Health to assure that these types of practices do not continue in the expansion · Need to also address leachate and its impact to groundwater, runoff to ocean, subsidence and slippage resulting from seismic activity, methane fires, and EPA violations relating to gas collection systems · Need to address “environmental justice” along the Leeward Coast, including the multitude of existing private and proposed sites in that area – a study has shown that dumps end up in areas that are populated by impoverished minorities · Need to also include affect of leachate on the ocean · Need to provide number of years of continuing operation as well as the number of acres the expansion will take · Need to examine enforcement capability and capacity of DOH – including the lack of resources required for monitoring, enforcement, reporting, and accountability · Need to provide explanation of all the fines imposed on the landfill · Need to explain what the relationship will be between the newly created topography of the expanded landfill, and the prevailing wind patterns of the area including any impact on ocean currents and near shore water temperatures · Need to explain the logic of the increase in height of the landfill in light of the wind energy studies being done by the Hawaiian Electric Company Questions/Comments: The following questions / comments were raised by community members: C: Using blue bin for green waste when it is not big enough
to accommodate what home owners previously left on the curb for
pick up - leads to green waste that previously did not go to
the landfill ending up in the landfill – need to do something
about that Q: How does the DEIS tie-in with the comprehensive SWIMP update? Q: The problem is facilities management now – what is being done to improve that? C: Emission testing of all vehicles is something that is done on the mainland and we should also do it Q: Is it possible for us to submit our comments and questions via the website? C: No issue with the Waimanalo Gulch Landfill site; the major issue is the management of the landfill Q: Yes, landowners and developers knew about the landfill, but they were given a closure date when they bought their property and this date has been extended and now is being proposed to be extended yet again – why is this? Q: What is the status of the EPA violations? Q: What is the status of other public and private landfill operations and proposed sites? Q: Has the ash exceeded the required limits? Q: How long will expansion take and how many acres will expansion take? How will the mix issues be addressed? Q: Why weren’t meeting notices posted on internet website? C: Please consider providing microphones Q: Will the comment deadline be changed since the 7/28/06 Kapolei
Hale meeting is being changed to 8/10/06? Q: Are food wastes taken to the landfill? Q: Restaurant oil is being recycled into fuel on Maui: are you looking into this? |
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