HILO, Hawai'i — Plans for a hotel in Puna on a site with high levels of arsenic in the soil can proceed if the developer buries the most seriously contaminated dirt under a liner on the site and covers it with at least a foot of dirt, according to the state Department of Health.

Bob Saunders, vice president of Kea'au Hospitality Management LLC, said the remediation plan approved by the Health Department will probably be carried out in the next three to four months and will cost about $75,000.

Kea'au Hospitality is planning to build a 60-room hotel on a 4.4-acre site next to the Kea'au Shopping Center, but Saunders said the project has been delayed by two to three years because of the discovery of arsenic and lead on the site in 2003.

Health Department experts believe the arsenic was probably used in herbicides from the 1920s to the 1940s, and a survey of the area found arsenic concentrations in community gardens in Kea'au.

A total of 33 residents who lived near the gardens were tested, but health officials concluded the residents are not in danger of arsenic-related illnesses. Arsenic exposure can lead to nerve problems and some types of cancer.

The hotel site was not considered a risk for guests because they would stay there only briefly, but the arsenic was considered a potential health risk for hotel staff such as gardeners who might accidentally swallow or inhale some of the soil repeatedly over many years of working at the site.

The Health Department considered removing the contaminated soil and trucking it to a landfill, sealing the soil under buildings, or burying the contaminated soil under a cap of soil.

The department finally approved the plan to move the contaminated soil with the highest levels of arsenic to an open area on the hotel site, cover it with a liner or "heavy barrier material," and bury it under at least a foot of soil from elsewhere on the site.

"With the targeted soil buried and covered, potential exposure to the high soil contamination will be eliminated," according to a Health Department fact sheet on the remediation plan.

The approved remediation plan drew protests from organic farmer and long-time peace activist Jim Albertini. He said Kea'au Hospitality is being allowed to bury the soil with the highest levels of arsenic under a layer of soil that also has elevated levels of arsenic because it will be taken from the same hotel site.

Albertini said the Health Department is setting a bad precedent for cleanup of areas that were contaminated by arsenic used in sugar cultivation. "I think it's a shoddy job," he said.

The plan is the second proposal the department has approved for cleaning up the site. The first plan, which was released in 2004, involved covering all of the site with a liner and clean soil.

"It was very, very expensive," Saunders said of the earlier plan. "The hotel is predicated upon our having affordable room rates, and we just couldn't make it fly with the cost of the earlier remediation plan."

Some area residents argued that all of the contaminated soil should be removed and shipped to the Mainland for disposal, but that would cost an estimated $1.2 million, according to a consultant hired by Kea'au Hospitality.

Saunders could not say when the hotel will actually break ground. The project has been on hold pending the release of the remediation plan, he said.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.