The city is moving ahead with plans to almost double the size of the Waimanalo Gulch Landfill and doesn't plan to start looking for a new landfill outside the Leeward Coast until 2011, according to the city environmental services director.

The proposed 92.5-acre expansion, which will keep the Waimanalo Gulch Landfill open for 15 additional years, will not adversely affect the Leeward Coast environment, according to a draft environmental study commissioned by the city.

The expansion would take 10 years to complete at a cost of $86 million.

Eric S. Takamura, city environmental services director, said the expansion will not eliminate the need for a new landfill.

"The city fully plans to utilize the remaining capacity of Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill," he said. "Furthermore, the city begins the process of siting a new landfill in 2011, for a location other than the Leeward Coast. The timeframe, once a site is identified, could take as much as seven years to acquire, plan and design, permit and construct."

Officials said the city must review its integrated solid waste management plan every five years, with the next review set for 2011. The city would then look at possible landfill sites.

City Councilman Donovan M. Dela Cruz said the city should not wait until 2011 to find a new landfill location.

"Council members are term-limited and mayors are term-limited. We cannot shirk our responsibility and pass it on to the next council and the next mayor," Dela Cruz said. "The council has passed an ordinance requiring the administration to submit a 25-year solid waste management plan and these issues should all be addressed as a part of that."

The City Council voted in November 2004 to keep the Waimanalo Gulch landfill open and expand it.

"The Hannemann administration is doing everything in its power to divert more of our island's trash from the landfill," Takamura said. "Our plan, already being implemented, includes our islandwide curbside recycling program. We'll expand the use of H-Power to recycle trash into electricity, we're looking into shipping away some of our trash (and) we're following through on the council's directive to site the new landfill at Waimanalo Gulch.

"However, Mayor Hannemann has indicated that when we look into the issue again in 2011, that the city not include the Leeward Coast as a potential landfill site."

'WHAT ARE WE THINKING?'

The existing 107.5-acre Waimanalo Gulch landfill was scheduled to close at the end of May, but the state Land Use Commission voted 6-2 in March to allow the city to keep it open until November 2009.

That was despite protests from Wai'anae Coast residents, elected officials and environmental activists who feel the city should be doing more to expand recycling and waste-to-energy conversion while attempting to close the landfill.

Jeff Mikulina, director of the Sierra Club's Hawai'i office, said the arguments for the landfill expansion sound the same as they did in 2002, when the city proposed expanding the landfill by 60.5 acres, before changing course and expanding it by 21 acres.

Unless curbside recycling goes islandwide and people dramatically alter their waste habits, Mikulina said, the landfill will still be needed.

"It's the same old re-hashed arguments," he said. "Is (a new landfill) on the Wai'anae coast? Is it in Kailua? We have to get back to this because we haven't kept our eye on the ball and reduced waste or expanded recycling," he said. "Frankly, there are some real dry gulches out in Hawai'i Kai that would work. I know we're going to have to come together as an island and all of us have to take responsibility."

City Councilman Todd K. Apo, District 1 (Wai'anae, 'Ewa) and state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, D-21st (Nanakuli, Makaha), said they hope the landfill will close in 2009.

"It's ludicrous to try to extend Waimanalo Gulch for 15 years," Apo said. "We've been through this fight too many times. The Land Use Commission made it very clear that the city has 18 months to get out of there, not 18 months to ask for more time. I guess I was surprised the city decided to continue on the track to expand it, especially for 15 years."

Hanabusa said the Land Use Commission made it very clear that the special use permit allowing the landfill to operate until November 2009 stated that it could be used as the basis for further expansion.

The city maintains that the Land Use Commission's decision to allow the permit extension was so the city would have time to propose a longer term expansion.

Hanabusa questioned the wisdom of extending the life of a landfill located near the rapidly growing community of Kapolei.

"What are we thinking? We are in an economic slump now, but all of the development and housing is coming up in Leeward O'ahu. This (area) is a major asset. This is what we sell here," Hanabusa said. "I think the community is clearly opposed to the expansion of 15 years and I think the (city-sponsored study) is a rubber stamp."

Takamura disagreed.

"Both council member Apo and Sen. Hanabusa are mischaracterizing the Land Use Commission decision, and each of them knows that if Waimanalo Gulch is not the site of the landfill, all indications are that Nanakuli will be," Takamura said. "We have heard from Nanakuli residents that they do not want a landfill so much closer to their homes and schools, and the community has asked us to keep the landfill at Waimanalo Gulch."

STUDY'S FINDINGS

According to the draft environmental study, which came out last month: