The next chapter in the saga of the Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill unfolds today when the city Planning Commission considers a plan to double the acreage of the dump and extend its life by 15 years.

The state Land Use Commission is scheduled to take up a related application May 14.

Looming in the background is a Nov. 1 deadline for the landfill to close.

West O'ahu residents have long viewed the landfill as a symbol of how politicians have seen the area — as a dumping ground for the city's less desirable — and have groused bitterly of a broken promise that the landfill would be closed.

City officials, meanwhile, are adamant that there is no other option, at least not right now.

Manuel Lanuevo, deputy director of the city Department of Environmental Services, said that if no extension is granted, the city will simply stop accepting waste at O'ahu's only municipal landfill.

"Our position is we will not operate the landfill illegally," Lanuevo said.

He added that closing the landfill would also necessitate shutting down the HPower waste-to-energy facility, because ash and residue from HPower is disposed of at the landfill.

"I think we all need to take a breath and be realistic," said Councilman Duke Bainum, who heads the Council Public Infrastructure Committee. "There's no way that we could have another landfill even beginning to take formation until many years from now."

State Sen. Colleen Hanabusa, D-21st (Nanakuli, Makaha), acting as an attorney for the Ko Olina Community Association, unsuccessfully challenged the existing extension, which the city received from the Land Use Commission to give it time to complete an environmental impact statement for the expansion project.

Hanabusa, a Ko Olina resident, and other West O'ahu leaders have argued that former Mayor Jeremy Harris promised that the landfill would be closed.

Rep. Maile Shimabukuro, D-45th (Wai'anae, Makaha, Makua) has joined Hanabusa in seeking intervenor status against the city in its hearings for both a special use permit and a land use reclassification for urban use.

The Land Use Commission ultimately will vote on both applications, either of which would clear the way for the extension and expansion. The city Planning Commission, meeting today on the special use permit, has only an advisory role on this issue.

Abbey Mayer, executive director of the state Office of Planning, is recommending that the Land Use Commission deny an urban classification and offer only a three-year extension of the existing landfill, "to assure residents of the Leeward Coast that everything possible is being done to pursue alternatives and fulfill past commitments."

City Councilman Todd Apo, who represents the Leeward Coast, said he agrees that a long-term expansion is not necessary.

Apo wants an extension on the existing landfill until 2011, when HPower expands its capacity by 50 percent.

Meanwhile, shipping of solid waste to Washington state via private contractors is anticipated to begin in July.

"Those two elements take us out of a need for a daily operating landfill," Apo said.

Shipping trash is not part of a permanent solution, Apo said, but a viable temporary one while other technologies get off the ground.