WAIMEA — A trash-hauling study by the county Department of Environmental Management shows it is even less expensive to haul garbage from Hilo to Kona than first thought, and the hauling option is significantly less costly than either a new Hilo landfill or a waste-to-energy incinerator.
The study was presented to the county Environmental Management Commission on Wednesday. It next goes to the County Council and Mayor Billy Kenoi, before the department takes it to community hearings. Solid Waste Director Greg Goodale stressed that no decision will be made without public input.
The study showed it would cost an average of $52 to $72 per ton to haul all the county’s garbage to the West Hawaii landfill at Puuanahulu. In comparison, a new Hilo landfill would cost $92 to $110 a ton and a waste-to-energy plant would go anywhere from $80 to $210 a ton.
The county, with an estimated $25 million annual solid-waste budget, landfills approximately 166,455 tons of garbage a year.
Hauling Hilo garbage to West Hawaii has long been a controversial topic. But Acting Environmental Management Director Dora Beck said Wednesday the county has not even begun to look into whether the Hilo landfill, which has an estimated eight years left, can be expanded. No permitting agencies have been contacted and the county hasn’t talked with the Federal Aviation Administration, which is often cited as opposing the expansion of the Hilo landfill so close to Hilo International Airport.
In comparison, Goodale said there have been discussions about expanding the Puuanahulu landfill, which still has an estimated 30 years left — if it doesn’t take on any more east-side garbage than it does now. He said the state owns land mauka of the landfill that could be used for expansion and there has also been talk of lowering the subgrade land to allow for greater capacity.
Goodale says expanding the West Hawaii landfill makes sense, compared to “having to look for a completely new location for a landfill.”
The landfill is owned and operated by Waste Management Inc., and the county pays a disposal fee to dump garbage there. The disposal fee drops in increments from $69.90 a ton for less than 250 tons per day, to $47.36 per ton for 350 to 399 tons per day. Higher daily tonnage rates are negotiated.
Closing the Hilo landfill will also be costly. It’s expected to cost $20 million to close it to permitted standards, followed by 30 years of monitoring.
“I assure you, it will close some day and there will be these costs,” Goodale said.
The Environmental Management Commission members had very few questions. But Chairman Sherm Warner told West Hawaii Today after the meeting that long-term waste-management plans are being considered. He noted that the 2009 Integrated Resources and Solid Waste Management Plan had advised pursuing expanding the Hilo landfill or trucking Hilo garbage to Kona as a short-term fix until technology improves and costs come down for various waste-to-energy technologies.
The county had solicited proposals in 2002 and 2006. But the County Council subsequently rejected a plan by Wheelabrator, saying the $125.5 million capital expense and $9.8 million annual operating costs were too expensive, even if the plant made about $6.9 million a year in revenues.
The hauling study itself became controversial when the department undertook it in late January without informing the public. Almost all the county’s garbage was being hauled to Puuanahulu as part of the pilot study, when Kenoi told a group at a Kona Town Hall meeting in mid-April that, “There is no plan by myself as mayor to truck rubbish to Puuanahulu. DEM has a responsibility to take that to the communities, get feedback.”
Hunter Bishop, who resigned as deputy director of the department earlier this month, a position to which he was appointed by Kenoi, took responsibility for the mayor’s misstep in a July 7 letter to a local blog. Kenoi has said he was aware of the trucking study when he made the comments.
“I could have stood up at that community meeting in Kona to explain but I made the decision that it was neither the time nor place to introduce a discussion of the field study,” Bishop said in the letter. “But if my failing to mention the field study that night led to mistaken conclusions that the mayor was trying somehow to hide the truth, then I sincerely apologize to everyone involved because that simply was not the case.”