Waste Disposal Issues Deserve a Full Discussion*
By Hawaii State Senator Colleen Hanabusa
City Environmental Services director Eric Takamura’s single-minded defense of “bury and burn” as a strategy for dealing with our community’s solid waste disposal needs may be understandable as an exercise in “staying on message,” but it also demonstrates a worrisome inability to think flexibly about a problem that is not going to go away. The most positive impact of this on-going discussion could be that it raises people’s awareness of the debate on opala.
Clearly, when your sister publication, Midweek, named as one its Seven Modern Wonders of Oahu “The rising pyramids of Waimanalo Gulch,” it became abundantly clear that this is an issue that merits serious attention.
Still, I found Mr. Takamura’s statement that I am quick to criticize without offering solutions to be more than a little ironic. First of all, the City has a clear commitment to protecting its cash cow, the landfill operation, from any intervention or alternatives. Ask those who year after year propose alternative technologies such as Plasma Arc to address the problem. More importantly it was the City that claimed almost five years ago that there would be no need for landfills in five years. Let us be clear as to who was being cagey at best, and irresponsible at worst, when it comes to discussing solutions to our landfill problem.
It may be unfair to Mr. Takamura for us to expect meaningful answers, since he really had no experience in this area prior to assuming his present position. But we all need to understand what the problem with H Power really is. I do not doubt that when it is operating, H Power does produce electricity. What Mr. Takamura fails to mention is that the H Power plants offer no storage capability for the electrical power they generate. This means that unless we, the consumers of electricity, are on the same usage schedule as H Power, we will either need to have another production source when those plants are down, or Hawaiian Electric Co. will have no need for the power generated when other sources are also producing power. Simply because power is generated does not mean that it meets the needs of the consumer. You need to produce power when the people need it. So, unless H Power has huge batteries to store electricity—and it does not—there is a need for alternative power sources when H Power is not operational. Mr. Takamura has also failed to admit to the number of days in a year that H Power is not producing power.
How Mr. Takamura can claim that I said recycling will eliminate the need for landfills is beyond my comprehension. I have long been a critic of the City’s lack of candor in discussing whether it will be able to eliminate all landfill operations. My comments on recycling refer to the City’s obvious refusal to comply with the spirit of an existing Charter Amendment that mandates curbside recycling. Given recent claims by Bill Brennan, Mayor Hannemann’s press secretary, that regular trash and green waste pickup qualify as curbside recycling, my skepticism appears well-founded. We should all wonder, after all, where the 57% recycling rate that the City is so proud of repeating actually comes from.
We can agree on one thing: the motivation for the City in dealing with trash is financial. In other words, any approach to solid waste disposal must continue to make money for the City and assist in balancing the budget.
I close with the observation that Mr. Takamura must realize that debate and the meaningful exchange of information are part of our process. This is our obligation as elected and appointed officials. One requirement of serving on this level is having the maturity to face criticism. Let there be no doubt, I will not sit quietly by while the City continues to dump on the Leeward Coast. I raised these questions before Mr. Takamura came onto the scene, and will continue to do so after Mr. Takamura moves on to his next project.
*Op-Ed was originally written for publication in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
Senator Colleen Hanabusa represents the 21st Senatorial District ( Ko ‘Olina, Kahe Point, Nanakuli, Ma‘ili, Wai‘anae, Makaha, Makua, Ka‘ena Point) on the Island of Oahu. She is the President of the Hawai‘i State Senate.