City officials upset about a short extension to its Leeward Oahu landfill are right about one thing: No matter what happens, we will continue to produce garbage and it will have to go somewhere.

The question is, where? A private company will take some of our garbage, but not all of it, to the Mainland for a substantial price. The H-Power plant, which lies just below the Waimanalo Gulch landfill, takes a fair amount and will take more once a third boiler is built and in operation.

And the garbage stream will continue to shrink as all of us get better at recycling.

But at the end of the day, we are still going to need a dump somewhere. Since the Waimanalo Gulch landfill is there and can offer additional capacity, the City would like to see it keep going for at least another 15 years. That’s a bitter pill to nearby residents who were promised by former Mayor Jeremy Harris that the site would be closed for good by 2008.

Now, the state Land Use Commission is offering an additional three years, far less than what the City says it needs and far more than what local residents believe they were promised.

If the landfill is to be continued for any substantial amount of time (and no one has come up with a comprehensive, realistic alternative), then the surrounding Leeward community deserves far more in impact payments than have thus far been offered. We all benefit from not having garbage dumps in our backyards. Our property and neighborhoods are worth more as a result. Shouldn’t some of those benefits rightfully flow back to the folks who have to host our opala?

Tags: garbage, Leeward, Waimanalo Gulch

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