Lawmakers and community leaders oppose planned Oahu landfill site

Ian Bauer, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Wed, January 29, 2025 at 7:02 AM HST

7 min read

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Opponents of Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration’s plan to site the city’s next solid-waste landfill on active pineapple fields above Central Oahu’s freshwater aquifer continued to denounce the action this week.

Elected officials, environmental advocates, agriculture insiders and the city’s top water chief appeared Tuesday at the state Capitol to promote new state-level legislation—namely, eight bills introduced in the state House or Senate—that largely seeks to prevent landfills from being placed above fresh groundwater sources anywhere in Hawaii.

That includes on a Wahiawa-­area site—west of Kamehameha Highway and north of Paalaa Uka Pupu ­kea Road—where the city proposed a new dump on agricultural land currently owned by Dole Food Co. Hawaii.

The city says it hopes to negotiate a purchase of about 150 acres—the amount of land needed for a solid-waste landfill—out of what it described as an approximately 2, 360-acre parcel now owned by Dole.

Dole has stated its opposition to the city having a landfill on its active farming property.

The city’s move comes as it faced a state-­imposed Dec. 31, 2024, deadline to find an alternate dump site, ahead of the planned closure of the 35-year-old Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill in Kapolei, in accordance with a 2019 decision and order by the state Land Use Commission.

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That West Oahu dump is set to close in 2028, though the landfill will not reach full capacity until 2032, the city said.

But surrounded by over 20 people holding signs reading “Water = Life, ” “No Landfill ” and “Ola i ka Wai, ” House Majority Leader Sean Quinlan spoke against contamination like toxic heavy metals or man-made PFAS, “forever chemicals ” that do not break down in the environment, which might leach out of a landfill over time.