The County of Maui announced the permanent wildfire debris dump site at a meeting Wednesday.
Officials plan to send debris and ash from the August wildfire that destroyed Lahaina town to the Central Maui Landfill area, east of Puʻunēnē and next to the current landfill.
The Central Maui Landfill has the advantage of being far from populated areas, and officials don’t believe material deposited there will contaminate drinking water supplies.
It's unclear when the landfill will be open and start accepting cleanup debris. The county still has to acquire the land and prepare the area.
Shayne Agawa, director of the county's Department of Environmental Management, said officials evaluated the potential debris sites for months. Before choosing the Central Maui site, officials invited residents to submit feedback, receiving nearly 2,800 responses.
The landfill will have to expand to accommodate the new debris. It's also 26 miles from Lahaina, and the trucks making the trip are expected to add to traffic. Agawa said officials plan to use old sugar cane plantation roads for part of the trip to limit this effect.
The two other finalist sites were north of Lahaina, in the Wahikuli area and at Crater Village. The Wahikuli site is near residential areas and the coastline, while using the Crater Village site could have interfered with the drinking water.
Meanwhile, workers with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will continue to bring the 400,000 tons of debris from Lahaina to the temporary site at Olowalu. Environmentalists raised concerns about storing debris there long-term, saying doing so could harm offshore coral reefs.
At least 200 residential lots in Lahaina have been cleared so far.
The deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century killed 101 people and destroyed 3,000 properties, leaving behind burned cars, charred beams and toxic ash.
