The City and County of Honolulu says it may condemn land to expand the capacity of the island's landfill in West Oʻahu.
The administration wants to expand the Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill, which is scheduled to close in 2028 — ahead of reaching capacity.
Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi told state lawmakers this week that the city is currently discussing expanding the landfill into the nearby Makaiwa Hills, which the James Campbell Company wants to develop into a residential community.
Blangiardi said the city may have to resort to eminent domain to use that land.
“We're in discussions with Campbell. That's really an extension of the Waimanalo Gulch, but it'll stay in the west side. We're in serious discussions with them. It may not be friendly. They're not really happy about that, but we need a landfill,” he said.
At the end of 2024 the city administration announced plans to place a new landfill in Wahiawā, but those plans were met with heavy pushback because it would have been placed on active farm land and above an aquifer.
Community opposition then became law when the state Legislature passed a bill banning the placement of landfills above aquifers.
Blangiardi said the location was sufficient, but it was a last resort.
“We decided to pick a place in Wahiawā that was 800 feet over an aquifer, sufficiently far away from any population, within all the boundaries based on the laws that were passed. And then the laws got changed on us,” he said.
“The goal post got moved, and they said, ‘No, you can't do that because we don't believe, despite the science of today's technology, that you could build something 800 feet over an aquifer.”
Since then, the city has said that it has nowhere else to put a new landfill.
But residents on Oʻahu's west side have also pushed back against continuing to use that area for the landfill. The Waimanalo Gulch landfill, located off Farrington Highway near Ko Olina, has been in operation since 1989.
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