The Kauaʻi County Council could ensure that communities on the island share the burden of hosting their landfill.
The island’s Kekaha Landfill is expected to reach capacity in 2030, and the search for a new landfill site is underway. A proposed county bill would not allow new landfills within a six-mile radius of one that has accepted waste in the last 30 years.
The bill is directed at Kekaha Landfill — the only landfill on the island — and protecting the west side community. The landfill opened in 1953, and since then has been the island’s waste repository.
The measure was introduced by Councilmember Fern Holland, who said the area is environmentally sensitive because of its history as a wetland and its connection to the coastal environment.
She added the landfill was approved when there were fewer environmental standards.
"Knowing what we know now, I do not believe the Kekaha Landfill should've ever been located where it is," Holland said at a Thursday council meeting, adding, "Kekaha has carried Kauaʻi's islandwide waste burden for decades. We cannot undo the decision to locate that landfill on this environmentally sensitive coastal plain, but we can decide to not repeat that mistake."
Holland noted the bill doesn’t prevent current work on the landfill to expand its current capacity.
At the meeting, some testifiers who live in the area said they and others have become sick because of their exposure to the hazardous waste at the landfill.
Others added that its smell can permeate through the town.
Hana Sclar, a teacher at Kekaha Elementary School who lives near the landfill, said the scale of the waste it holds suggests that broader changes need to be made in human consumption.
“I had the opportunity to actually visit inside and tour the landfill in a short five-minute drive from my house, and visiting 'Mount ʻŌpala', I saw the inside and the sheer scale of human waste produced island wide. I felt the gravity of human consumption firsthand,” Sclar said. “I firmly believe if everyone in this room were to experience for themselves the amount of trash that exists in their own local landfills, the world would be a much more different and thoughtful place.”
The County of Kauaʻi has identified a potential landfill about four miles north of Līhuʻe — on the east side of the island — on Maʻalo Road.
