Council candidates take on trash hauling

By ERIN MILLER

Stephens Media

Several candidates for two Hawaii County Council districts were clear Thursday evening: The county should not be hauling trash from East Hawaii to the Puuanahulu Landfill.

Of the six council candidates at the candidate forum in Waimea, three said they preferred other ways of dealing with the imminent closure of the Hilo Landfill.

Others said they needed more information, or noted the inevitability of hauling the garbage because of previous rejections of landfill alternatives.

“I will not support hauling trash from Hilo to Kona,” said Chelsea Yagong, one of three District 1 candidates. “It’s the biggest ticket the Big Island taxpayers are going to have to deal with in the next 20 years.”

Better, she said, would be siting a new landfill next to the Hilo landfill. She suggested building that landfill 7 acres at a time, in several increments, while the county continues to learn more about alternatives to trucking rubbish.

“It’s already there,” she said. “It’s not the solution to the problem. Landfills are archaic. We need to move forward with more advanced technology.”

Puna is the fastest growing region in the state, so why should the county truck rubbish from the there to West Hawaii, she added.

One of her opponents, Valerie Poindexter, said she couldn’t make a decision yet.

“I’m not going to make any promises and say that ‘I’m for or not,’ because I think we need to work together,” she said. “Where is it appropriate? I haven’t looked at the studies yet. Do they need to move it to Puuanahulu?”

Poindexter said the logging company that has recently began harvesting and hauling eucalyptus trees to Kawaihae Harbor had acted irresponsibly by not meeting with the community about that decision.

A third candidate in that race, Jo Kim, also said she would need to get more information on the issue.

“Is the only alternative to haul it?” Kim asked. “I don’t know.”

Kim, addressing another top county issue, geothermal energy production, said she doesn’t see any problems with pursuing geothermal.

“I am all for geothermal,” Kim said.

Agriculture is one of Kim’s main campaign issues.

“It’s important to preserve the Hamakua district and keep it separate from the Hilo urbanites,” Kim said. “My job as a council member will be to protect the agricultural corridor for food.”

In District 9, two candidates said they opposed hauling trash. Margaret Wille said she prefers to view garbage as an asset.

“There are plenty of other places where they do it as a resource,” Wille said. “Use it for energy, use it for compost.”

She doesn’t see any limitations to the existing Hilo landfill site.

She cited her background in writing legislation as one thing that sets her apart from her fellow council members.

“If you have something you want and need, I am good at crafting solutions that take into account different fears and pulling it together,” Wille said.

Sonny Shimaoka, also running in District 9, said he also opposed hauling rubbish to Puuanahulu. He said he agreed with Yagong, that using the 40 acres adjacent to the Hilo landfill is a good stopgap measure.

“We don’t have money,” and hauling the rubbish is too expensive, he said. “We’ve got to look for something that’s going to be economical right now and use the time we buy building the landfill in Hilo to look at alternative energy.”

He’s spoken with engineers who said the Puuanahulu landfill has 25 to 30 years of life left. He’d prefer to save that space for an emergency, for example if a tsunami hits Hawaii Island, he said.

Shimaoka, a pastor, said he would work for collaboration and mediation on the council.

“We’ve got to have some kind of a good working relationship where we’re not coming in with suspicion from the get-go,” he said.

The third District 9 candidate, Bill Sanborn, served on the environmental management commission. He said the county doesn’t really have any alternatives available right now except to take Hilo’s rubbish to Puuanahulu.

It would only take one more Environmental Protection Agency mandate to close the Hilo landfill, he said.

“We’ve spent $2 million, $3 million on the council trying to find a technology we can make money out of (garbage),” Sanborn said. “When that door was closed, we updated the solid waste plan. What we really want to do is limit what goes in there by doing some recycling and doing some sorting. They’ve been trying to do that.”

Five candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives District 2 seat, which includes rural Oahu and all the neighbor islands, also attended the forum.

Two candidates split on the issue of genetically modified organisms, a question posed by several attendees. Tulsi Gabbard said she supported a ban on GMOs.

“This island is really the breadbasket of the state,” Gabbard said. “That’s why that question is so important.”

Gabbard, a war veteran, said she supported the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, a position that won praise from at least one attendee, who asked for clarification on that position.

Former City and County of Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann said he supported labeling of GMOs, but he supported biotechnology.

He said he also supported a visa waiver program to make it easier for Chinese tourists to enter the country.

“We need to take a page from what we’ve done with Japan, the visa waiver program there, take advantage of the potential of that Chinese market,” Hannemann said. “We’re poised as a country to promote and market the U.S. internationally. Who is going to benefit from that? Hawaii.”

Hilo attorney Robert Marx, also seeking the U.S. House seat, said the economy is the biggest issue facing the state.

Esther Kiaaina cited her work as a Congressional staffer, her educational background and policy experience as a reasons to select her as the Democratic candidate, while Rafael del Castillo cited his community work as experience that would translate well to the House office.

Email Erin Miller at emiller@westhawaiitoday.com.