Proposed Incinerator a Bad Choice for Island

- Lin­da Damas Kel­ley, August 6, 2014, West Hawaii Today

Just hav­ing returned from a month­long main­land trip, I found that the waste-to-ener­gy con­tro­ver­sy has reached a boil­ing point. I just read recent com­men­taries by Hunter Bish­op and Nel­son Ho; like them, I too worked for the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment dur­ing the May­or Har­ry Kim admin­is­tra­tion. If noth­ing has changed in the incin­er­a­tion world, why are we even hav­ing this con­ver­sa­tion? In case any­one for­got, the Coun­ty of Hawaii has a stand­ing Zero Waste Res­o­lu­tion adopt­ed in 2007. A pre­vi­ous Coun­ty Coun­cil vot­ed down incin­er­a­tion because of its for­ev­er mon­ey-suck­ing main­te­nance issues.

So, why is our may­or, if he tru­ly loves the Big Island, insist­ing on shov­ing an incin­er­a­tor down our throats?

As a coun­ty work­er I learned that com­pa­nies sell­ing waste-to-ener­gy burn­ers get island com­mu­ni­ties to buy into them because once installed the com­pa­ny can gar­ner huge fees year after year. While in coun­ty employ, I spoke to a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Cay­man Islands where one of these burn­ing beasts was ped­aled. She stat­ed how much it costs them and wished they had gone a more sus­tain­able route. Incin­er­a­tion is old tech­nol­o­gy. Island com­mu­ni­ties are spe­cial worlds; the Big Island being more so since we already have a nat­ur­al chem­i­cal emit­ter, the volcano.

The Big Island has a chance to show that a zero waste approach to deal with our dis­pos­ables as resources works.

Every­where I trav­eled, peo­ple are think­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Com­mu­ni­ties are recy­cling more as they see the val­ue in met­als, mulch, paper and plas­tics, to the point that old land­fills are being mined to get these resources.

Vot­ers, edu­cate your­selves on where the cur­rent can­di­dates for Coun­ty Coun­cil stand on this issue. The coun­cil will decide the fate of our waste issues, not May­or Bil­ly Kenoi.