Bill Text: HI SB1425 | 2012 | Regular Session | Amended

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Bill Title: Solid Waste Management; Landfills

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 4-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2011-12-01 - Carried over to 2012 Regular Session. [SB1425 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2012-SB1425-Amended.html

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STAND. COM. REP. NO. 339

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 1425

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2011

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committees on Energy and Environment and Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 1425 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to prohibit landfills in a county with a population greater than or equal to 500,000 from accepting municipal solid waste beginning July 1, 2012, and to prohibit landfills in counties with populations less than 500,000 from accepting municipal solid waste after a date determined by a resolution of the respective county's legislative body.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from Marti Townsend, KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance; Ken Williams, Ko Olina Resort & Marina; The Resort Group; and Cynthia K. L. Rezentes.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from Loretta J. Fuddy, Department of Health; Timothy E. Steinberger, Department of Environmental Services, City and County of Honolulu; and Shannon Wood, Windward Ahupua‘a Alliance.

 

     Your Committees find that nations around the globe have established alternatives to landfills and that in an island state such as Hawaii it is appropriate to investigate other options for disposing of solid waste.  Your Committees further find that a certain landfill in the State has incurred multiple fines, received several extensions, and contributed to significant environmental degradation even after the community that bears those burdens was promised that the landfill would be closed.

 

     Your Committees do recognize, however, that landfills are necessary for the foreseeable future and that if landfills are forced to close, then certain counties will likely bear the burden of accepting solid waste from certain entities that currently take care of their own solid waste.  Further, obtaining a permit for a new landfill is a lengthy process that may take five to six years.

 

     Accordingly, your Committees have amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Specifying that only the largest landfill as of January 1, 2011, in a county with a population greater than or equal to 500,000 shall be prohibited from accepting municipal solid waste; and

 

     (2)  Extending to July 1, 2017, the date from which that landfill shall be prohibited from accepting municipal solid waste.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Energy and Environment and Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1425, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1425, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Energy and Environment and Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs,

 

____________________________ WILL ESPERO, Chair

____________________________ MIKE GABBARD, Chair