YOU WANT IT WHEN?: We tried- we really did.
But once again, like clockwork, our "little buddy" Leo Azambuja, apparently watched a different county council committee meeting than we did a week ago Wednesday (October 28).
Although the agenda item was a report on the new landfill, what actually happened apparently went completely over Azambuja's head.
The acronym MRF- standing for Materials Recovery Facility- never saw the light of day in the article on the meeting. But it was the central topic of discussion after it was discovered that, despite the desperate need for a MRF to move forward on curbside recycling, the administration, as many have feared, is apparently going to wait for the process of siting the new landfill and completing an environmental impact statement to even start actually building a MRF.
That's because, according to Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura, the administration of Mayor Bernard Carvalho is apparently so enamored of their vision for a Resource Recovery Facility at the same location as the new landfill that they won't even consider anything else.
Rather than starting the process now separately from the landfill siting- which won't be done until at least 2020 according to the administration's presentation- there were no plans presented to indicate that the administration even considered trying to get the MRF "done yesterday" so to speak, in order to divert trash from the old, nearing-capacity landfill so as to buy time for siting a new one.
That would mean construction of an MRF won't even start until June of 2016, Yukimura indicated after looking at the administration's timeline.
Not only that but siting the MRF and other resource recovery facilities inland and near the new landfill is a numbskull idea for a number of reasons despite widespread claims that it "sounds logical."
First of all, as Yukimura and Councilperson Tim Bynum both pointed out, hauling the recyclables far inland- where the presumed new landfill site is- and then back to the harbor will increase costs immensely. But siting the MRF near the harbor would actually make sense so apparently it wasn't considered by the administration.
What no one mentioned is the massive mix of trucks going in and out will cause unneeded congestion costing time and money. And of course if the facilities are too close to the landfill itself, it would put the kibosh on expansion into the area where the facilities are sited.
The reality is that, despite the fact that a MRF was supposed to be completed this year according to the Integrated Solid Waste Program the county approved years ago- and that the "pilot" curbside recycling program had to be suspended for lack of a MRF- there is apparently still no fire under the butts of the Department of Public Works to get the process started except as part of the landfill siting process.
County Engineer Larry Dill did come forward to say that the administration was supposedly working separately on a MRF but it seems like a CYA afterthought. It came only after former County Engineer and current Environmental Services Officer Donald Fujimoto seemed incredibly befuddled by the criticism, apparently because the administration has been so stuck on the concept of putting all the trash-related stuff in one place that they didn't see the need for a MRF as being the most important solid-waste-related project for the county right now.
The whole matter will be back on the agenda soon because the discussion was continually being cut short since the subjects of the MRF and the old landfill weren't even on the agenda.
But the fact that even after the embarrassment of having to cut short the pilot curbside recycling program, even after the passage of a new zero waste resolution by the council AND administration, even though the current landfill's life apparently won't get us to the opening of a new landfill and it's filling up faster than it was supposed to and even though all those recyclables are going into the current landfill because there is no MRF, the administration is still in la-la land with their grand plan for their one-stop opala palace.
Excuse us while we look for a place to get sick.
Showing posts with label Zero-Waste. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zero-Waste. Show all posts
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
MRF-FREE'S LAW
MRF-FREE'S LAW: There's a sure way to get our blood boiling- mention solid waste and Kaua`i county government in the same sentence.
Back in the early-mid 90's, when the term "zero-waste" was just a'bornin', Dr. Ray Chuan, activist extraordinaire, used to walk into the council chambers each week with stacks of papers and during the interstitial periods, start pawing through them.
Of course we couldn't resist looking over his shoulder and so much to our amazement we and eventually the rest of the "nitpickers" became experts on the last thing in which we wanted to stick our noses- literally or figuratively... trash.
It didn't take a genius to see that the costliest- and stupidest- thing that could be done was to dig a hole in the ground and bury valuable materials rather than recycle them. The solution was- and is- to make it as easy for folks to separate them out of their yucky trash, pick them up curbside and bring them to a place to separate them for shipment, as many places on the mainland were already either doing or planning to do at the time.
Now more than 15 years later and three administrations later Kaua`i not only doesn't have a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) but, according to the local newspaper- albeit buried mid-way through an article- Mayor Bernard Carvalho has no real plans to build one, making recycling as haphazard and costly as possible.
It's not like the money to plan and build a MRF hasn't been appropriated by the council at least four time we can think of since the turn of the century. Every single bond float- and restructuring of bonds- has included money for the facility which needs to be the first thing that is done in either a "zero-waste" program or the "integrated solid waste" strategy the county has embraced.
It has also been included in almost every capital improvement budget since then to no avail. If we didn't know better we'd think there was no one who knew how to both build a large warehouse and kick back money to the Department of Public Works' Solid Waste Division and the various mayors.
The article is, as usual when penned by Leo Azambuja, fairly useless in explaining why the heck a MRF is not in Carvalho's budget this year, preferring to concentrate on the reasons why the council refused to waste money by continuing to pay our state senator's brother an exorbitant rate to separate a small amount of curbside recycled materials, recovered through a now-canceled "pilot project."
It's just another textbook example of the county's "ready, fire, aim" modus operandi.
But further, the article fails to point out the massive costs of dumping most of our recyclable goods in our overflowing landfill to the point where some have suggested "mining" the old cells, not just to recover the materials discarded over the years but to open up space so as to delay for as long as decades the need to site a new one that nobody wants in their backyard anyway.
Instead Carvalho is still adamant about siting the MRF in the area in which he is proposing to put the new landfill even though planning and permitting for the dump could be a decade away. That means that in Carvalho's mind we will keep on doing what's wrong as long as we can, falling further behind the rest of the world in solid waste management.
Meanwhile the cart is not just before the horse, it's rolling down an endless hill and gathering speed with no equine activity on the horizon.
Of course if the planning and design had been done years ago the county might have even had the whole shebang paid for by the federal government when the they were looking for "shovel ready" public works projects a couple of years back- as they may be doing again next year.
Carvalho seems to have no trouble acting on a dime when it comes to hiring another suck-up crony to fill another new administration position. But when it comes to capital improvement projects the bungling seems almost intentional.
The old "is it incompetence or is in malfeasance?" question was seemingly made for the last three mayors. But the more Carvalho's administrative skills are on display, the more we have to believe it's the latter more than the former.
Back in the early-mid 90's, when the term "zero-waste" was just a'bornin', Dr. Ray Chuan, activist extraordinaire, used to walk into the council chambers each week with stacks of papers and during the interstitial periods, start pawing through them.
Of course we couldn't resist looking over his shoulder and so much to our amazement we and eventually the rest of the "nitpickers" became experts on the last thing in which we wanted to stick our noses- literally or figuratively... trash.
It didn't take a genius to see that the costliest- and stupidest- thing that could be done was to dig a hole in the ground and bury valuable materials rather than recycle them. The solution was- and is- to make it as easy for folks to separate them out of their yucky trash, pick them up curbside and bring them to a place to separate them for shipment, as many places on the mainland were already either doing or planning to do at the time.
Now more than 15 years later and three administrations later Kaua`i not only doesn't have a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) but, according to the local newspaper- albeit buried mid-way through an article- Mayor Bernard Carvalho has no real plans to build one, making recycling as haphazard and costly as possible.
It's not like the money to plan and build a MRF hasn't been appropriated by the council at least four time we can think of since the turn of the century. Every single bond float- and restructuring of bonds- has included money for the facility which needs to be the first thing that is done in either a "zero-waste" program or the "integrated solid waste" strategy the county has embraced.
It has also been included in almost every capital improvement budget since then to no avail. If we didn't know better we'd think there was no one who knew how to both build a large warehouse and kick back money to the Department of Public Works' Solid Waste Division and the various mayors.
The article is, as usual when penned by Leo Azambuja, fairly useless in explaining why the heck a MRF is not in Carvalho's budget this year, preferring to concentrate on the reasons why the council refused to waste money by continuing to pay our state senator's brother an exorbitant rate to separate a small amount of curbside recycled materials, recovered through a now-canceled "pilot project."
It's just another textbook example of the county's "ready, fire, aim" modus operandi.
But further, the article fails to point out the massive costs of dumping most of our recyclable goods in our overflowing landfill to the point where some have suggested "mining" the old cells, not just to recover the materials discarded over the years but to open up space so as to delay for as long as decades the need to site a new one that nobody wants in their backyard anyway.
Instead Carvalho is still adamant about siting the MRF in the area in which he is proposing to put the new landfill even though planning and permitting for the dump could be a decade away. That means that in Carvalho's mind we will keep on doing what's wrong as long as we can, falling further behind the rest of the world in solid waste management.
Meanwhile the cart is not just before the horse, it's rolling down an endless hill and gathering speed with no equine activity on the horizon.
Of course if the planning and design had been done years ago the county might have even had the whole shebang paid for by the federal government when the they were looking for "shovel ready" public works projects a couple of years back- as they may be doing again next year.
Carvalho seems to have no trouble acting on a dime when it comes to hiring another suck-up crony to fill another new administration position. But when it comes to capital improvement projects the bungling seems almost intentional.
The old "is it incompetence or is in malfeasance?" question was seemingly made for the last three mayors. But the more Carvalho's administrative skills are on display, the more we have to believe it's the latter more than the former.
Monday, April 19, 2010
BIN THERE, DUNCE THAT
BIN THERE, DUNCE THAT: The news that the mayor’s proposed budget contains a provision to start charging for curbside trash collection in 2012 is certain to cause the knee-jerked feet of the “I don’t want to pay for the services I demand” crowd to start up their usual dance of the demented dimwits.
But for anyone who’s paid attention to the last few years of council wrangling over the final R.W. Beck report’s solid waste plan it’s yet another “can’t anyone here play this game” moment from Bernard the Big Babooze’s “ready, fire, aim” compatriots.
Although much to it’s discredit it ain’t no “Zero Waste” study, the final Beck report did manage to include at least one Zero Waste concept on recycling- one that was changed after almost two years of recent community and council criticism that spurred the consultants to go back and recommend a curbside recycling and central sorting process for waste stream reduction.
After endless hours the final report called for the county to first build what’s called a MERF – a materials recycling facility- and then implement a curbside recycling program with separate bins for all recyclables.
Then and only then- once citizens are given the opportunity to easily reduce their and the county’s waste stream- was a plan to implement a fee system for curbside trash pickup to be started.
But one of the council’s recommendations was that the fees should be collected only on a second bin each week in order to incentivize recycling.
The savings in this system are well established. Not only is the trash stream greatly diminished due to the decreased need for landfilling- including all the ancillary operations such as transportation- but the process yields a commodity in the recycled materials.
It’s call a "integrated” process for a reason- each element is based on the other with each one dependant on doing it in the right order- first the facility, then the recyclables collection, then the fees.
But the ever-incompetent Department of Public Works dunderheads first went out and bought a half a million dollars worth of recycling bins and set up a “pilot project” in Lihu`e with no place to bring the collected recyclables. Then instead of using the process to give people a cash reason to recycle they are not only going to charge everyone for the first bin but are going to further remove it from the users’ consciousness by adding it onto the real property tax of the property owners.
While a MERF and island wide curbside recycling is on the horizon they surely won’t be ready by the time the fees kick in.
But why should this time be any different than the others in a series of ignored and un-acted-upon Beck reports we’ve paid for over and over for the past decade or so?
But for anyone who’s paid attention to the last few years of council wrangling over the final R.W. Beck report’s solid waste plan it’s yet another “can’t anyone here play this game” moment from Bernard the Big Babooze’s “ready, fire, aim” compatriots.
Although much to it’s discredit it ain’t no “Zero Waste” study, the final Beck report did manage to include at least one Zero Waste concept on recycling- one that was changed after almost two years of recent community and council criticism that spurred the consultants to go back and recommend a curbside recycling and central sorting process for waste stream reduction.
After endless hours the final report called for the county to first build what’s called a MERF – a materials recycling facility- and then implement a curbside recycling program with separate bins for all recyclables.
Then and only then- once citizens are given the opportunity to easily reduce their and the county’s waste stream- was a plan to implement a fee system for curbside trash pickup to be started.
But one of the council’s recommendations was that the fees should be collected only on a second bin each week in order to incentivize recycling.
The savings in this system are well established. Not only is the trash stream greatly diminished due to the decreased need for landfilling- including all the ancillary operations such as transportation- but the process yields a commodity in the recycled materials.
It’s call a "integrated” process for a reason- each element is based on the other with each one dependant on doing it in the right order- first the facility, then the recyclables collection, then the fees.
But the ever-incompetent Department of Public Works dunderheads first went out and bought a half a million dollars worth of recycling bins and set up a “pilot project” in Lihu`e with no place to bring the collected recyclables. Then instead of using the process to give people a cash reason to recycle they are not only going to charge everyone for the first bin but are going to further remove it from the users’ consciousness by adding it onto the real property tax of the property owners.
While a MERF and island wide curbside recycling is on the horizon they surely won’t be ready by the time the fees kick in.
But why should this time be any different than the others in a series of ignored and un-acted-upon Beck reports we’ve paid for over and over for the past decade or so?
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
(PNN) SOURCES SAY MAYOR TO ANNOUNCE “NEW” KEKAHA LANDFILL SITING BY APRIL 15
SOURCES SAY MAYOR TO ANNOUNCE “NEW” KEKAHA LANDFILL SITING BY APRIL 15
(PNN)-- Mayor Bernard Carvalho has told multiple reliable sources that will be announcing the new landfill site on or before April 15 and, according to many, that site is likely to be the one across the highway from the current landfill in Kekaha.
According to reports the previously selected “Umi” site in Kalaheo was “mis-scored” when the fact that it is currently in long term agricultural use by Kaua`i Coffee was not considered and Carvalho has told many community members that he will have an announcement of the new scoring results by April 15.
“Discussions continue in regards to the next steps on the landfill siting. The Mayor is hoping to issue a statement on this matter later this month” according to county spokesperson Mary Daubert who would not confirm the date or the selection of Kekaha..
“Kekaha Mauka” was announced as the site ranked second by a task force earlier this year and a source close to the current process who asked not to be identified told us that it is likely to be the one “selected” on the 15th.
But anyone who thinks that the Kekaha community will be up in arms over environmental justice concerns had better think again.
“I don’t really have any objections” community leader Bruce Pleas told PNN “ as long as the ‘host community benefit (HCB)’ is sufficient and the community buys in”.
Although he thinks that there could be some new more innovative ways to deal with the current and new site he doesn’t think most of the people of Kekaha will object since they have already bought into the concept of being paid by the county for hosting the current landfill.
But that presumes problems with the current HCB can be resolved.
Under a current program the county has set up a HCB Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) which is deciding what to do with $650,000 plus another $80,000 in yearly monies designed to compensate the town for the last 57 years of hosting, the first the “dump” and later, the “sanitary landfill”.
The problem is that the money is still under county control according to a source close to the advisory group who asked not to be identified because it is “too controversial a topic and it will take skill and time to assess the broad range of perspectives, attitudes, and feelings emanating from the community of Kekaha”.
The original amount of $650,000.00 which the County Council approved has not yet been "received" by the community, our source told us.
“That amount is in the Solid Waste department of the County of Kauai. The additional amount of $80,000.00 is also with the Solid Waste department. Presumably, an amount will be allocated annually to the community when the landfill is sited, until such time when the County of Kauai decides that no Host Community Benefit Fund will be awarded.”
How the money will be distributed and how the final decision on how to use it will be made remains problematic, with the HCB CAC wanting to make sure that the community gets to make the final decision and the administration wanting to retain final say over how the money is spent.
“As matters now stand... (a)t the last (CAC) meeting, it was decided that some recommendations would be made in writing to the Mayor for the Mayor's consideration as to whether the recommendations should be implemented. At that meeting, also, a formal request was submitted by the community organization to have the HCB Fund allocation awarded directly to the organization to hold in behalf of the community with the understanding that the HCB Fund CANNOT be expended by the community organization without the approval of the community in determining as to how that fund should be expended.” our source said in an email.
If that issue can be resolved the question remains as to whether the community will buy into hosting the new landfill without some guarantees over how much more money they will receive, how the money will be distributed and their ability to determine how the money will be spent.
For his part Pleas wonders whether there isn’t another more innovative way to use the existing footprint.
Places on the mainland have been “mining” their old dumps that contain mostly metals, glass and other recyclable items after all the organic waste has decomposed, he said.
If that were done to the 36 acre closed “phase 1”- using the in-use “cells B and C” for the “mined” non-recyclable materials- we’d have not just have a huge area for a “new” landfill site but could have all of our prior solid waste placed over currently required “liners” to insure against leakage into the water table and ocean, Pleas said.
But that would require implementation of a “zero waste” program which the county council recently nixed in approving a coordinated solid waste approach contained in the latest iteration of the county-funded R.W Beck study.
Also dealing with all the toxic materials- which any long time Kekaha resident will attest were dumped there over the years, especially by the nearby navy base- could make such a project problematic.
The county has grappled with siting a new landfill since at least 1988 when then-mayoral-candidate JoAnn Yukimura called the lack of landfill space a “crisis” that needed immediate attention.
-----
Another long weekend a’comn’. Be back Monday.
(PNN)-- Mayor Bernard Carvalho has told multiple reliable sources that will be announcing the new landfill site on or before April 15 and, according to many, that site is likely to be the one across the highway from the current landfill in Kekaha.
According to reports the previously selected “Umi” site in Kalaheo was “mis-scored” when the fact that it is currently in long term agricultural use by Kaua`i Coffee was not considered and Carvalho has told many community members that he will have an announcement of the new scoring results by April 15.
“Discussions continue in regards to the next steps on the landfill siting. The Mayor is hoping to issue a statement on this matter later this month” according to county spokesperson Mary Daubert who would not confirm the date or the selection of Kekaha..
“Kekaha Mauka” was announced as the site ranked second by a task force earlier this year and a source close to the current process who asked not to be identified told us that it is likely to be the one “selected” on the 15th.
But anyone who thinks that the Kekaha community will be up in arms over environmental justice concerns had better think again.
“I don’t really have any objections” community leader Bruce Pleas told PNN “ as long as the ‘host community benefit (HCB)’ is sufficient and the community buys in”.
Although he thinks that there could be some new more innovative ways to deal with the current and new site he doesn’t think most of the people of Kekaha will object since they have already bought into the concept of being paid by the county for hosting the current landfill.
But that presumes problems with the current HCB can be resolved.
Under a current program the county has set up a HCB Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) which is deciding what to do with $650,000 plus another $80,000 in yearly monies designed to compensate the town for the last 57 years of hosting, the first the “dump” and later, the “sanitary landfill”.
The problem is that the money is still under county control according to a source close to the advisory group who asked not to be identified because it is “too controversial a topic and it will take skill and time to assess the broad range of perspectives, attitudes, and feelings emanating from the community of Kekaha”.
The original amount of $650,000.00 which the County Council approved has not yet been "received" by the community, our source told us.
“That amount is in the Solid Waste department of the County of Kauai. The additional amount of $80,000.00 is also with the Solid Waste department. Presumably, an amount will be allocated annually to the community when the landfill is sited, until such time when the County of Kauai decides that no Host Community Benefit Fund will be awarded.”
How the money will be distributed and how the final decision on how to use it will be made remains problematic, with the HCB CAC wanting to make sure that the community gets to make the final decision and the administration wanting to retain final say over how the money is spent.
“As matters now stand... (a)t the last (CAC) meeting, it was decided that some recommendations would be made in writing to the Mayor for the Mayor's consideration as to whether the recommendations should be implemented. At that meeting, also, a formal request was submitted by the community organization to have the HCB Fund allocation awarded directly to the organization to hold in behalf of the community with the understanding that the HCB Fund CANNOT be expended by the community organization without the approval of the community in determining as to how that fund should be expended.” our source said in an email.
If that issue can be resolved the question remains as to whether the community will buy into hosting the new landfill without some guarantees over how much more money they will receive, how the money will be distributed and their ability to determine how the money will be spent.
For his part Pleas wonders whether there isn’t another more innovative way to use the existing footprint.
Places on the mainland have been “mining” their old dumps that contain mostly metals, glass and other recyclable items after all the organic waste has decomposed, he said.
If that were done to the 36 acre closed “phase 1”- using the in-use “cells B and C” for the “mined” non-recyclable materials- we’d have not just have a huge area for a “new” landfill site but could have all of our prior solid waste placed over currently required “liners” to insure against leakage into the water table and ocean, Pleas said.
But that would require implementation of a “zero waste” program which the county council recently nixed in approving a coordinated solid waste approach contained in the latest iteration of the county-funded R.W Beck study.
Also dealing with all the toxic materials- which any long time Kekaha resident will attest were dumped there over the years, especially by the nearby navy base- could make such a project problematic.
The county has grappled with siting a new landfill since at least 1988 when then-mayoral-candidate JoAnn Yukimura called the lack of landfill space a “crisis” that needed immediate attention.
-----
Another long weekend a’comn’. Be back Monday.
Monday, December 21, 2009
INDECISIVE DREAMIN’
INDECISIVE DREAMIN’: We’re not skilled in dream interpretation but you don’t have to be to figure out the one we had last night right after watching the administration and their consultants’ presentation to the council on the “proposed” new dump location in the middle of the island’s most productive ag land in Kalaheo.
In it, we were having coffee with Mayor Bernard Carvalho and, as he blathered on about what a great mayor he was and how, as he said in his last campaign, “it’s all about leadership”, we stopped hearing him speak and suddenly focused on his moving mouth.
And slowly beyond the gums, over the teeth and through the tonsils and adenoids there it was- the slowly emerging image of Beth Tokioka spinning a silk purse out of a sows ear.
OK not really... but it coulda happened.
For those who haven’t watched the meeting yet, what stood out was the amazing backtracking and finally actual denial- done through the mouth of County Engineer Donald Fujimoto- that the “Umi” site had actually been “selected” by the mayor.
This bit of convoluted 180 could only have come from Tokioka in a desperate attempt to quell the outrage that’s built since Carvalho put his stamp of approval on his task force’s site selection, even touting how he had “done it” where other mayors had failed.
Now that the shibai has hit the fan everyone is running for cover, including Bernard who apparently just “supported the recommendation of his task force” but wasn’t really “selecting” anything... in fact. all the other potential sites are still in play.
That came after, upon council questioning, the consultant admitted that
1) They didn’t really know what was going to be effected or usurped at each potential site due to existing uses- all they did was check the tax maps and zoning.
2) No one even asked the land owners what the availability of their property was and
3) The fact that coffee was growing on the Kalaheo site was not part of the information considered in the “scoring” of each site in their supposed “double-blind” site selection process, one purportedly used to avoid any “NIMBY”- “not in my backyard”- conclusions.
But that “double blind” methodology was a complete joke according to one of the participants we spoke to who said that the members would have had to be total idiots to not know what they were scoring and in fact all of them scored the site(s) in the areas they represented the lowest.
In addition of course, as we could have predicted, their report began with the “fact” that no matter how much reuse, recycling and “transshipment” we will need a new landfill.
But as usual the “why” was conveniently skipped.
So, to get out the old baseball bat and deceased equine, they now have moved from totally ignoring the option of shipping out all the crap we ship in, to acknowledging the possibility but claiming they’ve invented some new kind of opala that can’t be “transshipped” to one of those readily available mainland dumps that are just begging for our discards.
In doing so they’ve moved from “why” we can’t ship it out- especially now that “cost” is not a good answer since Honolulu is doing it for less than it’s costing us per ton now- to “what” exactly is that substance that can’t be shipped out?
Watching the session one can’t help but do what councilmembers did- see a string of those little dollar signs with wings flying away as they listed all the hidden costs of just siting a new landfill, much less opening, running and closing one.
Yet for all the council’s concerns, none of them questioned the consultant’s brief “because I said so” premise for why we need a new dump at all, essentially saying that even with a good zero waste, Max-3R program the shipment of the last few drops to the mainland is impossible for some unstated reason and we still need to dig a hole somewhere and bury all the crap we bring in.
If you buy that, well, we have a bike path to sell ya.
In it, we were having coffee with Mayor Bernard Carvalho and, as he blathered on about what a great mayor he was and how, as he said in his last campaign, “it’s all about leadership”, we stopped hearing him speak and suddenly focused on his moving mouth.
And slowly beyond the gums, over the teeth and through the tonsils and adenoids there it was- the slowly emerging image of Beth Tokioka spinning a silk purse out of a sows ear.
OK not really... but it coulda happened.
For those who haven’t watched the meeting yet, what stood out was the amazing backtracking and finally actual denial- done through the mouth of County Engineer Donald Fujimoto- that the “Umi” site had actually been “selected” by the mayor.
This bit of convoluted 180 could only have come from Tokioka in a desperate attempt to quell the outrage that’s built since Carvalho put his stamp of approval on his task force’s site selection, even touting how he had “done it” where other mayors had failed.
Now that the shibai has hit the fan everyone is running for cover, including Bernard who apparently just “supported the recommendation of his task force” but wasn’t really “selecting” anything... in fact. all the other potential sites are still in play.
That came after, upon council questioning, the consultant admitted that
1) They didn’t really know what was going to be effected or usurped at each potential site due to existing uses- all they did was check the tax maps and zoning.
2) No one even asked the land owners what the availability of their property was and
3) The fact that coffee was growing on the Kalaheo site was not part of the information considered in the “scoring” of each site in their supposed “double-blind” site selection process, one purportedly used to avoid any “NIMBY”- “not in my backyard”- conclusions.
But that “double blind” methodology was a complete joke according to one of the participants we spoke to who said that the members would have had to be total idiots to not know what they were scoring and in fact all of them scored the site(s) in the areas they represented the lowest.
In addition of course, as we could have predicted, their report began with the “fact” that no matter how much reuse, recycling and “transshipment” we will need a new landfill.
But as usual the “why” was conveniently skipped.
So, to get out the old baseball bat and deceased equine, they now have moved from totally ignoring the option of shipping out all the crap we ship in, to acknowledging the possibility but claiming they’ve invented some new kind of opala that can’t be “transshipped” to one of those readily available mainland dumps that are just begging for our discards.
In doing so they’ve moved from “why” we can’t ship it out- especially now that “cost” is not a good answer since Honolulu is doing it for less than it’s costing us per ton now- to “what” exactly is that substance that can’t be shipped out?
Watching the session one can’t help but do what councilmembers did- see a string of those little dollar signs with wings flying away as they listed all the hidden costs of just siting a new landfill, much less opening, running and closing one.
Yet for all the council’s concerns, none of them questioned the consultant’s brief “because I said so” premise for why we need a new dump at all, essentially saying that even with a good zero waste, Max-3R program the shipment of the last few drops to the mainland is impossible for some unstated reason and we still need to dig a hole somewhere and bury all the crap we bring in.
If you buy that, well, we have a bike path to sell ya.
Monday, November 16, 2009
DUMP-DA-DUMP-DUMP
DUMP-DA-DUMP-DUMP: Many on Kaua`i were left scratching their heads when Mayor Bernard Carvalho accepted his Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Landfill Site Selection recommendation to place the new county landfill in the middle of arguably the most financially productive ag land on the island, currently in use growing coffee for the Kaua`i Coffee brand.
But those who strongly oppose the project location, through no fault of their own, might miss their big opportunity to register their specific complaints and apprehensions in the proper manner if all they read was a Friday press release from the county announcing a “Public information meeting on landfill siting process”
It begins:
KALĀHEO – A public information meeting regarding the landfill siting process is scheduled on Thursday, Nov. 19.
The meeting will be held at the Kalāheo Elementary School cafeteria from 6 to 9 pm. A comprehensive look at the landfill siting process will be covered at the meeting including: the results of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Landfill Site Selection (MACLS) ranking process and the next steps in siting the new landfill. The presentation will be made by R.M. Towill, Inc., the consultant that conducted the MACLS process.
Ah- a nice little chat to let the public know what the plans are, eh?
You might think so unless you read the following paragraph carefully- and have been paying enough attention to the wily ways of governmental and some private entities in recent years.
There will be a question and answer period following the presentation to identify pertinent environmental issues that should be considered in preparation of the environmental impact statement for the project.
What that means is that if you don’t show up to the little “Q&A” you will have missed the all important opportunity to present testimony- legally know as a “scoping meeting”- regarding the issues that should be considered in the EIS that must be prepared for the landfill project to go forward.
When the National and various state Environmental Protection Acts were passed and Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) became de rigor for covered projects, the main thing they were supposed to accomplish was to ensure that public testimony would drive the project.
But over the years the “playbook” for accomplishing this has evolved from holding open meetings where citizens are given opportunities to file up, one by one, to speak before the proposers and their peers on a given project, to the divide and conquer “public information meeting” that the county, like the rest of the country, uses these days.
When the first “draft EIS” is released what will be reflected in it- the items to be “mitigated”- will be limited for the most part to those gathered at this all important meeting. Then the public will be given one last chance to submit written testimony-usually within a short time frame of as little as 30 days (if you happen to hear about it)- to bring up matters that were missed during the “information”- read: scoping- meeting.
Then a “supplemental EIS” will be issued, accepted by the county and if you don’t like it you have a very short window to go to court to fight it (remember the Superferry and the reason Kauai couldn’t join the suit on Maui was that no one filed suit in time).
This has become “the” accepted methodology for preventing a dialogue regarding controversial issues.
But what many- like those ruing the fact that they “missed” the scoping meetings and in fact the whole process regarding the EIS on the bike-path boardwalk on Wailua Beach- don’t know is that, believe it or not, the new nation-wide methodology was established as a direct result of events right here on little Kaua`i.
In the 1980’s when the Navy wanted to shoot off a bunch of old, dilapidated “refurbished” Polaris Missiles as part of Ronnie Ray-Gun’s still unachievable “Star Wars” program at the Navy base (PMRF) in Mana, after citizen outrage forced Senator Dan Inouye to acquiesce to an EIS, a pubic hearing was held at the appropriately named War Memorial Convention Hall.
The place was packed for three days as thousands filed up to the microphone and told the attending military brass, face to face, where to shove their missiles. It galvanized a movement to opposed the program and eventually, although the Navy did mange to shoot off four of them. it was a miserable failure for the Navy.
But what they learned would change the whole way an EIS process is conducted.
The next time the Navy wanted to expand their program they invited people to a series of small, local “informational meetings” and where there were no microphones and in fact no stage area.
Rather they arranged to break up the crowd and shunt them to various “informational stations” where, after they listened to an interminable spiel from Navy personnel, they were permitted to talk one-on-one with someone with a notepad who wrote down what they thought they heard the person say.
There was no event, no dialogue and more importantly no press there to record the event... because there was no event for them to report.
This worked so well that few even knew what was happening before the EIS was signed sealed and delivered... and it initiated a “new way” of pushing through controversial projects with the least amount of controversy.
Frankly we think there’s no need for a new landfill given the fact that 100% of our non-greenwaste trash stream comes from the mainland and there are landfills there dying to take it back. And a good Zero Waste program would reduce the amount of true trash to be shipped out- at what appears to be a considerable savings if the Honolulu experience is exemplary- to a pittance.
So if you don’t like the Hobson’s Choice “Umi” location that those hell-bent on digging a big pit and throwing everything into it are recommending, you might want to attend this all important meeting Thursday.
But those who strongly oppose the project location, through no fault of their own, might miss their big opportunity to register their specific complaints and apprehensions in the proper manner if all they read was a Friday press release from the county announcing a “Public information meeting on landfill siting process”
It begins:
KALĀHEO – A public information meeting regarding the landfill siting process is scheduled on Thursday, Nov. 19.
The meeting will be held at the Kalāheo Elementary School cafeteria from 6 to 9 pm. A comprehensive look at the landfill siting process will be covered at the meeting including: the results of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Landfill Site Selection (MACLS) ranking process and the next steps in siting the new landfill. The presentation will be made by R.M. Towill, Inc., the consultant that conducted the MACLS process.
Ah- a nice little chat to let the public know what the plans are, eh?
You might think so unless you read the following paragraph carefully- and have been paying enough attention to the wily ways of governmental and some private entities in recent years.
There will be a question and answer period following the presentation to identify pertinent environmental issues that should be considered in preparation of the environmental impact statement for the project.
What that means is that if you don’t show up to the little “Q&A” you will have missed the all important opportunity to present testimony- legally know as a “scoping meeting”- regarding the issues that should be considered in the EIS that must be prepared for the landfill project to go forward.
When the National and various state Environmental Protection Acts were passed and Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) became de rigor for covered projects, the main thing they were supposed to accomplish was to ensure that public testimony would drive the project.
But over the years the “playbook” for accomplishing this has evolved from holding open meetings where citizens are given opportunities to file up, one by one, to speak before the proposers and their peers on a given project, to the divide and conquer “public information meeting” that the county, like the rest of the country, uses these days.
When the first “draft EIS” is released what will be reflected in it- the items to be “mitigated”- will be limited for the most part to those gathered at this all important meeting. Then the public will be given one last chance to submit written testimony-usually within a short time frame of as little as 30 days (if you happen to hear about it)- to bring up matters that were missed during the “information”- read: scoping- meeting.
Then a “supplemental EIS” will be issued, accepted by the county and if you don’t like it you have a very short window to go to court to fight it (remember the Superferry and the reason Kauai couldn’t join the suit on Maui was that no one filed suit in time).
This has become “the” accepted methodology for preventing a dialogue regarding controversial issues.
But what many- like those ruing the fact that they “missed” the scoping meetings and in fact the whole process regarding the EIS on the bike-path boardwalk on Wailua Beach- don’t know is that, believe it or not, the new nation-wide methodology was established as a direct result of events right here on little Kaua`i.
In the 1980’s when the Navy wanted to shoot off a bunch of old, dilapidated “refurbished” Polaris Missiles as part of Ronnie Ray-Gun’s still unachievable “Star Wars” program at the Navy base (PMRF) in Mana, after citizen outrage forced Senator Dan Inouye to acquiesce to an EIS, a pubic hearing was held at the appropriately named War Memorial Convention Hall.
The place was packed for three days as thousands filed up to the microphone and told the attending military brass, face to face, where to shove their missiles. It galvanized a movement to opposed the program and eventually, although the Navy did mange to shoot off four of them. it was a miserable failure for the Navy.
But what they learned would change the whole way an EIS process is conducted.
The next time the Navy wanted to expand their program they invited people to a series of small, local “informational meetings” and where there were no microphones and in fact no stage area.
Rather they arranged to break up the crowd and shunt them to various “informational stations” where, after they listened to an interminable spiel from Navy personnel, they were permitted to talk one-on-one with someone with a notepad who wrote down what they thought they heard the person say.
There was no event, no dialogue and more importantly no press there to record the event... because there was no event for them to report.
This worked so well that few even knew what was happening before the EIS was signed sealed and delivered... and it initiated a “new way” of pushing through controversial projects with the least amount of controversy.
Frankly we think there’s no need for a new landfill given the fact that 100% of our non-greenwaste trash stream comes from the mainland and there are landfills there dying to take it back. And a good Zero Waste program would reduce the amount of true trash to be shipped out- at what appears to be a considerable savings if the Honolulu experience is exemplary- to a pittance.
So if you don’t like the Hobson’s Choice “Umi” location that those hell-bent on digging a big pit and throwing everything into it are recommending, you might want to attend this all important meeting Thursday.
Monday, August 17, 2009
BAG O’ CATS
BAG O’ CATS: The gushing over Sunday’s piece by Mayor Bernard Carvalho’s “Five magic words: I don’t need a bag” commentary in the local newspaper- one we suspect was ghost-written by his top aide and mouthpiece Beth Tokioka- flooded cyberspace yesterday.
“Ditto!!” wrote one environmental activist. “To all of us, we ARE making a difference and this mayor is an example of together, we can!! I'm bowled over!!”
Another couldn’t contain herself saying “OMG thank you thank you thank you thank you and thank you!”.
And of course refusing those nasty and often deadly non-biodegradables floating petro-products is something anyone with a cloth bag can and should do as Diana LaBedz letter today reiterates.
But for the politically astute it’s what Carvalho didn’t say that sticks out like a shearwater’s plastic-distended belly- a promise to support and sign the bill set for public hearing on Wednesday that would ban stores from distributing those nasty pollutants.
As a matter of fact for the more cynical among us it might seem like Carvalho is indeed saying that the real solution is not in the legislation introduced by Tim Bynum and Lani Kawahara but solely in people refusing to accept them and instead bringing their own bags.
Yeah- that’ll work... it’s worked so well that despite years of campaigns by groups like LaBenz’s Surfrider Foundation the bags are more ubiquitous and causing more destruction than ever.
Gee, it couldn’t be because businesses who filled Carvalho’s campaign coffers last November are howling over the prospect of spending a few cents more on the biodegradable bags that are now or soon to be required on Maui, in San Francisco and in any growing number of jurisdictions across the country.
The suspicions are well founded. Carvalho recently has been accused of trying to sabotage the curbside recycling part of the county’s solid waste reform efforts using the county’s standard “fire, ready, aim” operating procedure to institute a “pilot” curbside recycling program in Lihu`e despite the fact that there is no materials recovery facility or MRF yet to accommodate the separation of those collected recyclables.
Why? Well that’s because, according to the administrations solid waste coordinator Troy Tanegawa, purchasing the bins with already appropriated monies was “the low hanging fruit” of recycling efforts.
Of course the crop was nowhere near ripe but politically it will provide a good sounding half truth during November 2010 campaign when Carvalho claims he “instituted curbside recycling”.
While the naive and easily duped might at best see it as the usual county incompetence others see it as a cynical attempt to make sure the pilot program fails so the county can build it’s long-desired “silver bullet” incinerator to burn all our rubbish (supposedly for energy) and in addition build a new landfill- two insanities that result from their refusal to hire a “zero waste” consultant and rather go with good old boy’s favorite consultants R.W. Beck that has been behind the failure to properly deal with solid waste on the island for over 20 years now.
We- and Zero Waste Kauai- been proponents of a full curbside recycling preceded by the construction of a MRF, a “hard to recycle good” facility, composting of green waste and other trash stream reduction measures.
We’ve even suggested shipping the small amount of waste that’s left (some say as low as 10% or less although 20-25% is commonly cited) off island where mainland landfills are fighting over who will get Honolulu’s waste.
We’ve even been proponents of a “ship it in, ship it out” law requiring that larger businesses whose products generate huge amounts of waste to deal with the aftermath.
While some say it’s “unethical” to foist our opala on others they forget that we are in a unique situation where all but our green waste is already shipped in and shipping that stuff out is only the fulfillment of the ecosystem we’ve created.
And, despite 15 years of asking, Beck has never done a full cost analysis of shipping trash including all the secondary and even tertiary expenses of our current land filling adventures although this time they have a brief dismissive paragraph in their latest report.
We can “do” zero waste here- as a matter of fact we’re uniquely situated and circumstanced to make it work. But that would take some vision and ability to grasp a changing paradigm for dealing with solid waste- a can of worms that our politically motivated elected officials have kicked down the road for decades.
Watch out for the Trojan Horse- let the mayor know that telling people to “just say no” is an ineffective substitute for banning the non-biodegradable plastic bags entirely by law.
You can do so at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday (8/19) in the council chambers at the historic county building when bill 2321 is up for pubic hearing . If you can’t make it you can email testimony to counciltestimony@kauai.gov ... and make sure you email a copy to hizzonnah and let him know you expect him to support and sign the bill when it lands on his desk.
“Ditto!!” wrote one environmental activist. “To all of us, we ARE making a difference and this mayor is an example of together, we can!! I'm bowled over!!”
Another couldn’t contain herself saying “OMG thank you thank you thank you thank you and thank you!”.
And of course refusing those nasty and often deadly non-biodegradables floating petro-products is something anyone with a cloth bag can and should do as Diana LaBedz letter today reiterates.
But for the politically astute it’s what Carvalho didn’t say that sticks out like a shearwater’s plastic-distended belly- a promise to support and sign the bill set for public hearing on Wednesday that would ban stores from distributing those nasty pollutants.
As a matter of fact for the more cynical among us it might seem like Carvalho is indeed saying that the real solution is not in the legislation introduced by Tim Bynum and Lani Kawahara but solely in people refusing to accept them and instead bringing their own bags.
Yeah- that’ll work... it’s worked so well that despite years of campaigns by groups like LaBenz’s Surfrider Foundation the bags are more ubiquitous and causing more destruction than ever.
Gee, it couldn’t be because businesses who filled Carvalho’s campaign coffers last November are howling over the prospect of spending a few cents more on the biodegradable bags that are now or soon to be required on Maui, in San Francisco and in any growing number of jurisdictions across the country.
The suspicions are well founded. Carvalho recently has been accused of trying to sabotage the curbside recycling part of the county’s solid waste reform efforts using the county’s standard “fire, ready, aim” operating procedure to institute a “pilot” curbside recycling program in Lihu`e despite the fact that there is no materials recovery facility or MRF yet to accommodate the separation of those collected recyclables.
Why? Well that’s because, according to the administrations solid waste coordinator Troy Tanegawa, purchasing the bins with already appropriated monies was “the low hanging fruit” of recycling efforts.
Of course the crop was nowhere near ripe but politically it will provide a good sounding half truth during November 2010 campaign when Carvalho claims he “instituted curbside recycling”.
While the naive and easily duped might at best see it as the usual county incompetence others see it as a cynical attempt to make sure the pilot program fails so the county can build it’s long-desired “silver bullet” incinerator to burn all our rubbish (supposedly for energy) and in addition build a new landfill- two insanities that result from their refusal to hire a “zero waste” consultant and rather go with good old boy’s favorite consultants R.W. Beck that has been behind the failure to properly deal with solid waste on the island for over 20 years now.
We- and Zero Waste Kauai- been proponents of a full curbside recycling preceded by the construction of a MRF, a “hard to recycle good” facility, composting of green waste and other trash stream reduction measures.
We’ve even suggested shipping the small amount of waste that’s left (some say as low as 10% or less although 20-25% is commonly cited) off island where mainland landfills are fighting over who will get Honolulu’s waste.
We’ve even been proponents of a “ship it in, ship it out” law requiring that larger businesses whose products generate huge amounts of waste to deal with the aftermath.
While some say it’s “unethical” to foist our opala on others they forget that we are in a unique situation where all but our green waste is already shipped in and shipping that stuff out is only the fulfillment of the ecosystem we’ve created.
And, despite 15 years of asking, Beck has never done a full cost analysis of shipping trash including all the secondary and even tertiary expenses of our current land filling adventures although this time they have a brief dismissive paragraph in their latest report.
We can “do” zero waste here- as a matter of fact we’re uniquely situated and circumstanced to make it work. But that would take some vision and ability to grasp a changing paradigm for dealing with solid waste- a can of worms that our politically motivated elected officials have kicked down the road for decades.
Watch out for the Trojan Horse- let the mayor know that telling people to “just say no” is an ineffective substitute for banning the non-biodegradable plastic bags entirely by law.
You can do so at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday (8/19) in the council chambers at the historic county building when bill 2321 is up for pubic hearing . If you can’t make it you can email testimony to counciltestimony@kauai.gov ... and make sure you email a copy to hizzonnah and let him know you expect him to support and sign the bill when it lands on his desk.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
TERMINAL INBREEDING
TERMINAL INBREEDING: That once profound truism about the Chinese character that stands for both crisis and opportunity has become so ubiquitous in the last few decades that it’s now taught in kindergarten.
But it’s become quite obvious it’s about as meaningless to supposedly reborn Obamerica as any five-year-old’s nursery rhyme when you look at the schizophrenic manner with which we are treating this so-called economic crisis.
The last eight years crystallized all that is wrong with Americans- that’s right, not just America but Americans.
Thinking back only a few years ago it was painfully obvious that something was wrong and that our unregulated, free market, fast-food, disposable culture was about to collapse of its own weight and design.
Many saw a silver lining in the insane economic practices in that when it all did collapse the opportunity to institute a new sustainable model would be so robust as to make going back to our old ways impossible.
But when the rubber met the road as it has in the last year or so, when the rotten fruits of our pie-hole stuffing ethos stood naked before the same people who screamed for sustainability, they began begging for one last chance to patch up the bullet riddled corporate corpus and individual greed that is at the root of the debacle.
“Do something- anything” we scream to our DC politicians, “but don’t take away my 30-minute delivered pizza or my 75” flat screen TV”.
“Reign in the Wall Street crooks and jail the bankers and insurance companies who caused this” we scream “but don’t take away any of my six 0% Platinum Visa cards.”
“It’s time to institute ‘Zero Waste’ programs” we beg as we gobble up our GMO-corn-fed fatburger plate lunch and toss the Styrofoam container in an opaque trash can to be transferred to someone else’s backyard where we can’t see or smell it.
“We all need to use public transportation” we yell out the window of our gas guzzling jalopy that’s forever stuck in traffic gridlock.
Within a few days- or even hours- America will be spending another trillion dollars. But in typical “fire, ready, aim” fashion none of the fundamentals of the economic system that got us here will have been reversed, redefined, revised or re-regulated before we do.
Even though we see clearly how the insanity of mindless consumerism bought us all dwellings with funny money to go with our $100,000 in consumer debt, we yet again bow down to the gods of mindless purchasing when told that if we want this crisis to magically end, the banks must start lending and we must start spending money that doesn’t exist... again.
What are we- a bunch of freakin’ idiots?
It’s far worse than doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It’s like we know exactly what we are doing to cause our demise but instead of doing less of it we think our only chance is to buy enough bubble gum, paper clips and duct tape to make Humpty Dumpty, if not whole, at vaguely least egg-shaped..
We look around and see millions of unemployed and look into the precipice of a new great depression but is our response to examine why those jobs selling each other chalupas, texting minutes and Hummers are disappearing?
No our new leader says – we just need to pump cash into the pockets of those who provided those jobs so they can create more of the same stupid, needless and destructive jobs.
No, our new leader says- we will make sure the construction workers who built all those now-empty houses can keep building useless and long-term destructive structures and more highways and more bridges for our personal, dirty sooty-carbon-spewing, oversized driving machines instead of clean green public transport.
No, our new leader says- even though we know exactly who created this fiscal mess and how it happened, instead of first ending the derivative, hedge-fund, shareholder comes first, rich get richer, theft-based approach we’ll just pump another trillion on top of the last trillion into the economically and morally bankrupt practices of the past.
Apparently the same people who were shrieking “sustainability” last year are now looking for all the old unsustainable economic models and practices to make them whole again so that then and only then can they work on sustainable solutions.
Today, on the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, the witching hour is upon us. It’s time to ask if we are just plain too dumb to survive.
If our response to today’s opportunity is to panic at the prospect of tomorrow’s crisis perhaps our last best chance to sustain- in fact survive- as a species has come and gone.
But it’s become quite obvious it’s about as meaningless to supposedly reborn Obamerica as any five-year-old’s nursery rhyme when you look at the schizophrenic manner with which we are treating this so-called economic crisis.
The last eight years crystallized all that is wrong with Americans- that’s right, not just America but Americans.
Thinking back only a few years ago it was painfully obvious that something was wrong and that our unregulated, free market, fast-food, disposable culture was about to collapse of its own weight and design.
Many saw a silver lining in the insane economic practices in that when it all did collapse the opportunity to institute a new sustainable model would be so robust as to make going back to our old ways impossible.
But when the rubber met the road as it has in the last year or so, when the rotten fruits of our pie-hole stuffing ethos stood naked before the same people who screamed for sustainability, they began begging for one last chance to patch up the bullet riddled corporate corpus and individual greed that is at the root of the debacle.
“Do something- anything” we scream to our DC politicians, “but don’t take away my 30-minute delivered pizza or my 75” flat screen TV”.
“Reign in the Wall Street crooks and jail the bankers and insurance companies who caused this” we scream “but don’t take away any of my six 0% Platinum Visa cards.”
“It’s time to institute ‘Zero Waste’ programs” we beg as we gobble up our GMO-corn-fed fatburger plate lunch and toss the Styrofoam container in an opaque trash can to be transferred to someone else’s backyard where we can’t see or smell it.
“We all need to use public transportation” we yell out the window of our gas guzzling jalopy that’s forever stuck in traffic gridlock.
Within a few days- or even hours- America will be spending another trillion dollars. But in typical “fire, ready, aim” fashion none of the fundamentals of the economic system that got us here will have been reversed, redefined, revised or re-regulated before we do.
Even though we see clearly how the insanity of mindless consumerism bought us all dwellings with funny money to go with our $100,000 in consumer debt, we yet again bow down to the gods of mindless purchasing when told that if we want this crisis to magically end, the banks must start lending and we must start spending money that doesn’t exist... again.
What are we- a bunch of freakin’ idiots?
It’s far worse than doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It’s like we know exactly what we are doing to cause our demise but instead of doing less of it we think our only chance is to buy enough bubble gum, paper clips and duct tape to make Humpty Dumpty, if not whole, at vaguely least egg-shaped..
We look around and see millions of unemployed and look into the precipice of a new great depression but is our response to examine why those jobs selling each other chalupas, texting minutes and Hummers are disappearing?
No our new leader says – we just need to pump cash into the pockets of those who provided those jobs so they can create more of the same stupid, needless and destructive jobs.
No, our new leader says- we will make sure the construction workers who built all those now-empty houses can keep building useless and long-term destructive structures and more highways and more bridges for our personal, dirty sooty-carbon-spewing, oversized driving machines instead of clean green public transport.
No, our new leader says- even though we know exactly who created this fiscal mess and how it happened, instead of first ending the derivative, hedge-fund, shareholder comes first, rich get richer, theft-based approach we’ll just pump another trillion on top of the last trillion into the economically and morally bankrupt practices of the past.
Apparently the same people who were shrieking “sustainability” last year are now looking for all the old unsustainable economic models and practices to make them whole again so that then and only then can they work on sustainable solutions.
Today, on the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, the witching hour is upon us. It’s time to ask if we are just plain too dumb to survive.
If our response to today’s opportunity is to panic at the prospect of tomorrow’s crisis perhaps our last best chance to sustain- in fact survive- as a species has come and gone.
Monday, November 17, 2008
A HOLE IS NOT TO DIG
A HOLE IS NOT TO DIG: One of the results of the defeat of JoAnn Yukimura in the mayoral election is that the idea of a garbage-to-electricity incinerator remains on the table at least as far as the administration of Mayor-Elect Bernard Carvalho is concerned.
But whether that sits well with the new county council- who will make the final decision- is up for grabs.
The council still hasn’t signed off on the R.W,. Beck study that recommends a waste-to-energy (WTE) incinerator-as we discussed in June- but that hasn’t stopped Carvalho from declaring “we have a plan and we need to follow it”.
The Beck report doesn’t make clear how the competing schemes it now contains will work. Originally the plan called for the incinerator only. But the council asked Beck to go back and include a plan for a massive recycling effort including curbside pickup and moreover a “MERF”- Materials Recovery Facility- where the whole trash stream goes through a sorting process to remove the recyclable and reusable materials.
The problem is that it really is a one or the other situation especially because it’s doubtful the waste stream on Kaua`i is really big enough to support a “waste- to energy” facility even with the whole trash stream, including recyclables.
It especially doesn’t make economic sense when viewed with an eye toward “economies of scale”. Unlike say, Honolulu we just don’t create enough trash to make the costly pollution spewing facility work here- and even more so after ¾ of the stream is taken out for recycling and reuse..
Those issues are unaddressed in Walter Lewis’ column in the local paper this Saturday which attempts to start fabricating the bandwagon leading to an incinerator.
He couches the issue of the facility as one of that “would result in significantly lower electric rates on Kaua`i.” but ignores the cost of the facility itself and how we would feed the beast.
And in today’s paper is a letter from another Princeville resident seemingly ready to jump aboard Lewis’ bandwagon- destination: Fool’s Paradise.
Well who can blame them? Because it’s doubtful that Princeville is on the list of possible sites for the plant. Which raises the question of just where would this monstrosity- which has a price tag some have estimated at more than $125 million- be situated?
Given the fact that Kaua`i county has been trying to find a place for a new landfill for the last 20 years without success the real question is whether there is going to be one community saying “give us the dump” and another town that will “accept” an incinerator- even if we start paying them off like we’re doing in Kekaha, as we discussed last month.
The article in last Friday’s newspaper hardly did justice to the breadth of the issue in covering last week’s contentious council meeting regarding the $650,000 bribe to Kekaha to get them to stop complaining about the dump that’s being expanded there
Although it pointed out how the county and the community had apparently settled their differences over the county trying to control the process for deciding how to spend the money, what it left out was the fact that the $.65 million was a low-ball figure according to outgoing Councilmember Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho.
“We originally wanted to start at a million” and that wasn’t even “nearly enough” she told those gathered for last week’s council meeting saying a million dollars was a low-end figure that the council had asked be included in the mayor’s budget. But when the Baptiste administration only offered $100,000 she said the $650,000 figure was “a compromise... for now”.
She said the payment is just a start and only for this year. She said it didn’t make up for 50 years of “putting up with” the landfill nor did it pay for “inconveniences” over the next who-knows-how-many years until a new dump is opened and the Kekaha one goes through the 30-year EPA mandated process of closing a landfill.
And of course this is just for a dump that already exists. The real question is how much “hush” money taxpayers are going to have to come up with to get a community to put a new one in their midst and what the yearly payments for that one will be.
And of course the same can be said about an even more disgusting incinerator because although trucks rumble up to each one, the rubbish stays in one place with a dump while an incinerator spews poisons all over the place.... and yes, even the new “EPA approved” WTE incinerators do that.
How many millions- or perhaps tens of millions- are we talking about? And for how many years? And in how many places?... once the trend starts what other types of facilities like power plants – or even windmills or solar farms- will require pay-offs.
The issue of payments aside and concentrating just on the cost, the whole WTE idea makes little sense. Our only hope might be something Carvalho- in his inimitable “I’ll lead the people by doing whatever they say they want me to do” way- said during the statewide TV debate.
“Maybe we’ll even ship it out” he told viewers when challenged as to the whole landfill siting, recycling waste-to-energy/incinerator debate.. right after he committed to the WTE in the Beck “plan”.
And although he was grasping at political straws, even a broken clock is right twice a day and Carvalho verbally stumbled onto the only sensible cost effective way there is to deal with our waste as we detailed last June.
Using a Zero-Waste program’s principles we can require curb-side recycling, set up a MERF to separate the rest and ship the last small amount- estimated to be a high of 30% but a low of less than 10% of our waste stream- and ship it to any one of a number of landfills in the mainland-northwest that are ready, willing, able and in fact eager to take it off our hands.... all at a comparable cost to what we are paying today
For a small island to ship-in virtually all of it’s consumer goods and then, when we’re done with them, bury them in the ground is insanity and unsustainable.
Though there is a line of thought that sending a community’s trash to a far away place is ecologically irresponsible- as former Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura has stated- that is a concept that might be appropriate where regional landfills are widely available and goods are grown and manufactured nearby, not on an island that imports all it’s “stuff” from 2000 miles away..
To throw that stuff in a hole in the ground makes the least ecological sense of all.
“Ship it in-ship it out” has got to be our garbage future. And apparently if we all demand it, the broken-clock-born program will be instituted before the one that’s ticking on our solid waste crisis strikes midnight and we’re overrun by mice and rotten pumpkins.
But whether that sits well with the new county council- who will make the final decision- is up for grabs.
The council still hasn’t signed off on the R.W,. Beck study that recommends a waste-to-energy (WTE) incinerator-as we discussed in June- but that hasn’t stopped Carvalho from declaring “we have a plan and we need to follow it”.
The Beck report doesn’t make clear how the competing schemes it now contains will work. Originally the plan called for the incinerator only. But the council asked Beck to go back and include a plan for a massive recycling effort including curbside pickup and moreover a “MERF”- Materials Recovery Facility- where the whole trash stream goes through a sorting process to remove the recyclable and reusable materials.
The problem is that it really is a one or the other situation especially because it’s doubtful the waste stream on Kaua`i is really big enough to support a “waste- to energy” facility even with the whole trash stream, including recyclables.
It especially doesn’t make economic sense when viewed with an eye toward “economies of scale”. Unlike say, Honolulu we just don’t create enough trash to make the costly pollution spewing facility work here- and even more so after ¾ of the stream is taken out for recycling and reuse..
Those issues are unaddressed in Walter Lewis’ column in the local paper this Saturday which attempts to start fabricating the bandwagon leading to an incinerator.
He couches the issue of the facility as one of that “would result in significantly lower electric rates on Kaua`i.” but ignores the cost of the facility itself and how we would feed the beast.
And in today’s paper is a letter from another Princeville resident seemingly ready to jump aboard Lewis’ bandwagon- destination: Fool’s Paradise.
Well who can blame them? Because it’s doubtful that Princeville is on the list of possible sites for the plant. Which raises the question of just where would this monstrosity- which has a price tag some have estimated at more than $125 million- be situated?
Given the fact that Kaua`i county has been trying to find a place for a new landfill for the last 20 years without success the real question is whether there is going to be one community saying “give us the dump” and another town that will “accept” an incinerator- even if we start paying them off like we’re doing in Kekaha, as we discussed last month.
The article in last Friday’s newspaper hardly did justice to the breadth of the issue in covering last week’s contentious council meeting regarding the $650,000 bribe to Kekaha to get them to stop complaining about the dump that’s being expanded there
Although it pointed out how the county and the community had apparently settled their differences over the county trying to control the process for deciding how to spend the money, what it left out was the fact that the $.65 million was a low-ball figure according to outgoing Councilmember Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho.
“We originally wanted to start at a million” and that wasn’t even “nearly enough” she told those gathered for last week’s council meeting saying a million dollars was a low-end figure that the council had asked be included in the mayor’s budget. But when the Baptiste administration only offered $100,000 she said the $650,000 figure was “a compromise... for now”.
She said the payment is just a start and only for this year. She said it didn’t make up for 50 years of “putting up with” the landfill nor did it pay for “inconveniences” over the next who-knows-how-many years until a new dump is opened and the Kekaha one goes through the 30-year EPA mandated process of closing a landfill.
And of course this is just for a dump that already exists. The real question is how much “hush” money taxpayers are going to have to come up with to get a community to put a new one in their midst and what the yearly payments for that one will be.
And of course the same can be said about an even more disgusting incinerator because although trucks rumble up to each one, the rubbish stays in one place with a dump while an incinerator spews poisons all over the place.... and yes, even the new “EPA approved” WTE incinerators do that.
How many millions- or perhaps tens of millions- are we talking about? And for how many years? And in how many places?... once the trend starts what other types of facilities like power plants – or even windmills or solar farms- will require pay-offs.
The issue of payments aside and concentrating just on the cost, the whole WTE idea makes little sense. Our only hope might be something Carvalho- in his inimitable “I’ll lead the people by doing whatever they say they want me to do” way- said during the statewide TV debate.
“Maybe we’ll even ship it out” he told viewers when challenged as to the whole landfill siting, recycling waste-to-energy/incinerator debate.. right after he committed to the WTE in the Beck “plan”.
And although he was grasping at political straws, even a broken clock is right twice a day and Carvalho verbally stumbled onto the only sensible cost effective way there is to deal with our waste as we detailed last June.
Using a Zero-Waste program’s principles we can require curb-side recycling, set up a MERF to separate the rest and ship the last small amount- estimated to be a high of 30% but a low of less than 10% of our waste stream- and ship it to any one of a number of landfills in the mainland-northwest that are ready, willing, able and in fact eager to take it off our hands.... all at a comparable cost to what we are paying today
For a small island to ship-in virtually all of it’s consumer goods and then, when we’re done with them, bury them in the ground is insanity and unsustainable.
Though there is a line of thought that sending a community’s trash to a far away place is ecologically irresponsible- as former Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura has stated- that is a concept that might be appropriate where regional landfills are widely available and goods are grown and manufactured nearby, not on an island that imports all it’s “stuff” from 2000 miles away..
To throw that stuff in a hole in the ground makes the least ecological sense of all.
“Ship it in-ship it out” has got to be our garbage future. And apparently if we all demand it, the broken-clock-born program will be instituted before the one that’s ticking on our solid waste crisis strikes midnight and we’re overrun by mice and rotten pumpkins.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
BURYING THE BONE OF CONTENTION
BURYING THE BONE OF CONTENTION:Dr. Ray Chuan used to say he probably knew more about garbage any other nuclear physicist because it’s the Rosetta Stone of incompetence and corruption in Kaua`i County government and the Department of Public Waste- er, Works- which, guided by the pols that ignore their scams, literally can’t seem to crap or get off the pot..
That was in the 90’s after years of yack-yack-yack- about the yuck yuck yuckiest of all subjects- solid waste.
At the time our landfill was full, we had paid for another useless R.W. Beck study on what to do with it all and people were proposing trash-to-energy projects, recycling and stream separation and the pressing need to open a new dump.
And 15 years later nothing has changed except that we have a third Beck report and Kekaha’s Mount `Opala is getting higher every day.
Beck is a company stuck in the middle ages of solid waste consulting. Their ideas always come down to incrementally more recycling and a new landfill- the latter being the words that strike fear in the hearts of politicians worldwide but especially on little tiny Kaua`i-. oh and maybe an incinerator.
But the national trend in solid waste across the nation is a concept called “Zero-Waste” (ZW) and we actually have a Zero Waste-Kaua`i (ZWK) group that sometimes feels like it’s talking to the wall- the wall resulting from a presentation to the Council from professional Zero-Waste consultants who had instituted ZW systems across the mainland. It was met with enthusiasm for all of five minutes before the Council went back to Beck for the same old same old.
As the consultants say ZW is really “almost” zero because even with a mandatory curbside recycling combined with a facility that sorts the rest of the trash stream into recyclables, reusables, green waste/compost and all the other components there is still going to be a small amount- some say 5-10%, some say even less is practically achievable - that is going to be an unsortable disgusting mess, although with developing technologies it can and will approach zero.
And even if we burn that last tiny amount in an incinerator (an unnecessary and costly process usually sold to the public as a waste-to-energy plant such as H-Power in Honolulu) we’d have to do something with the “ashes”.
If the Council and County had contracted with a Zero Waste consultant we could now have a useful plan. To be fair the Beck report does include many of the recycling and sorting proposals and some on the Council have stated that having a “MERF”- the sorting facility- is their top solid waste priority. But it is still the old “coordinated” or piecemeal approach that was popular in the 80’s but has seen it’s day.
So if we did go with the Zero Waste concepts we’d still have a little bit left and the question is what to do with that.
We really have two choices on what to do with it- bury it or send it back to where it came from.
Which is why it’s unfathomable that our top two protectors of the environment in Hawai`i are condemning the smartest and most sustainable plan for that last little bit – ship it out.
According to an article in Monday’s Honolulu Advertiser Director of the Hawai`i Sierra Club Jeff Mikulina apparently has it backward in saying "(s)hipping off trash is an absolute waste. There is this overarching environmental ethic about the trash that we produce. It's antithetical to ... taking care of our own to send our 'opala thousands of miles away. We have to deal with our problems here at home."
This argument ignores the one pertinent fact- 100% of the materials in our non-greenwaste and mined (such as gravel, sand or concrete materials, all of which is recyclable) waste stream originated elsewhere- most of it on the mainland.
Another tireless environmental defender Henry Curtis of Life of the Land apparently agrees saying in the article "(w)e have to support an intensive recycling program. If material has to be disposed of, Life of the Land strongly believes that it should be done in a way that minimizes greenhouse gas emissions. Exporting trash to a large and cheap Mainland landfill is not the answer."
Shipping it out is not an alternative to recycling and it’s a disingenuous straw man to argue such. As is the greenhouse gas argument. How much greenhouse gas is produced by the diesel trucks running back and forth to and over the current landfills Henry?
If the answer is not a cheap Mainland landfill is it a more expensive and energy wasteful bunch of local ones?
The article notes “(o)thers say that the exporting of trash to another state absolves citizens of the responsibility for cleaning up after themselves.”
Exactly what citizen responsibility is that? To import pre-disposal-stage waste and then dig a hole to throw it in? Does that sound responsible much less sustainable?
Government already wipes our figurative butts for us already- we’re just arguing about how many sheets of toilet paper it’s going to take.
The bigger bugaboo for the politicians and taxpayers has rightly or wrongly been cost. And that’s where shipping whatever isn’t usable to a central location –even if it’s to await the day when it has value if that’s what Mikulina is suggesting- is certainly a more economically viable alternative than paying the amount we pay now all else being equal. And if it’s efficiently coordinated statewide it is more environmentally sustainable and less damaging too.
The Article states that “(t)he plan assumes the cost to ship trash to the mainland will be between $70 and $75 per ton”, which is about the current “tipping fee” on Kaua`i- the amount paid to dump stuff at the dump. But that figure is widely admitted to be a low-end cost underestimate used for many years by our befuddled Pubic Works Department to charge commercial haulers.
Most estimates for actual costs are well over a hundred- $135 has recently been used in council discussions. And those estimates don’t count the costs of transport to the landfill site even before the price of oil went through the roof, nor things like the capital improvement costs to site, construct, monitor and close a new landfill (and keep an eye on it for the required 30 years after closing), estimated at $35-50 million or more just to open it... which also doesn’t include things like the recent half-a-million-dollar bribe for Kekaha to not complain about the current dump being there.
Oh and by the way, despite repeated requests and promises by the Council and administrations ever since Ray Chuan’s day the new Beck report does not evaluate the “shipping it out” option and it’s dismissed as unviable without any detailed examination.
The myriad hidden costs of landfilling aside, what Mikulina, Curtis and Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura have always tried do is argue is that shipping it back would be done in lieu of a zero-waste plan- or even the “good-enough” Beck approach- with no recycling, no diversion and no other plan other than bringing it to the docks and waving bye-bye.
It has been impossible to have a rational discussion of the matter because of these kinds of disingenuous arguments for many years, where they go back and forth between the straw men of the cost and responsibility that they created out of whole cloth.
The oddest thing is that even in Honolulu shipping it back is seen as a “temporary solution” although no one has ever addressed why that is. Is it because their whole system is unsustainable to begin with or something to do with the concept? We don’t know because no one will say but wonder if it could be because there are thousands of government jobs at stake in dealing with the trash inefficiently in burning and burying it after it’s picked up?
Mikulina, Curtis and Yukimura would all agree that our consumerist mainland-style lifestyle through the use of the products physically delivered here is essentially unsustainable all by itself. Yet those goods comprise most of what we need to “do something with” after we’ve taken out what we can use and re-use and they came from across the ocean in the first place.
If we’re thinking about sustainability how is it sustainable to keep importing and burying our “stuff” when we’re done with it? To take care of the rear end by burying it is the height of irresponsibility because if the front end is dealt with sustainably there would be no rear end to deal with.
To use the analogy we seem to rely upon way too often in “Ready-Fire-Aim” Hawai`i and Kaua`i, it’s the old story about people too busy taking the bodies out of the river- and in this case burying them- to go upstream and try to stop whomever is throwing the bodies in.
We’d certainly welcome hearing how keeping it here is more “responsible” or even “lower cost” (when all cost factors are factored in) then sending it back but all we’ve ever heard is skewed numbers and vague generalities- and that’s been going on for at least 20 years here on Kaua`i.
We’re talking the last remains of the day- that gook or even the ashes after burning it- and what we’re going to do with it. Sweep it under the rug or ship it back where it came from are the choices. From that perspective the “responsible” option should be clear.
That was in the 90’s after years of yack-yack-yack- about the yuck yuck yuckiest of all subjects- solid waste.
At the time our landfill was full, we had paid for another useless R.W. Beck study on what to do with it all and people were proposing trash-to-energy projects, recycling and stream separation and the pressing need to open a new dump.
And 15 years later nothing has changed except that we have a third Beck report and Kekaha’s Mount `Opala is getting higher every day.
Beck is a company stuck in the middle ages of solid waste consulting. Their ideas always come down to incrementally more recycling and a new landfill- the latter being the words that strike fear in the hearts of politicians worldwide but especially on little tiny Kaua`i-. oh and maybe an incinerator.
But the national trend in solid waste across the nation is a concept called “Zero-Waste” (ZW) and we actually have a Zero Waste-Kaua`i (ZWK) group that sometimes feels like it’s talking to the wall- the wall resulting from a presentation to the Council from professional Zero-Waste consultants who had instituted ZW systems across the mainland. It was met with enthusiasm for all of five minutes before the Council went back to Beck for the same old same old.
As the consultants say ZW is really “almost” zero because even with a mandatory curbside recycling combined with a facility that sorts the rest of the trash stream into recyclables, reusables, green waste/compost and all the other components there is still going to be a small amount- some say 5-10%, some say even less is practically achievable - that is going to be an unsortable disgusting mess, although with developing technologies it can and will approach zero.
And even if we burn that last tiny amount in an incinerator (an unnecessary and costly process usually sold to the public as a waste-to-energy plant such as H-Power in Honolulu) we’d have to do something with the “ashes”.
If the Council and County had contracted with a Zero Waste consultant we could now have a useful plan. To be fair the Beck report does include many of the recycling and sorting proposals and some on the Council have stated that having a “MERF”- the sorting facility- is their top solid waste priority. But it is still the old “coordinated” or piecemeal approach that was popular in the 80’s but has seen it’s day.
So if we did go with the Zero Waste concepts we’d still have a little bit left and the question is what to do with that.
We really have two choices on what to do with it- bury it or send it back to where it came from.
Which is why it’s unfathomable that our top two protectors of the environment in Hawai`i are condemning the smartest and most sustainable plan for that last little bit – ship it out.
According to an article in Monday’s Honolulu Advertiser Director of the Hawai`i Sierra Club Jeff Mikulina apparently has it backward in saying "(s)hipping off trash is an absolute waste. There is this overarching environmental ethic about the trash that we produce. It's antithetical to ... taking care of our own to send our 'opala thousands of miles away. We have to deal with our problems here at home."
This argument ignores the one pertinent fact- 100% of the materials in our non-greenwaste and mined (such as gravel, sand or concrete materials, all of which is recyclable) waste stream originated elsewhere- most of it on the mainland.
Another tireless environmental defender Henry Curtis of Life of the Land apparently agrees saying in the article "(w)e have to support an intensive recycling program. If material has to be disposed of, Life of the Land strongly believes that it should be done in a way that minimizes greenhouse gas emissions. Exporting trash to a large and cheap Mainland landfill is not the answer."
Shipping it out is not an alternative to recycling and it’s a disingenuous straw man to argue such. As is the greenhouse gas argument. How much greenhouse gas is produced by the diesel trucks running back and forth to and over the current landfills Henry?
If the answer is not a cheap Mainland landfill is it a more expensive and energy wasteful bunch of local ones?
The article notes “(o)thers say that the exporting of trash to another state absolves citizens of the responsibility for cleaning up after themselves.”
Exactly what citizen responsibility is that? To import pre-disposal-stage waste and then dig a hole to throw it in? Does that sound responsible much less sustainable?
Government already wipes our figurative butts for us already- we’re just arguing about how many sheets of toilet paper it’s going to take.
The bigger bugaboo for the politicians and taxpayers has rightly or wrongly been cost. And that’s where shipping whatever isn’t usable to a central location –even if it’s to await the day when it has value if that’s what Mikulina is suggesting- is certainly a more economically viable alternative than paying the amount we pay now all else being equal. And if it’s efficiently coordinated statewide it is more environmentally sustainable and less damaging too.
The Article states that “(t)he plan assumes the cost to ship trash to the mainland will be between $70 and $75 per ton”, which is about the current “tipping fee” on Kaua`i- the amount paid to dump stuff at the dump. But that figure is widely admitted to be a low-end cost underestimate used for many years by our befuddled Pubic Works Department to charge commercial haulers.
Most estimates for actual costs are well over a hundred- $135 has recently been used in council discussions. And those estimates don’t count the costs of transport to the landfill site even before the price of oil went through the roof, nor things like the capital improvement costs to site, construct, monitor and close a new landfill (and keep an eye on it for the required 30 years after closing), estimated at $35-50 million or more just to open it... which also doesn’t include things like the recent half-a-million-dollar bribe for Kekaha to not complain about the current dump being there.
Oh and by the way, despite repeated requests and promises by the Council and administrations ever since Ray Chuan’s day the new Beck report does not evaluate the “shipping it out” option and it’s dismissed as unviable without any detailed examination.
The myriad hidden costs of landfilling aside, what Mikulina, Curtis and Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura have always tried do is argue is that shipping it back would be done in lieu of a zero-waste plan- or even the “good-enough” Beck approach- with no recycling, no diversion and no other plan other than bringing it to the docks and waving bye-bye.
It has been impossible to have a rational discussion of the matter because of these kinds of disingenuous arguments for many years, where they go back and forth between the straw men of the cost and responsibility that they created out of whole cloth.
The oddest thing is that even in Honolulu shipping it back is seen as a “temporary solution” although no one has ever addressed why that is. Is it because their whole system is unsustainable to begin with or something to do with the concept? We don’t know because no one will say but wonder if it could be because there are thousands of government jobs at stake in dealing with the trash inefficiently in burning and burying it after it’s picked up?
Mikulina, Curtis and Yukimura would all agree that our consumerist mainland-style lifestyle through the use of the products physically delivered here is essentially unsustainable all by itself. Yet those goods comprise most of what we need to “do something with” after we’ve taken out what we can use and re-use and they came from across the ocean in the first place.
If we’re thinking about sustainability how is it sustainable to keep importing and burying our “stuff” when we’re done with it? To take care of the rear end by burying it is the height of irresponsibility because if the front end is dealt with sustainably there would be no rear end to deal with.
To use the analogy we seem to rely upon way too often in “Ready-Fire-Aim” Hawai`i and Kaua`i, it’s the old story about people too busy taking the bodies out of the river- and in this case burying them- to go upstream and try to stop whomever is throwing the bodies in.
We’d certainly welcome hearing how keeping it here is more “responsible” or even “lower cost” (when all cost factors are factored in) then sending it back but all we’ve ever heard is skewed numbers and vague generalities- and that’s been going on for at least 20 years here on Kaua`i.
We’re talking the last remains of the day- that gook or even the ashes after burning it- and what we’re going to do with it. Sweep it under the rug or ship it back where it came from are the choices. From that perspective the “responsible” option should be clear.
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