January Garbage Spill Was Second In A Month
Editor’s note: Read a related story about developments at the landfill.
The landfill spill that sprinkled medical waste along the Leeward Coast in mid-January was the second unauthorized release of contaminated material into the ocean in three weeks — news that has only now come to light.
The revelation came at Wednesday’s Land Use Commission meeting, where officials discussed a report produced by the Hawaii Department of Health after it inspected Waimanalo Gulch Landfill in late December. The report, obtained by Civil Beat, says the landfill operator violated the state’s water pollution law by purposefully discharging leachate — water that has been mixed with garbage. The company, Waste Management, and the city of Honolulu could face penalties.
Asked why the report wasn’t released until Wednesday, Deputy Health Director Gary Gill said, “It’s not our practice to make investigation reports public unless somebody asks for it or unless it becomes a product of an enforcement case.”
The report contradicts earlier statements from the Department of Health. In an interview with Civil Beat last week, Gill said contaminated stormwater from the December rains had not been released into the ocean. He said the water had been transferred from a “lake” atop the landfill to a water treatment facility by pumper trucks — the same procedure used to treat leachate.
Asked about those comments, Gill said he started working at the Department of Health on Jan. 3 and could not speak to what had happened before his tenure.
“I haven’t read every single report from everyone who went out on the landfill … I can’t say where every drop of water went,” said Gill, who oversees the Environmental Health Administration that includes the Clean Water and Solid and Hazardous Waste Branches that responded to the incident.
“This is evidence that they pumped stormwater into the discharge system,” he said of the report. “I can tell you that, to the best of my knowledge, that if it was observed to happen or if it was believed to have happened, then the Department of Health put an end to it.”
Heavy rains on Dec. 19 and a clog in the 36-inch bypass pipe inundated an area on top of the landfill, creating a 38-foot-deep lake of rainwater and loose garbage, according to the report.
Waste Management — without consulting the Department of Health — for four days intermittently pumped lake water into the landfill’s drainage system, which empties into the ocean near Ko Olina. Waste Management Market Area Environmental Protection Manager Justin Lottig admitted to the Health Department that the water may have touched solid waste.
But that alone isn’t necessarily illegal.
Whether a violation occurred depends on the definition of leachate, and whether the water that was released qualified as leachate or as stormwater. The landfill is permitted to release stormwater, but it can’t discharge untreated leachate.
Section 11-58.1-03 [pdf] defines leachate as “water or other liquid that has percolated or passed through or emerged from solid waste and contains dissolved, soluble, suspended, or miscible materials removed from the waste or due to contact with solid waste or gases therefrom.”
The Health Department inspectors qualified the water as leachate. They reported that “ponding water was observed percolating through the solid waste downstream” of the cell. The area “appeared significantly polluted with a mixture of solid waste and storm water” and inspectors detected a “strong odor.”
At Wednesday’s hearing, the city of Honolulu did not address the report’s findings.
“It’s my understanding that it was an internal report within the Department of Health,” said Tim Steinberger, director of the city’s Department of Environmental Services. “Until I have a chance to really go through it and figure out exactly what it is they are drawing conclusions on, I can’t really comment.”
Landfill general manager Joe Whelan said: “It is our understanding that leachate, which was inside the cells, was not affected by this (December) storm.” He declined to answer further questions.
Gill said whether the discharged water is leachate is “the crux of the investigation” and “goes to the heart of the enforcement case.”
He added that the investigation report was “preliminary,” and declined to speculate about whether the Health Department is treating the water in the lake as leachate.
Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said the department has yet to send the city or Waste Management a Notice of Apparent Violation or a Request For Information because the investigation is still pending.
Read the full Investigation Report:
— Adrienne LaFrance contributed to this story.
