2002-05-22 Enviromental Management Commission Minutes

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Solid Waste Division ChiefÓs Report Larry Capellas provided a written report to the Commissioners. The Kauai County Recycling Coordinator will attend the next Commission meeting to exchange ideas. The Recycling Coordinator position has been advertised and the closing date is 5/28/02. Soon thereafter, applications will be reviewed and interview questions will be developed. An interview board will hopefully be holding interviews during the month of June. The Solid Waste Division is going through a process of permitting all transfer stations which is required by the Department of Health. They are 5 year permits. The paperwork has been turned in. Island-wide, our containers are switched 6,200 times per year which is a tremendous amount of wear and tear. Truck tractors that moved these trailers put on approximately 300,000 miles for island-wide operations. Wastewater Division ChiefÓs Report Peter Boucher provided a written report to the Commissioners. Woody Muirhead of Brown and Caldwell was present. He is the consultant helping the County with the toxicity reduction evaluation associated with the whole effluent toxicity tests at the Hilo Wastewater Treatment Plant. The test was described as collecting a male and female sea urchin. Take eggs from the female and sperm from the male. Mix them together in various concentrations of effluent from the treatment plant and also various concentrations of a known toxicant so you have some measure to determine whether or not it is toxic. Measure how many eggs are fertilized after an hour. Tests were showing signs of toxicity. Looked at 2 years of data to see if there are any variations in the treatment plant. Looked at 2 most obvious causes of toxicity in most municipal wastewater treatment plants: chlorine used for disinfection of effluent prior to discharge and ammonia which is contributed by human waste. Could not determine any correlation between the demonstrated toxicity in the test and those concentrations in the treatment plant. Cannot fi any correlation between toxicity in the test with anything that is occurring in the wastewater treatment plant. This is not a public health issue. It is simply a measure of toxicity for organisms. It is not a permit violation, but does require initiation of the toxicity reduction evaluation when toxicity is exhibited in the test. Concentrations would be 70-142 times greater in the treatment process. WWD will continue to have this work done to try to evaluate if there are problems and will report back to the Commission. Proposed Bill to Eliminate Sewer Connection Exemptions Proposed Bill Clarifies that it is the ownersÓ responsibility for the connections and also eliminates the exemptions. Clarifies that if it is a depth issue, that pump station would be required. Eliminates the three existing exemptions, those being the pre-1989 exemption, the gravity exemption, and the private extension exemptions, all of which the County has been repeatedly cited for by the State Department of Health. Codifies a provision for allowing extensions to connection requirements. WWD received EPA grants in the late 1980Ós and early 1990Ós to construct several wastewater treatment plants around the island. Associated with those grants were conditions. Among those conditions are that the County sewer certain areas. The private extension exemption has given indefinite exemption from certain people in critical areas -3-