MIN CHARTER 2018-08-10 (2018-2020)

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Hawai`i County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 more than 200,000 tons of solid waste per year and that is handled currently with the two landfills. Once Hilo closes all of the disposable solid waste will go to the Pu'uanahulu and we will be dealing with that. We have three baseyards, two closed landfills that we're finalizing closure on, and two scrapyards that we are in the process of cleaning up. So we are the gift that keeps on giving. We have 22 transfer stations. About 40 percent -48 percent of all of the waste generated in the County is paid for fully and 100 percent out of the General Fund. That's because all of the disposal into the transfer station for residential waste is free. And again, that amounts to about 48 percent of our total disposal. Solid Waste also manages the recycle program and abandoned vehicles. We have three impound lots. We currently do about 70 to 80 vehicles per month. We're currently getting a modification to the Code such that we can legally tow from private roadways, where before we really were limited to public and we are going to be facing a little bit of a backlog on that. Our wastewater facilities, we have seven wastewater facilities across the County. We treat approximately five million gallons per day, which is not very much. For an island with 4,000 square miles, we only have about 100 miles of sewering. So that's a little bit of background on the department. There are only five sections in the Charter for Environmental Management. The organization, there's nothing to be commented on. For the Director and Environmental Management Commission, since I am sitting in the Director's chair, it would be disingenuous for ine to come in and say everybody that sits in this chair should be just like me. So I will make no comment whatsoever on that section. Since the Environmental Management Commission is there to provide support, for the department, I didn't feel it was appropriate for me to talk about that activity. There are two sections that I would be asking for minor modifications to, that is the Statement of Policy, which is 10.2; and the Powers, Duties and Functions of the department. The reason for proposed modifications are pretty straight forward, and that is that the Department of Environmental Management has the name "Environment" in it. Because of that, the department is looked to as the envirornnental agency for the County, when in fact it is structured in the Charter as an operating company. We operate wastewater treatment, we operate solid waste facilities, we operate and institute a recycling program, but we are not a regulatory agency per se. All of the regulatory enforcement activities, the vast majority, are State run and State managed. So as we evolve, we're getting more and more requests to become more of a regulatory agency in addition. For example, the polystyrene foam ban for utensils and things that was passed by the Council requires DEM (Department of Environmental Management) to enforce that, plus go through administrative hearings and legal hearings and maintain evidence. These are more regulatory Page 12