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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN EMC 2017/02/21 2016-2018COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT I" Session West Hawaii Civic Center 74-5044 Ane Keohokalole Highway, Building A Kailua-Kona, Hawaii February 21, 2017 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Environmental Management was ORDER: called to order at 2:04 p.m., in the Council Chambers, Kailua-Kona, by Ms. Eileen Ohara, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Ms. Eileen O'Hara, Member, Chair Mr. Herbert M. "Tim" Richards, III, Vice Chair Mr. Aaron S. Y. Chung, Member Ms. Maile Mederios David, Member Ms. Karen Eoff, Member Mr. Dru Mamo Kanuha, Member Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Member Ms. Valerie T. Poindexter, Member Ms. Jennifer Ruggles, Member STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: The following individuals registered to speak in support of Bill 33, and came forward when called by the Chair: Hana Anderson, representing Kohala High School. Maya Anderson, representing Kohala High School. Nicole Castillo, representing Kohala High School. Naomi Ney, representing Kohala High School. Zazhaney Matsu, representing Kohala High School. Cory Harden. Stacey Breing. EMC -1 Gary Williams -May. Emily Garland. Cindy Sellers. Shannon Matson, representing Hot Yoga Hilo. Gordon Clint. Laura Dvorak. Toby Hazel. Jon Olson. Renee Siracusa, representing Malama O Puna. Gregory Smith. Joyce Folena. Joy Gold, representing KYD, Inc. Lee Lorenz. John Elkje. Jerry Warren. Daniel Gibbs. Robert Block. Margaret Wille. Pamela Harlow, representing Donna Goodale. Karen Rosen, representing Kohala Coffee Mill. Ryan Christopher. Courtney Meiselman. February 21, 2017 Page 2 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 Kathleen Crabill, representing Nurdle in the Rough Jewelry. Holly Kirsten, representing the Surfrider Foundation. Sarah Rafferty, representing the Ocean Friendly Restaurants Coalition. Megan Lamson, representing the Hawaii Wildlife Fund. Clare Loprinzki. Greg Rudd. Sharon Willeford. Cherie Griffore. Recess: At 3:47 p.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 4:01 p.m. CHR. O'HARA: Mr. Clerk? We need Mr. Clerk here. We're trying to figure out a little paper work issue on the side here, so bear with us. And again noting that we have one member absent, Aaron Chung. Councilman Chung had to leave for an emergency in Hilo. Okay, Mr. Clerk, could you read the Communication 106? COMMUNI- The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next Order of Business, CATIONS: Communications. Comm. 106: REQUESTS DISCUSSION WITH WILLIAM KUCHARSKI, DIRECTOR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT; TO PROVIDE AN OVERALL UPDATE OF THE DEPARTMENT'S PROGRAMS, PROJECTS. AND PUBLIC SERVICES HAWAII COUNTY CITIZENS From Council Member Eileen O'Hara, dated February 1, 2017 Motion to Close File: Mr. Kanuha moved to close file on Comm. 106. Seconded by Ms. Eof£ CHR. O'HARA: Alright. Mr. Kucharski has provided us an outline that is in yourI believe one of your folders, the one with the pink on it. Thank you, Bill. MR. KUCHARSKI: Good Afternoon, pleasure to see all of you again. CHR. O'HARA: State your name please, for the record. Page 3 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 MR. KUCHARSKI: William Kucharski, Director of the Department of Environmental Management. CHR. O'HARA: Thank you. MR. KUCHARSKI: The purpose of this reasonably brief overview of the department is to give you some idea of the projects of plans and problems that the department is facing. I wanted to start with sort of an upswing of the new director of IT. Jules Ung has come and we're going to be updating and upgrading all of our websites, which I think is sorely needed. And so we're going to be putting a significant amount work into getting useable and necessary information on the web pages so that people can actually find something useful and get questions answered. Like abandoned vehicles, what happens if that occurs? And so we're going to be working with IT to get to make that happen. The topic of solid waste I know is on everybody's mind, but just going to give some brief overviews of where we are. As you know, the Hilo landfill is close to closure or let me say, it's close to stop taking additional waste. And that should be between one to three years, before we stop accepting waste, but once we stop taking waste, the closure of the facility begins. We have in theI think the rules require within 60 days of the last time you take waste, you need to be able to present to Department of Health the closure plan. We have a consultant that is currently working on that closure plan which will say how we're going to contour, how we're going to cover, how we're going to monitor. Then once that is approved by the State, then we will begin construction and it would be about a year to finish constructing the closure of the facility. Then we have a 30 -year monitoring program that we're going to have to insure that the liner is keeping water and rain water from penetrating in, and to determine whether there's any seepage from the landfill that we need to control. So even when we're done, we're not done. The alternative once Hilo closes, as you know our options are very limited. Pu`uanahulu right now has, depending on the waste that we have, at current rates 30 -plus years of operational life, but at once we come in there and we start transferring waste, there are going to be other issues that we're going to have to deal with. One thing that we're doing right now is starting to work on the Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan that's due to Department of Health every 10 years. That's due in 2020 and we'll have it in at 2019, and we're starting to work on updating that integrated management plan. And as we move forward, talking about bringing the waste over and not having Hilo closed. We're going to be taking a look at all of the contracts that we have. One of them is the contract that we have with Waste Management at Pu`uanahulu, and we're going to be taking a look at that contract that has a big financial impact on the County. Page 4 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 Now once we start taking waste and once we start closing Hilo, we're going to have to do something with the waste that's collected here. We have a lot of small collectors and folks here that may not be able to take their trucks over to the west side to unload. And we do have a sort station that's been constructed at Hilo and we're going to need to take a look at using that as a transfer station for the local waste to be dumped there and then reloaded on County trucks to bring over the pass and into Pu`uanahulu for disposal. So exactly how we're going to do that we're not that certain, but these are one of the plans that we're looking at. But of all the solid waste issues the primary thing that we're looking at is how can we minimize our waste and what can we do for waste diversion, and I would be very happy when we get down to a 90 percent diversion rate. And while we might look at that and say that's not possible, I think it is possible. We just need to set our minds to it and that's one of the things we're going to be looking at trying to get done. One thing we have to do is make sure that when—we have to make recycling easy. And for that we need to take a look at our transfer stations, we need to make it easier for people to do the right thing. If it's hard they're not going to do it. If it takes them an hour to get their waste ready to go, they're not going to do it. It's just going to go down the chute. So we need to start thinking about how to make it easier, how to make it more convenient and how to be able to decrease the amount of waste that goes down the chute and goes into the recycle containers. So, we're going to be doing that and that's going to require that we also take a look at the designs of our transfer stations. So that's in the plans. Now I have no idea where the money for these studies are going to come from, but that's another issue. We have had discussions about the waste to energy facility in Waikoloa, that's proposed for Waikoloa. Just note that is a 100 percent private enterprise, it has no connection with the County whatsoever. And that's something we have to take a very close look at. Right now, they are applying for a special use permit and I think that's something that we have to pay very close attention to. One of the issues that was raised by that facility is the question of flow control; if we ever intend as a County to control waste and come up with some way to deal with waste, island -wide. Right now, we control only the waste that we pick up from our transfer stations. Every other waste stream, we don't own. That waste stream is owned by the people that pick up that waste. And we cannot mandate to them at this point, where they put the waste. They put it in our landfills because that's the only place they can put it. But we don't control where they take that waste. And taking a look at the waste to energy facility that's proposed in Waikoloa, it brings that right to the war. They control 60 percent of waste on the west side. So, if we wanted to do an island -wide project, we would have a Page 5 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 difficult time without some kind of flow control ordinance. So, I just raise that as an issue. Abandoned vehicles, just a few numbers on the abandoned vehicles right now. In 2016, we had 431 vehicles that were reported abandoned, we towed 345 of them and you know, 86 weren't there when they went to be towed, so we have that. The process is that we do not control tagging an abandoned vehicle. That is a police function. The police get a call that a vehicle is abandoned, they would go out and check that vehicle, they tag it and then they have 72 hours. They go back, if the vehicle is still there we get notice and we send out the tow trucks to take that vehicle out. One of things that we have done is gone to Maui, and Maui County has a very strong program and one of things that they do is, they have special forms that they have for the police and they have digitized some of these. Some of these issues. For instance, they say an abandoned vehicle is on X road, and X road is 12 miles - long, where is it? You need to find it and then once you find it, where do you tell the tow truck driver where it is? And so coming in right now, just about every phone can GPS (Global Positioning System) and you can look and get a location. Just like I talked about recycling, we need to make this easy, we cannot make this a burden for the police. They have to go out and find these and go back again and have them take 20 or 30 minutes to note that a car needs to be; or vehicle needs to be towed. So we need to make it easier for them, so that it happens much, much more easier. We do have three storage facilities, once the vehicle is towed, it's taking to—we have three storage facilities, North Hilo, Kona, and North Kohala. And the vehicle will go there, if we can identify that there's an owner. If it's a current registration, we can notify the owner and they can come get their vehicle and get it out, once they pay for towing. But one of the things that Maui has done that we're looking at is they go back with the vehicle I.D. number and they can find who the last registered owner is. And the owner has the responsibility if he transfers title to register that. And if that's not registered, what they do is they go to the last known owner and they bill them for the towing and all of the other expenses associated with that vehicle. That's something that we're looking into. As far as coming up and changing from East Hawaii to West Hawaii for our disposal, the department has purchased in this fiscal year five new trailers and cabs. We have three more coming for this next year and five a year after that, so that our fleet is upgraded. If we are taking waste from east to west, we have vehicles that are in good shape. We do have a new recycle coordinator that will start on March 16. He ran the process, the recycling group in the State of Wisconsin. He moved here and Page 6 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 thought he was going to retire, and so we've changed that but—so he will start on the 16th of March. I wrote down one of the items as litter. You all might have been called, Kamehameha Schools had a project on recycling and litter and what do you do and what can you do to fix this. It became pretty obvious that I got a lot of the calls and I said, "Well, we don't do litter." I mean we do litter, we take it, once it's picked up. But that lead me to the thought of we really need to have aan island -wide anti- litter campaign started. Texas, I use as an example, they have stickers that says, "Don't mess with Texas." That is their saying and we need to have the same kind of saying here. To come in and say, "This isn't right, you can't, you don't trash your home. And that's what we're doing when we litter. And you start with the children, and they embarrass their parents into not doing it. And that is how those programs work and I'm going to work hard with that coordinator and try and get a good litter—anti-litter campaign going. Just put in a plug, there is a household hazardous waste pick-up that we're going to get set up on March 4 in Waimea, March 5 in Pahoa; and they'll take, you know, any engine oils that you have. Any of the oil things, batteries, florescent lights, pesticides. Any of those things the household hazardous waste can be picked up at those locations. CHR. O'HARA: Bill, are we also doing paint? MR. KUCHARSKI: Latex paint is in Waimea only, not in Pahoa. Now we go from the easy topic to the hard topic, which is wastewater. Just a couple of numbers for you. The average water use in the household is 80 to a 100 gallons a person. Which means that in Hawaii not counting tourists, we have 15 to 19 million of gallons of wastewater a day. We currently have treatment systems, our treatment systems that we run, treat approximately five million gallons per day, which means that about two-thirds of the islands is, we're not treating in the central system. And the rest is either going septic or to cesspools or some privately owned like the hotels, some of the big communities have those. But speaking of the—of that, this is something that gives us an issue, actually, in the State of Hawaii, the Island of Hawaii has over half of the cesspools that are still open in the whole state and are definitely not close to the half of the population. So we are under a consent or entering into a consent order for the large community cesspool closings in Pahala and in Na`alehu. Large cesspools were banned in 2005 and it's now 2017 and EPA hasn't given us a visit and we are working with them. We're working on right now on administrative order of consent to deal with those closures. We have provided schedules for the closure in Pahala. We had a $1.8 million grant from EPA to work on the cesspool Page 7 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 closures. That was given in 2005. We have to expend that money by 2020, and it just so happens that we have still have $1.8 million available. So we will be working on that, applying that to Pahala. We've had problems finding a location, a suitable location, for our treatment plant in Na`alehu and so we've transferred that monies up to Pahala. We're working on that, we should have—we're looking at a 2020 and all those funds expended by 2020, I will say that EPA is working with us very closely. We talked to them this morning about getting a grant together too, and providing a consultant to help us work on our asset management for the facilities to deal with training for our wastewater group. And also they are going to be going on an analysis of the number of the cesspools we have and how we can close them. This is going to be an in-kind grant to us for that. So, things are looking up and you know, we're trying to move forward on these activities. Region nine has been great and if you haven't heard nice things about a regulatory agency before, I know I haven't heard many. I will tell you that they're doing they're above and beyond. We do have—one of the major problems we have is really unseen but it's real and that is the fact that we have a number of communities that are located within a mile or less of the ocean front. They are using cesspools because that's what was normal and that's what we as put in. You don't see the discharge, but our reefs get damaged, our people go in the water and they say, "This supposed to make you healthy, it makes me sick." And this is something that we have to do, we have to fix. This for me is the biggest problem that I can see that we're facing. Again, when I said solid waste is a problem, but it's a problem that you can see and feel and fix. Sewage is something you can't. It's just very insidious. So if there's any area that we need help and support it's going to be the Wastewater Division. At Kealakehe, we're looking at the R-1 waters, to come and be able to use that for recycling. Right now, we have three of the five drinking water wells down. It would be a wonderful place to able to have people use reused water instead of raw, fresh water. It's a waste, and we need to come in make better use of our resources, and this is one way we can do that. Of course, when you say that and you say what is the price, everything has a cost. So this is an area that to do the right thing, we may have to spend more money than we're spending now. Well, everything's correct except "may." We "will" have to spend more money if we're going to do that. We are putting in engineered wetlands to remove some of the phosphorous and nitrogen which are regular fertilizers that you put out. But that's one of the things that we get from the wastewater. We're using the engineered, it's a subsurface Page 8 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 system, to come in and have the plant roots take up those nutrients to reduce the nutrient flow. We would love to be able to have some discharge. We have some higher chlorides in our waters from some seepage coming into some of our lines, but we also have pretty high chlorine or fluorides in our drinking water. We're about 300 parts per million is our drinking water. So when you start that as a base, it's pretty easy to get some pretty saline wastewater. So if we use less water, then the chlorides will probably go down some. And I know the goal in talking with the Water Department, their goal is to get down to about 100 to 150 parts, and if they can, that would help us a great deal. When we talked before about the small communities with the cesspools or even if they're on septic, in order for us to come in and put in a central treatment plant, the cost, because our population is so small, is going to be very high, and we need to find some way to deal with that issue. We can't ask people to pay that are currently on a thing that doesn't appear to be doing any damage and say, we're here to make it better and it's going to cost you $50 or $25 a month, and they're wondering where they're going to pay their rent or how they're going to get food for their kids. We have to take that in to account and we have to do something in my opinion. One of the things that we've done here to sort of reduce some of the cost is we use a lot of biological systems. A lot of our facilities are not manned; we have no one in there. We used to have someone 24 hours in an operating facility, we operate eight hour days and we just visit once or twice a week. So, sometimes we have spills, we have releases, it's because we don't have somebody that's on site all the time and we can't—our systems are pretty easy and pretty good. We take advantage of our climate, we take advantage of the normal biological activity. That's what wastewater treatment is, biological systems. And so sometimes we do have those spills and releases, and it's because of the fact that we had no one there. If we had someone there our budget would be twice what it is now, and so we have to make some choices. At Kealakehe we do have at least two endangered species both the Hawaiian Stilt and—let's see, I wrote down what the other one was. I don't have it down here, but at any rate we have at least two endangered species birds that are there. One of the things we have are predator control, we have—the predators I found out are feral cats and mongeesemongooses—mongooses? And so, we are looking at a contract to come down and have a wild -life biologist deal with predator control, to protect these endangered birds that are that think our wastewater treatments is at least pretty cool. So, they may be the only ones but they're in there. And one of the issues that we are, and we're going to have to face on any of the facilities that we have discharges on, is EPA. Is implementing nutrient requirements, nutrient treatments, which is the nitrogen and the phosphorous and Page 9 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 bringing those down to very low numbers. Right now our facilities don't do that. In my opinion those systems and those limits were designed for the mainland when you had internal rivers, where you may have one river, 50 different discharges and a cumulative impact of all of those impacts of waters. It's still better if we could have lower numbers of discharge, but that's something I think that is much less impacted at our environment then where these came from. But at any rate that's something that will be coming up when we come in and we do our NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System), which is our discharge permits renewals. That's something that may require upgrades to our systems, but that's down the road. Well, that's the nickel tour. CHR. O'HARA: Alright, that's better. Alright. Do have we have any questions for Bill? Go ahead. MS. POINDEXTER: You spoke about the—improving the transfer stations. Would that include increasing the hours of operation like more days, especially in rural communities? MR. KUCHARSKI: It could. MS. POINDEXTER: Okay. MR. KUCHARSKI: This is awe have no problem staying open 24 hours a day, except for our budget. MS. POINDEXTER: Right. And I don't expect it like 24 hours a day, but I'd like to see more days in the rural communities. Because those are the communities that are starting to dump in the gulches, because they don't have access to a transfer station. A lot of them are kind of older, retired workers who not going spend the time to drive into Hilo or towards Kona or just even maybe to Honoka`a, you know but if Laupahoehoe or Pa`auilo was open that's more reasonable, yeah. So you also talked about the—so I'm glad you're open to that discussion. So, thank you for that. Oil, dropping off like motor oil, you had talked about—do you have days set for that or? MR. KUCHARSKI: I'm not going to tell you that I have a date set for it. But that is an issue thatI know we're looking at that. We have issues with that. We're going to be talking about the recycling next, but so I can have more details. But when you're talking oil, electronics, all of those sort of those special waste, we have to take a really close look at that and that's what the new recycle coordinator's going to do. I can give you a better answer at our next meeting or probably few down, but MS. POINDEXTER: Okay. Page 10 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 MR. KUCHARSKI: Yes, that's something that I know it's an issue that need to deal with and its MR. POINDEXTER: And I know our Chair O'Hara will stay on top of that. So, looking forward to hearing more about it. So, thank you Chair. CHR.O'HARA: Yes. MR. KUCHARSKI: You'll hear about it on that. CHR. O'HARA: Good question, and we are having a discussion on the recycling programs within the solid waste department at our next Environmental Management Commission meeting. So, I had asked Bill to concentrate on the bigger pieces of wastewater and solid waste. He didn't present price tags with those big pieces yet. But some are pretty shockingly expensive. So, just be prepared. Okay, any other questions from down the row? Ms. David. MS. DAVID: Mahalo, Chair. Aloha, Mr. Kucharski, and thank you for that outline that you presented. Along the lines of Council Member Poindexter, I have one of the hugest rural communities. And this was the question that was posed to me and I know that we do have, or Environmental Management has, a process that if the solid waste workers, people that leave their trash, you know, outside and then they look into the trash to find out, you know, whose trash that is. I think—is there a process that Environmental goes through, say, if they're identified? Do you folks notify these people? MR. KUCHARSKI: Generally on that we would go to the police. We have no police powers. We actually don't have— MS. DAVID: Is that the process? I was just wondering what that process was because I've heard that, you know, they were reported and basically nothing happened. MR. KUCHARSKI: Yes, I think that ifagain, since we have no policing powers and I'm certain that the police prioritize their calls. MS. DAVID: Right. Exactly, so I was just wondering in house, you don't have any, any means of? MR. KUCHARSKI: No, no ma'am. MS. DAVID: I see. MR. KUCHARSKI: Not that I'm aware of. Page 11 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 MS. DAVID: Yeah. That's too bad, because it's like you know, the effort's being made to identify these people that probably just leave their trash, so I thought we had MR. KUCHARSKI: We put up security cameras and then have them stolen. MS. DAVID: I heard about that too. So, I really, really appreciate your—you know, the efforts of EM because this a real problem that I don't think there's an immediate solution for, so. Thank you, you have enough on your hands, too. Oh, one last question on the wastewater treatment plant for, thank you for Pahala, that's in my district. Na`alehu, is there any site so far that's been moved on as far as the location for the Na`alehu one? MR. KUCHARSKI: We are looking at two specific sites and that—as you know we've looked at, I think, 16 different sites over the last eight or ten years. MS DAVID: Right. MR. KUCHARSKI: We have two sites that were currently examining, we're checking on ownership and whether we need to condemn or what. But we're examining those. MS. DAVID: Okay. MR. KUCHARSKI: We had a discussion with EPA, this would be part of our consent agreement that we get moving and we have the schedule that we gave them a schedule, tentative schedule for this and we're looking in the—again 2020's to get things completed. MS. DAVID: Okay. MR. KUCHARSKI: But we do have the property; and again, two pieces that we're looking at that we hope are far enough away. But we're never going to make everybody happy. MS. DAVID: Right, exactly. Okay, main thing it's still moving. Thank you very much. Alright, mahalo. I yield. CHR. O'HARA: Okay, thank you. Anyone else down there? Questions? Ms. Eoff. MS. EOFF: Okay, thank you. And thank you, Director. I wanted to express thanks for your coming to introduce yourself, I think to all of us. And sitting Page 12 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 down and spending some time with us. I'm really Looking forward and excited about having a recycling coordinator come on board and your anti -litter campaign. I think we should all rally around that. So I want to thank you for mentioning that today, too. MR. KUCHARSKI: Thank you. MS. EOFF: In Kona, I believe that the biggest environmental concern is the Kealakehe Wastewater Treatment Plant. So, I've been monitoring that over my last few, you know, couple terms and will continue to do so. I think that the progress that we've made is good, it's been a little slow for most people's comfort zone but we have to keep moving on that. And going to our reusable water will be a great benefit to this area and save water from being pulled from the aquifer as well. So, thank you for your attention to everything that you've told to us today and I feel positive about the future of our island, right now. Thank you. MR. KUCHARSKI: Thank you. I'm positive as well, I think we have a Lot of good things that we can do and we can accomplish. CHR. O'HARA: Okay, thank you. Councilman Richards. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you. Good afternoon, Director. Couple of questions, Bill. The wastewater discharge level of chlorides and phosphorous that you mentioned, and maybe I missed understood what you were saying, the levels that our treatment plans discharge, you made the comment more of a continental thinking, are we higher than usual or is it lower? Clarify that for me, please. MR. KUCHARSKI: It's the same standards, it's I think 40 parts per million for nitrogen and seven parts for phosphorous and that is the standard that is used, well it's used throughout the U.S. and they're applying it here. My only comment was that with our receding waters, it might not, we might not necessarily need that lower level, except that it's the standard. And it may be appropriate for, you know, someone on the Mississippi River that has, you know, 8,000 dischargers and that all builds up. But for us we have one small outfall, relatively small volume, going out, and a single limit of capacity of the Pacific Ocean is pretty great. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. And best guess and I realize it's a best guess, total number or total percentage of sewage treatment in our County that goes through those waste systems versus the cesspools or septic system, percentage wise? Just rough. MR. KUCHARSKI: Percentage-wise— MS. EOFF: He said two-thirds. Page 13 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 MR. KUCHARSKI: We're dealing with about 20-25 percent. Yeah, about 25 percent is going through our treatment systems and the rest is going out in either septic or cesspool or private treatment. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Which leads to the final question. I listened to you, I listened to the testimony all day, or all afternoon. And when we talk about our waste management, we're talking probably a step backwards in looking at a comprehensive look of everything we do. Because again; I think you and I have had this conversation. Big Island is more like managing a small continent than really managing a County because its importation and then export if we're going to get rid of things. As you see from the chair that you're sitting in now, a comprehensive waste management plan including the wastewater and the solid waste, are you seeing that direction? Because I know as our Chair Woman has articulated, that's going to come with a fairly healthy price tag. What is your intention again sitting as a Director? Are you going to be developing something? Not a five-year plan but a 50 -year plan, 40 -year plan? What's your thoughts? MR. KUCHARSKI: Well, I'm not convinced that a comprehensive plan is going to be more expensive then what we're doing now when you take a look at life cycle cost. If we're going to do anything with organics, about 50 percent of the waste that we put in the landfill is organic waste. Anybody that's going to use that, the first thing they have to do is separate out everything else so they can use the organics. So when you take a look at, for instance, the Waikoloa waste to energy, they're using their organics and they're going use an anaerobic digester and create nothing. They're going to use that gas. But in order to get the organics, they have to take the inorganics out. Once you do that, you have an opportunity to not throw those organic materials away but to recycle the glass, the metal, and the other. The plastics you can take and turn them into useable oils. There's things that you can do and I think that if we had a comprehensive plan, it might be cheaper then what we're doing now. I can't guarantee that but that's my thought. Sometimes doing more can be cheaper than doing a lot of little things that you tack on to one another. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Thank you. CHR. O'HARA: Alright. Ms. Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Mr. Kucharski, it's polish—yes? MR. KUCHARSKI: Yes, ma'am. Page 14 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 MS. LEE LOY: My grandmother's polish, so I think we'll get along great. Hilo Landfill, you mentioned the closure, do you have an estimated cost for the closure and then an estimated cost for the 30 -year monitoring? MR. KUCHARSKI: Yes. But not right now. MS. LEE LOY: That's fair. MR. KUCHARSKI: I've been given the number but I didn't write it down, so if I give you a number that's the only number that you'll ever remember. So, if I can get our anticipated closure costs to everyone. I'm sorry; I don't have that with me now. MS. LEE LOY: Is it fair to say that it's in the millions? CHR. O'HARA: Oh, yeah. MR. KUCHARSKI: It's more than fair. MS. LEE LOY: And does the closure plan include a water monitoring? MR. KUCHARSKI: Yes. MS. LEE LOY: Okay. The recycle waste diversionsorry, I wrote all over this paper. Alternative composting locations, where's the County at looking at alternative sites? MR. KUCHARSKI: Well, I think that one of the things that is in the plan is the comprehensive waste management which it has to include the significant portion of the organics going in to composting. Right now we're deferring a lot of green waste on the mulching and that could be enhanced. Whatever we do we're going to continue the mulching and continue to do the composting. Where that is I think it's going to be something that is not predetermined. It may be that we wind up with smaller facilities closer to users and closer to the waste stream than adding one location where we're almost a hundred miles apart from source and so, it'sI don't know where they're going to be. Could be one central facility, could be four or five smaller facilities around. We're going to be working on putting an RFP (Request for Proposals), together for that comprehensive plan that we're going to be looking at it in the near future to get out. MS. LEE LOY: Okay, is it possible for that RFP to take a look at exactly that, where we would have one central location or, you know, rural site locations? But I would like to see is exactly the carbon footprint piece because of you know, Page 15 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 people having to drive to one central location compared to closer to home. Is that something that we can include in the scope? MR. KUCHARSKI: Yes. MS. LEE LOY: That would be great. Okay. Waste to energy facility, you mentioned to special permit process for the Waikoloa waste to energy facility. Is that a County special permit or was that with the State? MR. KUCHARSKI: It would be the County special use permit. Right now it's industrial quorum and it has to go to Planning Department for its special use permit after the Environmental Assessment. MR. LEE LOY: Do you have a timeline for that? MR. KUCHARSKI: That Planning has a time line but I don't know what their how long they take to process. MS. LEE LOY: Kealakehe, you mentioned the R-1 quality. Is anybody looking at R-2 for irrigation or some other pieces? MR. KUCHARSKI: WeI just know that we have the mandate for R- 1, and I will look into that but I think that there would be a lot of push back on R-2. Because the R-1, I think there would be a broader use for it. MS. LEE LOY: Okay, you mentioned that engineering the wetlands piece for the facility, do you have a price tag for those engineered wetlands? MR. KUCHARSKI: I have an estimate, and once again I have it but I don'tI did not write it down and I don't want to give you the wrong number but I can give you that cost. We do have an estimate I just don't have it on the top of my head, sorry. MS. LEE LOY: Is that another million dollar price tag? MR. KUCHARSKI: Yes. MS. LEE LOY: Okay. MR. KUCHARSKI: I don't think I've seen a bill that's less than six figures. MS. LEE LOY: Our rural communities, I know we talked about this during confirmation hearing but there's some grant-in-aid funding. Have we been able to look at, you know, kind of combining capacity numbers to look for alternative sources of funding? You know, I mentioned that in Kauai County, Maui County, Page 16 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 we have all these communities under 500,000 and it's hard to secure, you know, funds. But if we MR. KUCHARSKI: We are working with, again, EPA on planning document that would come in and take a look at all of our systems. Once we have identified that, part of that is going to be cost and they require sustainable economics for those. So once we do that we can get a grant but that doesn't take care of long term cost that will take one time. And sometimes those grant cost you a lot more money than you get, but it's something that we will be looking at and that's going to be part of the EPA study that we've talked to them about. We're in preliminary stages right now, just talking about what the scope is going to be. But once we have that and we have cost then we can come in and say, okay, what is it going to take, how are we going to do this. MS. LEE LOY: So, not only the cost of building but the cost of maintenance of it. MR. KUCHARSKI: Yeah, the operations, the hook-ups, all of those things that we need to do. MS. LEE LOY: Okay. Oh, predator control. I think we decided that was mongi not mongoose or geese. It was mongi for sure. Tires, we had—what are we doing with our tires? Cause I've experienced a lot of people dumping in my neighborhood, probably because it's on the way to the dump. MR. KUCHARSKI: Yeah. We had tires we dealt with Zika and that was the reason to move forward but this is something like the oil and the tires, we need to come up with a more cohesive plans and things but again all of these issues come back to how are we going to fund this activity and I don't want to keep going back to that but we always go back to that. But I will be taking a look and I will get you all those because I do remember hearing that question before and I did not respond to you then either, so my apologies. MS. LEE LOY: It's okay. Thank you. I think for me and my colleagues you know, that's our job, we got to figure out how to fund it all, but I think more importantly as a legislative body we're looking at ways to write legislation that actually may help, not only with looking for funding but the penalization piece or the incentive piece so that, you know, some of these illegal dumping doesn't occur. You know, transfer stations being open a reasonable amount of hours, so that you know, we're actually really helping and then let the legislative piece drive that so that it incentivizes people to do the right thing. MR. KUCHARSKI: We have gone out on the tires and a part of the issue we have is that, people who sells tires collect money to take care of and take the old Page 17 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 tires when they buy the new one. We've gone out with an education contract to remind them that they have an obligation to take those tires. Since, they took the money. And so we're working on that, but we're not a 100 percent successful, I'm afraid. MS. LEE LOY: Okay, thank you. CHR. O'HARA: Alright. Are there any more questions, anyone else? Well, then I want to thank you Bill, Mr. Kucharski, for coming before us as the new Director of Environmental Management. I do have a couple of questions. Regarding the Abandoned Vehicle Program and we spoke of this beforehand. I visited Hawaiian Paradise Park, that's one of our bigger subdivisions in Puna and they're not only receiving tire dumps—and they're not on the way to the dump but they have a lot of dead-end roads and people are dumping tires and they're spending $200 to $300 a month disposing of discarded tires. They're also spending $300 to $400 a month disposing of abandoned vehicles because they've told me that when they call their response is that because the roads are private that we are not operating our abandoned vehicle program on those roads. Is that correct? MR. KUCHARSKI: I have been told the only places that we will not pick up a vehicle is if it's a gated community. MS. O'HARA: Well, we're not gated. Okay. MR. KUCHARSKI: If it's not gated, it should be private roads that are dealt with. And again, they said the only place that they can't go is gated communities. MS. O'HARA: Alright. Well, thank you. I know we're going to deal with some of the recycling programs on March 7. And so we'll see you again, there but in designing the 21 transfer stations, redesigning the 21 transfer stations, the County made an effort to make recycling as simple as possible by doing the two stream sort. And while that worked to get our recycling rates up to close to 30 percent or somewhere in that neighborhood, it hasn't been entirely effective and one of the reasons may be because people don't value something that's free. And the only way that other communities have reached high numbers like your referencing 80 to 90 percent is through pay as you throw programs, where you have to pay for everything that isn't recycled, which really puts the incentive there to recycle as much as possible. It's something that we've bandied around for, you know, 20 to 30 years here but we've never seriously considered it. And considering the cost that we're looking at for solid waste improvements, for wastewater improvements we need to be thinking intelligently about how to shoulder all of these costs. There are some grant funds that we are eligible for because of the demographics of the island but in general we just haven't been Page 18 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 putting enough money into solid waste and wastewater projects for the last 20 years, and it's catching up with us. So, I appreciate that you're on the job and it's a tough job and thank you for coming before us with all that information. MR. KUCHARSKI: Thank you, and I want to say that I have always had a enjoyed sitting in front of you and I hope that remains the case. MS. O'HARA: Alright. Well, I think we have a motion to dispose of. Vote on Comm. 106: The motion to close file on Comm. 106 was carried by Filed following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members David, Eoff, Kanuha, Lee Loy, Poindexter, Richards, Ruggles, and Chair O'Hara — 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Chung — 1. Excused: None. Relinquish Chair: At this time Chair O'Hara, relinquished chair to Vice Chair Richards. MS. O'HARA: And the reason I'm doing that is the next item on the agenda is one that I introduced. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Is that it? MR. HENRICKS: Let the record reflect that— ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Let the record reflect that I'm Councilman Richards is now the Chair, assuming the Chair of the Environmental Management Committee. Hang on a second, hang on. It is now coming up on 5:00 p.m. and we've been going at it. In keeping up with my tradition. We will be taking the breaks that I always take. We're going to have a seven minute break, right now. Recess: At 4:57 p.m., Chair called a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 5:04 p.m. ORDER OF The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, RESOLUTIONS: Order of Resolutions. (There were none. BILLS FOR The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, ORDINANCES: Bills for Ordinances. Page 19 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 Bill 13: AMENDS CHAPTER 20, OF THE HAWAII COUNTY CODE 1983 (2005 EDITION, AS AMENDED), BY ADDING A NEW ARTICLE RELATING TO REDUCTION OF POLYSTYRENE FOAM "STYROFOAM" FOOD CONTAINERS AND FOOD WARE Prohibits food vendors from dispensing prepared food in disposable polystyrene food service ware effective July 1, 2018. Exempts ice chest and coolers, County facility users and food vendors procuring supplies during an event declared as an emergency by the Mayor. Introduced by Ms. O'Hara. Reference: Comm. 107 Intr. by: Ms. O'Hara (Note: Comm. 107. 1, from Council Member Eileen O'Hara dated February 15, 2017, transmitting proposed amendments to Bill 13, was circulated.) ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: May I have a motion. MS. O'HARA: Chair, I would like to bring up the fact that this bill has been amended by the MS. POINDEXTER: Your mic. MS. POINDEXTER: Can you make a motion first? Motion to Approve: Ms. O'Hara moved to recommend passage of Bill 13 on first reading. Seconded by Ms. Ruggles. MS. O'HARA: Chair do I have the floor? ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: You have the floor. MS. O'HARA: Thank you. Okay, the amendments, as I pointed out, were non substantive. They were a couple dates, we missed when we revised this bill from its previous incarnation last year as Bill 140, and we missed changing the edition from 2005 to 2016 edition, and we missed changing the dates from January 1, 2017 to January 1, 2018 in two places in the bill. The other change was alphabetizing the definitions. The definition for compostable should follow directly after the definition of biodegradable. So these are substantive changes. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: So, I have a motion from you to amend your bill? MS. O'HARA: Yes, I so move. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: I need a second. Page 20 EMC -1 Vote on Motion to Amend: (Approved) February 21, 2017 Ms. O'Hara moved to amend Bill 13 with the contents of Comm. 107.1. Seconded by Ms. Eoff and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members David, Eoff, Kanuha, Lee Loy, O'Hara, Poindexter, Ruggles, and Acting Chair Richards — 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Chung — 1. Excused: None. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Okay, we're back to the original motion on the floor amended, correct? Now, we are open for discussion. MS. O'HARA: Good job, thank you. I brought this bill back because of a lot of demand from my constituents and across the island we can see there's a great deal of support for this bill. This is what we would call a limited Styrofoam ban, or Polystyrene ban, and we are following the lead of hundreds of cities and Counties on the mainland that have done similar types limited bans. As yet, we have not seen a State ban go into effect and we're being advised by our Department of Health to consider it at the County level. Maui County has moved their Styrofoam ban bill passed its first reading and they're waiting the second reading. We do have a live measure at the State currently but we don't and won't know whether it passes until the end of the legislative session, which isn't until early May. So, it behooves us to consider this now and I'm open to discussion if anyone has any particular conditions they'd like to change in the way that this bill is written, and we can consider that at this meeting or move it forward. But I do support this motion and feel the time has come for this type of ban. It's happening not only at different locations nationally but it's also happening internationally. One of the things that we've heard today focuses on the cost, the differential between purchasing compostable products versus Polystyrene. And those costs can be stated in a way that they sound insurmountable or they can be stated in a way that makes you realize that we're just talking a few pennies. When you say that when a polystyrene container, is two to three or four times less than a biodegradable type of container, when you realize that the per unit cost might be as low as one and a half cents and the cost of the biodegradable coffee cup could be four and a half cents, it gives it in real terms how it impacts businesses and consumers. Almost all of this will pass on to the consumer. Most businesses will not absorb this cost. And this is common in these types of waste stream efforts Page 21 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 where the extra three cents that it might cost the business to hand out coffee in a biodegradable cup is passed on to the consumers. This is true in the bottle bill where the consumer pays an extra six and a half cents I think it is, and they only receive a nickel back that penny and a half pays for the program and administration. But when the store sells the container they're going to probably charge eight cents or more because they want to cover their paperwork cost in responding to the bottle bill requirements. In essence, what we found when implementing the HI -5 program in 2005 was that businesses were able to absorb all of those costs and in fact probably profit a little bit from the implementation of the HI -5 Program. Yet that program has been very effective in reducing roadside litter to the point where we don't see cans and bottles on the roadsides anymore. What we see is trash that's predominately white, and predominately white tends to be paper and Styrofoam. So Styrofoam is now constituting a larger portion of our roadside litter, illegal dumping. And this is where we get into real serious problems with Styrofoam management in that it impacts the environment negatively. And so as in island in the middle of the pacific, I think it behooves us to consider this ban since there are alternatives, and those alternatives actually provide economic diversity and opportunities for businesses to expand. Thank you. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Council Woman. Council Chair Poindexter. MS. POINDEXTER: Yeah. Thank you, Chair. I was in support of this effort the last term and I'm still continuing to support this effort. You know, most people who testified back then and now and emails that we've gotten don't mind paying a little extra, you know, to protect the environment, and paying a little bit more for the compostables and or recyclables. And you know we survived, many people testified, too. We survived the plastic ban, plastic bag ban. We transitioned well into it. I think the same transition will take place and everybody will get to appreciate it. I mean I think some transition has been taking place already. So, I appreciate that. So, I look forward to moving this on and I'm urging all the Council Members, let's get it up to the Council meeting and not delay it any further. I think we've waited much too long. So, I'll yield at this time. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chair. Council Woman David. MS. DAVID: Mahalo, Chair Richards. And I'd really like to thank all the testifiers and the people that have submitted testimony. Mr. Yamada and Ms. Joy for coming every meeting. And I totally respect, you know, your position on this. Page 22 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 And in a sense of trying to balance the situation, I supported the bill in the last go around and nothing really has changed to affect my position. I think from hearing everyone testify again, I feel as a native of this island, we have to start somewhere and I think there is alternatives. And I feel, you know, I feel for the people that you say might be impacted financially by this. But, you know, I also talked to a lot of the local restaurants here that some have never even gone into the Styrofoam containers themselves and stick to the old fashioned box lunches and stuff like that. So you know, I think we have to start somewhere and the reason I say that is because I really believe there's options. And there's means to recoup some of those things that you discuss and other people has raised. So, I will stand with my position as I have taken on the prior time this came about. So, mahalo again for coming, diligence for coming to these meetings and thank you for everyone's input on this very, very important issue. So thank you, Ms. O'Hara. You know, I'm sorry, when I look at you I know your name's O'Hara but I want to say O'Riley for some reason. And that's why I pause every time when I'm going, wait, O'Hara. Okay, I'm sorry, anyway but thank you very much for bringing this forward again, and I yield. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Council Woman David. Council Woman Eoff. MS. EOFF: Thank you, Mr. Chair; and thank you Ms. O'Hara. Yeah, well first of all thank you to the testifiers that came in today and to those who sent testimony. I did support this wholeheartedly the first time around the last term, I was happy that we had so much discussion. And even the task force that some of you folks had participated in, it was all very positive. And maybe it took us till now to be able to, you know, to actually pass a bill hopefully, but I just wanted to add to what's been said already. Just to think of us, we are a small island in the Pacific and I think we should be on the cutting edge of participating in sort of a global look at weighing the benefits of erring on the side of protection and all ways, at this point of time, for our earth. The Malama Honua voyage of Hokulea, I always reflect back on their mission and their goals in sailing all over the world, actually study the State of the world's oceans and to connect problems and solutions all over the world right now, to make us more sustainable and to take care of our island earth, which is we are macrocosm of that. So, I'm wholeheartedly in support of this bill, I do have one question about the maybe it doesn't matter at this point but in the General Provisions that states that, "accordingly, this ordinance is implemented in tandem with the County's full- scale compost program, both scheduled to take effect on Page 23 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 July 1, 2018." Is there any problem with that date? Or that'sI'm sure you've taken a look at that. Is that—yeah, I'm thinking that it's not that critical at this point. MS. O'HARA: Well, no it's not that critical, but we don't know the outcome there yet. Yeah. MS. EOFF: Yeah. That was my only thought when you said is there any anymore discussion on changes to the bill. But at this point, I'm good to go moving on to Council. So, thank you very much. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Okay, thank you Council Woman Eof£ Council Woman Ruggles. MS. RUGGLES: Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Ms. O'Hara for introducing this. And thank you all, everyone who came out and testified and keeps coming out and testifying and for all of you who are still here. Good job. I also want to give a shout out to Margaret Wille, who was the original one who spearheaded this couple years ago. When local businesses are burdened with extra costs, careful scrutiny is required. And the County Council as the governing body, we should not place undue burdens on businesses. And there are consensus on the scientific community about Polystyrene that it harms our health and the environment. Our own Department of Health and Human Services' National Toxicity Program Report points to Polystyrene being carcinogenic. And there's consensus that 500 species of fish and wildlife are affected adversely from Styrofoam. And Styrofoam allows businesses to charge less when they serve on Styrofoam, but the cost savings may or may not be passed to the consumer. When you think of a five to fifteen cent increase, that's on one plate of food. That's a one to two percent increase; it's very, very small. And the chronic costs of people's health in the environment is unquantifiable. And earning a profit by selling a product that is proven to cause harm creates ethical questions. And so as a governing body, we are in a difficult position of making decisions for the common good. And malama `aina is a value that we all share, and this is what malama `aina looks like. This is responsible legislation that takes a toxic product out of our food system and our environment, and I will be supporting it. Thank you. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Council Woman Ruggles. Council Woman Lee Loy. Page 24 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, thank you. You know, I listen very carefully and I immediately went to the exemption piece of Bill 13 and saw a number of exemptions, which then made me think about a bunch of other exemptions. You know, like our egg cartons and our meat trays, what does this do to you know the packing materials that a lot of our microwaves come in, our TVs, you know, the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits when people are using their SNAP benefits to buy a plate lunch. You know, I understand that this bill is actually, you know, talking about a food vendor but then we also provide a number of exemptions. I was just wondering if any—and maybe Ms. O'Hara has some insight as to what that looks like. That's my first question. Then, you know, we have that State Senate Bill moving through the State Legislature, and you know, I'm making sure that some of our laws, we're not creating a disadvantage here that, you know, laws are applied evenly and across, you know, the entire State. So, you know, those are my two concerns about what we have before us. I'm going to ask Ms. O'Hara if she has any insight to that. MS. O'HARA: Whenever you pass any type of ban, it's important to have an exemption process, because it can possibly negatively impact certain vendors. I wouldn't want to characterize who those vendors might be, but it's important to have an exemption process. That's what this bill allows for. It doesn't mean necessarily that businesses will be going for the exemption, because they would have to justify the request for an exemption and that alone is an onerous process. So, it would have to be a situation in which it was really valid. That's why the exemption process is set up. The exemptions for emergency supplies is kind of self-explanatory. In times of emergency we need to be able to provide food stuff to people who are without food and unable to cook or whatever. So if that's the product that's available for us to package it then that would be used in times of emergency. So, those are the exemptions that are basically allowed in here and I think that's just important in good policy making to provide a method for vendors to become exempt. MS. LEE LOY: And then for the Senate Bill. Are we dovetailing one into the other or? MS. O'HARA: I'm not really going to speak to the Senate Bill that's currently moving through because we don't know at this point. It's early in the legislative session. We're still in February and things can change radically, as we are all aware between now and when bills finalize the end of April. So it's hard to predict if that bill is going to be in the same form that it is currently, if it's going to pass at all. It's very hard to predict at this point and time. I will say this: that the implementation date for that bill is currently 2020 and this is calling for Page 25 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 implementation in 2018, so you might consider it something of a trial run if it passes here at the County level and again passes at the State level. MS. LEE LOY: Chair, if I might have Mr. Kamelamela come forward? ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Corporate Counsel, please come, Mr. Kamelamela, we have a question for you. (Note: At this time, Corporation Counsel Joseph Kamelamela came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Kamelamela. So, Bill 13 as written, you know the exemptions that I mentioned, you know, egg cartons, meats, for SNAP benefits, are those things covered in the exemption language that we have in the Bill 13? MR. KAMELAMELA: My name is Joseph Kamelamela, the Corporation Counsel. Anyway, so whether it's covered or not, I think in those exemptions the Director was supposed to look at it. So that's something that he would have to determine later on. MS. LEE LOY: Okay. MR. KAMELAMELA: So, maybe it's kind of avoiding the question, but I know that the director is involved in the process of giving the exemptions. MS. LEE LOY: Okay, and then, so let me ask that. Procedurally, does this go to the Department of Environmental Management and their commission first to examine the language and if those exemptions are covered? MR. KAMELAMELA: At this point and time no, because I know that the predecessor to this—you know, in the last term, you know, there was a four-four vote. So that issue was already taken up to the commission, and I understand that there is a rule, the Council rule where a bill that's substantially in the same form can be brought up in a new Council term. But does this have to go back to the commission? I don't think so, but you can pass it up and take that issue at your next meeting. MS. LEE LOY: And the process for the Director, I see an exemption Item (4), "The Director may approve any exemption request in whole or in part." Has that process been developed yet? MR. KAMELAMELA: I would have to take it up with the Director, who's relatively new. Page 26 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 MS. LEE LOY: Alright, thank you. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Council Woman. Councilman Kanuha. MR. KANUHA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And my whole question was the procedure and process of this. I mean we discussed this so many times already, and you know, I know where we're headed in the direction. I know where this bill's going to be headed. My whole thing was the process in which we get there. My issue was brought up by Ms. Lee Loy in the fact that we are in a new term, this is a new bill, and I have to disagree with that recommendation where it can't, it shouldn't be sent to the Environmental Management Commission because of the fact that it is a new bill and I read, straight from the Code, you know, "The Director and Commission shall each submit comments and recommendations on all legislation related to the functions and duties of the department, including any ordinance to amend Chapter 20." This is a whole new ordinance, whether it's the same substance or not, it says "any ordinance." It doesn't say anything about substance, so "any ordinance to amend Chapter 20 or Chapter 21 of this code to the council prior to council action." So prior to Council action." for me means, that it can't be sent up to Council, if that's my interpretation, and be sent to the Environmental Management Commission at a later point, because action would be voting on this bill and sending it up to Council. My whole thing with this Council Members is that if so happens as we set this pace of going through Committee and sending it up to Council and later on passing, you know, that could pose potential, you know, questions to those that are affected by this law which could possibly have a lawsuit connected to that because of this provision which I find questionable on the process of going through that. I know it's going to pass eventually and I'm not trying to like send it back and take time out of it, which it would take a little bit of time, but I'm just hesitant on the process -wise if it does get passed that—which I see that it's probably going to be passed—that it could be questioned about this Code Section 2-207 related to the Environmental Management Commission. So, I know, Mr. Kamelamela's stated that there might not be an issue but I think there is. And I think that the right process is to go through the Environmental Management Commission even though they did comment on the last one, not only the Environmental Management Commission, also the Director of Environmental Management, which is a whole new person. So that would be a potentially a different comments as well. So I'm just stating this for the Council Members and for the public at large, but that's just my concern with this, Mr. Chair. Page 27 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Councilman, do you yield. Since you're the only other Councilman in the room? MR. KANUHA: Yeah. MR. KAMELAMELA: So, the section that you mentioned, I did read that last night. Then I hear what you're saying. But you know, it's not clear from that that's the Code that you're talking about, that's Hawaii County Code, right? And I know that there was an amendment that was made, you know, relatively new. But that doesn't lay out kind of processes, you know. So I don't have the Code with me but can I read it into the record? Maybe you did read it into the record. But may I borrow it from you, because I really don't have it right now. MR. KANUHA: And briefly, Mr. Chair, if I could still have the floor? Sorry. The reason for this is we go through to this all the time, whether we should send it to the Commissions or not. But you know, it's pretty clear to me you know, when it says "any ordinance." "Any and all ordinances shall be sent to the Director of Environmental Management and the Commission." And I see this as a whole new ordinance. The last ordinance that did come before the Council, it failed. MR. KAMELAMELA: Right. MR. KANUHA: It's a new term, it's a new Council Member that's introducing it. And again, it doesn't give the direction on the substance of these bills. It only gives direction on any and all ordinances. MR. KAMELAMELA: Anyway, so you're correct that there's different ways to interpret this, and so I have no disagreement with that. But it's up to the Council as to which interpretation to take, because I think you're reading paragraph two, Section 2-207, right? And it says "The director and commissions shall each submit comments and recommendations on all legislation related to the function and duties of the department, including any ordinance to amend chapter 20 or chapter 21 of this Code to council prior to council action." So, the ambiguity is there, as to what the time period is. All I can say right now, is that you can state that comments and recommendations were already made prior to this bill being introduced, because it doesn't really sets out in detail whether there's a particular process to do. All it says when I read that is it said that the comments and recommendations has to be provided, you know, and then that's all. So this doesn't spell out which process you do and so, it's left up to the Council members as to which one to pick. You can pick your interpretation or you can select mine. Page 28 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 MR. KANUHA: Thank you. And Mr. Chair, just for the record I will disagree with that interpretation, I think "shall" means shall on any and all ordinances that pertain to amending Chapter 20 and 21. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Okay. MR. KAMELAMELA: I don't think there's a disagreement of "shall," you know. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: No, I understand Mr. Kamelamela, but I don't want to get into a debate on interpretation of the law here, that's not our position. MR. KAMELAMELA: Okay, thank you very much. MR. KANUHA: And there's no disrespect to your interpretation, I know we all have differences of opinions for everything. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Correct. MR. KANUHA: Thank you. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Okay, any further questions? Councilman, any further? Do you yield? MR. KANUHA: Yes, I yield. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Okay. Council Woman Chair Poindexter. MS. POINDEXTER: Yeah. I've always respected our Corp. Counsel's decision and I'm going to always remain to because that's why you're here, to help guide us. And I think when it says "shall," you know, before Council action, we still have, you know we move it up to Council, we'll still be able to discuss that and determine at that time if more things come up. I say move it Council and enough of the delays, already. Because you know, we keep it in Committee goes back, come back and still in Committee, and then got to go to Council. I say move it to Council, the Council decides at that time we want to refer it again or whatever, then it can come back to Council, you know, and we stop that delay. I mean, you know, the longer we do it, the longer we bleed, the longer this island, you know, we're not protecting as much as we can, we got to chip away with as much as we can. You know, there's so much to do and this is just a drop in the bucket of what we've got to do for the environment. But we've got to start somewhere. So I say move forward, let's keep going. Thanks. Page 29 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Council Chair. Council Woman Eof£ MS. EOFF: Thank you. I think whatI vaguely remember having this discussion previously in a different term, maybe over a different bill, and I think what you're saying is that we shall get their comments but it doesn't mean that we have to refer it to the commission. I think that's what I remember happening before that there's other ways to get their comments on this bill. For instance, the commission has already given us a favorable recommendation on the same bill. And although it's a new Director he hasn't maybe we could ask him to come forward and give us his take on it or his opinion. And I think that was told to us before would also satisfy that provision of the Code. Is that what you were trying to explain to us? Because you're saying you don't disagree with "shall" means shall, but you said there could be a different interpretation of the process for that. MR. KAMELAMELA: Yes. MS. EOFF: Is that what you MR. KAMELAMELA: But I'm not sure about the second part about getting the Director's comments, but that would be a good idea. Sorry, he's not here. MS. EOFF: Okay, because I want to feel good about the process and how we're interpreting the Code and the Code language. So, I guess I'm trying to work that out in my own mind. But what Ms. Poindexter said is we could move it to Council and before actually voting on the measure we could make sure that we either have a clear path on whether we actually have to send it to the Commission or whether we can get the—use their prior opinion and then get an opinion from the Director, sitting at the table and speaking to us. So, yeah I'm kind ofI'm just sorting that out, but I just wanted to be clear. Thank you. ACTING CHAIR RICHARDS: Thank you, Council Woman. Council Woman David. MS. DAVID: Oh, mahalo Chair. And thank you, Mr. Kamelamela, because I'm a number one proponent for the word "shall." So, when Mr. Kanuha mentioned that and I looked at the Code. But then in hearing your explanation, I'm thinking that the Code says "shall," but it's said in a sense where it's broad. So, situations such as this could not be anticipated in the Code when it was written. So I'm readingI'm getting from what you explained that "shall" means shall, but in this situation, we have a different thing going on. We have a bill that was already vetted by the Commission. That was not covered in the Code section that says everything shall be submitted. So although I'm a Page 30 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 proponent for "shall," I thank you for that explanation, because now I think I can comfortably move forward with this given the explanation, and then follow through with what's being discussed or previously discussed by Council Members Poindexter and Eof£ So mahalo, I yield. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Okay. Thank you. Any other Council? Council Woman Ruggles. MS. RUGGLES: Thank you, Chair. From what I'm hearing is the "shall" is also who's responsibility was it to receive those comments? Is it the Council's responsibility to get those recommendations or was it the Director's and the Commission's responsibility to submit them. And also, we have time if we still need those recommendations and it doesn't say that the Council shall not take action if we don't have them. So, with that in mind I think that there's a lot of ways to interpret this, and I think we can so move forward in addressing the intent of the Code. Thank you. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Council Woman. Council Woman O'Hara. MR. O'HARA: Just to clarify the actions of the Environmental Management Commission recently, they were sent Bill 140 last year when it was presented and they were also sent Bill 245, I believe it was. Which was the second bill that was written pertaining to Styrofoam and it was exempting or preventing use of Styrofoam at County facilities and County functions. That was left on my desk when I came in, in December to send to the Environmental Management Commission, which we did, and they took it up at their January meeting. They unfortunately first mistook it for a repeat of 140, so they almost did not deal with it because they didn't realize it was a separate bill until they read it. Then in their minutes which yourI think we all received their minutes recently, you might want to check their minutes because they make a very broad policy statement about Styrofoam. And the broad policy statement, forgive me I'm going to paraphrase because I don't have it in front of me, was that they support any diversion of Polystyrene from the waste. So that was more or less their policy statement regarding bans on Polystyrene. So, I think we've already heard from the Commission, maybe indirectly but that's the latest from the Environmental Management Commission. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Okay, thank you. Any other Council Members? Councilman Dru. MR. KANUHA: You remember. I understand everything they were saying. I'm, you know I wish we had copies of the communications about you know, what Page 31 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 happened previously; and I don't. Even though we know the direction that they're headedI mean we allI want to do a policy statement too, saying that's the direction we want to say but it means really nothing, you know, in terms of vetting bills that, you know, that is going to be law, it's going to be in the Code, it's going to have impacts upon our community. Good, a lot of good impacts, obviously. And some negative impacts, but it's going to be well within our—well within the journey that we want to take and where we want to go. I'm just still concerned about, you know, not havingI'm still concerned about the proper protocol and the way we're moving this forward. I mean it needs to be moved forward, it's just doesn't seem—you know, I want to hear, I want to see the Director's comments about Bill 13. I want to see the Commission's comments on Bill 13, which I don't see any of it here. I don't have none of that in front of my hands. I don't have nothing in my communications about Bill 13 and I'm concerned. And this is not whether I agree or disagree with the bill or the contents within. I think we've worked to get to this point, or you know, some point. I don't even know. To be honest I don't even know if this is the same bill or not. I mean, you can tell me that but I don't know. I don't have the copy of whatever the last bill was. So, that's my concern and it did say that we, you know, in the Code it did say that it doesn't allow us or it won't allow us to take action on this. It says that we shall get comments from the Director and the Environmental Management Commission prior to any Council action on this bill. So, that's just again where I'mI can't get away from that. So, thank you. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Councilman. Any other comments? Council Woman Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Yeah, so I think everybody wants to follow, you know, the right policy. And I don't want to get into rule making, kind of arbitrarily here. So, I fall back on a process that we always used for the Planning Department, which is the same thing. When a Council Member introduces legislation, it goes down back to the Planning Commission and the Planning Department to be properly vetted. I understand that we have something before us that was taken up just a little while ago, but we are a new Council. And I just see no harm, no foul in following the procedures that we use for other departments doing the exact same thing. And I'm being drawn to our own Charter, under the Environmental Management Commission that clearly states that the Environmental Management Commission shall advise, amongst a bunch of other things, and exercise any other powers related to the functions of the department that may be delegated to it by ordinance. Page 32 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 And so again, no harm, no foul. Let's go through the process that we use for our Planning Department with Windward and Leeward Planning Commissions. I raised some concerns regarding the exemptions. I'd love to communicate that to the Department, have them explain to me. If my concerns about these exemptions related to packing material, egg cartons, meat trays, SNAP benefits, you know, if we're putting ourselves at a disadvantage because of the timing element between our State Legislation and this one. I'd love to hear somebody come back, who has the expertise and understanding to come back and tell me that. And you know, I hear what my other colleagues are saying. I have some concerns about the exemptions, it's not about it being passed or not, it's about writing good policies that's going to stand the test. So, I yield at this time. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Council Woman. Any other questions? Council Woman Poindexter. MS. POINDEXTER: Yeah, call for the question. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Okay, call for the question. I did want to make a few comments but we have to vote on that. So, we have a call for the question, we need to vote on the call for the question. MR. HENRICKS: You don't have a second yet. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Oh, I need a second. Sorry. We need a second. We have a motion on the floor, call for the question. Do I have a second? Okay, call for the question from Chair Poindexter and seconded by Ms. O'Hara. Vote on Motion to Call Ms. Poindexter moved to call for the question. Seconded for the Question: by Ms. O'Hara and failed by the following roll call vote: Failed Ayes: Committee Members David, Eoff, O'Hara, Poindexter, and Ruggles — 5. Noes: Committee Members Kanuha, Lee Loy, and Richards — 3. Absent: Committee Member Chung — 1. Excused: None. (Note: A call for the question requires an affirmative votes from two-thirds of the entire membership, or six "aye" votes.) ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Motion for all for the question fails. We're back in discussion on the original motion. Is that correct, Mr. Clerk? Okay. Councilman Kanuha. Page 33 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 MR. KANUHA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I voted no because I wanted to hear from you. MS. LEE LOY: That's why I exactly did that too. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Okay, before I speak. Chairing the Committee for our Committee Chair. I'll say a few words. I've listened to the testimony all afternoon. I've read a lot. I've read a lot in the last five days concerning this bill. I have to agree with Councilman Kanuha that I think the direction is appropriate and accurate for where we're headed with this. I think the intent is appropriate, I think the desire for our community is accurate. I have concerns. One of the questions and one of the discussions we've had going forward this afternoon is concerning the financial side of the use of compostable versus the Styrofoam. Okay, I get it. But in my conversations with constituents coming from small restaurants, that really isn't part of the conversation anymore. That's not really what they're concerned about. There's been concerns about hot food, whether or not and I've heard both sides of that, whether or not the compostable is a good alternative. There's been a concern put forth to me about the strength of the container themselves. When we're stacking the plate lunches up, whether or not—apparently the bottom ones can crush. This has been a concern raised to me. One of things that I am deeply concerned about, and this was raised by Council Woman Lee Loy, has to do with the case -ready beef that we see on the shelf. I know there's a health concern depending on what type of product we use. I'm not convinced that the language in this bill addresses this. One of my bigger concerns is that if we are true about the agricultural standpoint and wanting to develop that focus of industry, and not just for beef, for chicken, for whatever the case may be, if we put our processers at a disadvantage in this County, yet Honolulu or whoever can use the product, that's going to pose a problem for us. So, I'm concerned about that. I'm also concerned about packaging as a whole, we're talking specifically about a food packaging here, yet I'm concerned about all the other Styrofoam that comes in to our County. And I'd like to get, and I was trying to pick on our Director's brain a little bit, he said 50 percent of our waste is actually organic. So, we're throwing away 50 percent food is essentially what he's referring to. But how much of the Styrofoam that would go into the landfill is actually from within our County, within our State or how much is actually coming from outside? I think that's an important number that we need to know. I know Maui is struggling with this question, right now, and they had deferred their decision until they gather more information. Page 34 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 Composting, the question was raised by Council Woman Eoff, as far as language in here tying it into the composting facility that we do not have really on the books right now. There's a concern there whether or not that's going to be in place. So we have composting containers, but we have no true way of knowing of composting them. I have read documents where they said in the west coast cities did make a shift from Styrofoam to the compostable and their waste product going into their landfills increased. I'm bothered by that, I don't know if that's accurate but I'm bothered by that, that I read that. We can discuss the health side, we can find the health implications, we can find experts on both sides of that argument. So I think, you know, we can spend all day discussing that one. I posed a question to the director, overall solid waste plan. My concern is putting a Band-Aid on a Band-Aid, on a Band-Aid and not addressing the big thing. So though I completely agree with the direction that we need to cut down our waste. I'm concerned that if we do one thing then we're going to stop doing something and we'll move on to something else. I think we need to look at the human health side. When we talk about reusable containers, we had one testifier today who said he had to talk some of his restaurants into using that. I get it from the health standpoint, from our health departments, as far as clean food going into clean containers, and if somebody gets sick and it wasn't cleaned by them, who has the liability? I understand that argument, and I think that's a valid argument. But the pushback is I think we can do something with reusable containers, ourselves if we pay attention to that, which comes back to changing some legislation; and again, a Band-Aid on a Band-Aid, rather than a more comprehensive thing, which I was trying to allude to it with our Director. So, that being said, combine that with the procedural concerns here, and I agree with Dru, I know where this is going but I want to be sure it's great that we get there. And I am mindful of our consumers within our County. Another comment from our people today, we have a stewardship, we have a responsibility to our constituents. But if we do something that in the short term looks good but the long term is not impacting the right direction, I fear we're going to make a mistake that will look good up short but long term won't impact what we're trying to accomplish, which is cut down the Styrofoam in our environment. I'm a scuba diver born and raised here, I get it. I hear what you're saying. So, that being said I'm concerned about that. I made the comment that if we do something, we'll stop doing something. There's a book called good to great, and they say the enemy of being great is being good. And so than you stop because you become complacent. Page 35 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 And so with that, for the things that are articulated, I agree with everybody, I agree with the intention going forward. That being said, I'm concerned about the procedural, I'm concerned about some of the language. Mr. Clerk, as far as offering amendments to this, if it goes to the Council, do we still have the ability to put in amendments? MR. HENRICKS: Yes. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Okay, so with that, I think there's some questions to be answered beforeI'm not going to be supporting this. Not that I don't support the intent, but as I read this, the time line in here is for July 1, 2018, and even if we approve it this month or next month or the following month, it's still goes into effect in the same month. So, I think we've got some time to do our homework and make sure it's appropriate. And we've' got to be mindful of who it impacts. Not just our environment, not just our lands, our waters, but also, the people here. As I've said before and I'll say it again, when we make decisions we have to keep in balance the community which means our people, in balance with the environment, in balance with the economy. So with that being said, I will not be supporting it as it is written. Though I support the intent. With that being said, any more comments? MR. KANUHA: Mr. Chair? ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Yes? MR. KANUHA: One comment. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: One comment. MR. KANUHA: I just have to justify my vote. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Please. MR. KANUHA: Thank you. Just briefly again, I agree with the intent and I most likely will be voting for this when it does come up for final action in the Council. At this point I don't agree with the process, and I really think it needs to be vetted thoroughly, as thoroughly as possible to avoid any issues in the future. So my concern, I just want to voice my concerns. I think it's the right decision to go forward, or right intent, so I will be a "no" based off of the process. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Okay, thank you and I'll allow one more comment. Council Woman Eoff, short please. Page 36 EMC -1 February 21, 2017 MS. EOFF: Thank you, I would like to ask Ms. O'Hara, given the tentative feelings that some of the Council Members are having, would you be willing to make sure that we have the copy of the Environmental Management Commission's comments that they made on the previous bill as well as make sure that the director is here prepared to give his comments on this bill before we vote on it, if it does make it to the Council? MS. O'HARA: Yes, I would be willing to do that, and I actually pulled up the minutes from the January meeting and can read it verbatim. MS. EOFF: Well, I think if—and they sent recommendations on Bill 140, I think that's what I'd like. MS. O'HARA: Well, they say, "We're on record for supporting efforts to limit Styrofoam utilization," that was their comment. I don't know that you're going to get more out of them by sending it back again but, you know, that's a possibility. MS. EOFF: No, I'm saying they actually forwarded their recommendations on the previous Bill 140 to the Council, a copy of that. MS. O'HARA: Okay. So, you would like that at the next meeting of the Council. MS. EOFF: As well as the Director. MS. O'HARA: As well as the Director MS. EOFF: Prepared to present his comments. MS. O'HARA: Yeah, that's not a problem. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: Okay, that is at the end of it. We will, I'll call for the question, at best we do a roll call vote. Page 37 EMC-1 February 21,2017 Vote on Bill 13: The motion to recommend passage of Bill 13, as amended (Draft 2) to Draft 2, on first reading was carried by the following roll (Approved) call vote: Ayes: Committee Members David, Eoff, O'Hara, Poindexter, and Ruggles–5. Noes: Committee Members Kanuha, Lee Loy, and Acting Chair Richards–3. Absent: Committee Member Chung– 1. Excused: None. (Council Members Kanuha and Lee Loy voted"kanalua," then"no.") ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: The Bill 13 passes moves on to Council at the next—Mr. Clerk when will that be? MR. HENRICKS: Oh, I think sometime in early March, first reading. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: March? Sounds good to me. Okay. With that there's no more business to come before this Committee. ADJOURN- There being no further business, at 6:02 p.m., Mr. Kanuha moved that the MENT: meeting be adjourned. Seconded by Ms. Lee Loy and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members David, Eoff, Kanuha, Lee Loy, O'Hara, Poindexter, Ruggles, and Acting Chair Richards– 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Chung– 1. Excused: None. ACTING CHR. RICHARDS: This meeting is adjourned. Approved: 6/4/ Ote•C_ //– Ms. Eileen O'Hara, Chair (Date) Environmental Management Committee EO/vc Page 38