Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout23-07-26 EMC minutes1 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAIʻI MEETING MINUTES Wednesday, July 26, 2023 9:13 a.m. to 11:34 a.m. Conference Room B-2, West Hawai‘i Civic Center (Kailua-Kona) and Zoom Commissioners present: Georjean Adams, Chair Jon Olson, Vice Chair Laura Acasio Melissa Cardwell Dot Norris Dell Otsuka Lee McIntosh County staff present: Ramzi Mansour, Director Craig Kawaguchi, Recycling Coordinator Kelly Hartman, Environmental Management Planner Peter Sur, Secretary Sherilyn Tavares, Deputy Corporation Counsel Others present: Lauren Armstrong, Stacey Breining, Melinda Hughes, Jennifer Navarra, others. I. CALL TO ORDER Chair Adams introduced the commissioners and called the meeting to order at 9:13 a.m. II. APPROVAL OF MINUTES FOR JUNE 23, 2023 1 Vice Chair Olson made a motion to approve the minutes, to which Commissioner Norris seconded. Ayes 6 (Acasio; Cardwell, McIntosh, Olson, Norris, Adams); Absent 2 (Burns, Otsuka). Motion passes. III. STATEMENT FROM THE CHAIR Hopefully we'll get lots of information from the County, Chair Adams said. We'll move through our items here. Got some good written testimony on our item V.2, and she is looking forward to the discussion on that item. IV. PUBLIC STATEMENTS ON ITEMS ON THE AGENDA 1 II: Draft minutes: http://records.hawaiicounty.gov/weblink/DocView.aspx?dbid=1&id=124616 2 Jennifer Navarra: Just want to just briefly give testimony on V.2, regarding the landfill diversion ordinance. I think that the ordinance is coming along really well with the new edits and I think there's additional room for improvement. I think that it's at a point now that I'd like to encourage the EMC to start engaging with the County Council on this ordinance and get their input and feedback on ways to improve it. Something that could possibly be an area for improvement is adding in a little carrot with the stick. So not only banning certain items from diversion but giving an incentive for businesses such as Atlas or Mr. K's to include a diversion credit for accepting more types of recyclables from diversion. There's also costs that businesses take on for the sorting of recyclables. A large hotel might not do recycling because it brings on a lot of costs for the labor. So, having a diversion credit in some way, how do we get funding for that? I think that's a question. I think one idea that has been done in other municipalities out of Alameda County, the StopWaste program, and also the whole state of Colorado. They take a portion of the tipping fees and then put that directly back into diversion programs. I think that's something that we could look at as a way to fund more diversion in the County, but there might be other opportunities or other ideas. So anyways, in sum just I think it's time now, take this discussion outside of the EMC, and hopefully you guys will do that today and start engaging with the County Council on this issue. Thank you. V. UNFINISHED BUSINESS 1. Pretreatment rule draft Chair Adams asked for an update of the pretreatment rules. Are they ready for presentation? I didn't see them in the package, so I assume we have nothing written yet that we can look at, she said. Director Ramzi Mansour said that as you all know, we are short staffed. We only have Chris Laude and Mark Grant. That's my only division staff, so bear with us. Things may take longer till we start securing engineers. We have vacancies, but unfortunately we cannot fill them. So it is just Kelly Hartman, Mark Grant, and Chris Laude. Those are the only three staff members that do these administrative work for the entire department, he said. I appreciate it, I wish I knew the answer, I'm too long away from working in the field to have people to recommend, and I wish I did. Maybe you have contacts, Chair Adams said. If somebody is willing to volunteer to take on the edits and writing the codes, that'll be good as well. You guys could help as well. If I'm not overstepping my bounds on reaching out for assistance, Director Mansour said. I could be maybe interested, Chair Adams said. I have been working on another one for you, but if I got something in writing to work from- I'm not going to write a de novo - that's what I've been fiddling with. But as soon as you could share a draft, I'd be happy to. Yeah, we have a draft, Director Mansour said. Chris Laude started the draft before he took the position of the acting chief because he's wearing multiple hats. He's still going out doing some inspection and construction projects we have as well, but he has a draft. I would love to maybe- 3 you and I and he- sit down and give that draft to you and maybe that would help, if you don't mind. It's been a while, and wastewater really isn't my area of expertise, but I can read a rule and I can write more or less sentences, Chair Adams said. Vice Chair Adams also asked to see the draft. 2. Continued discussion of EMC county landfill diversion ordinance initiative.2 3 Chair Adams said she hoped the Commission had a chance to look. She did some tinkering, and could tinker forever on the language, and agrees with Ms. Navarra, it's time. What do you want to do on this idea of coming up with an ordinance followed by DEM rules to start banning from a landfill or diverting recyclables that we know we can recycle on this island and that we might be able to incentivize by providing a stream of feedstock to businesses. So there are lots of issues that we need to talk through, but it could be the discussion occurring more within the communication with Council. So I'm not sure just how much detail we should be dealing with right now, as opposed to saying: Here's the concept, is there anybody on Council who's willing to help us move it? If there are some things in here that you absolutely cannot support? I did, if you got yourself through to the end of the draft ordinance, put up a very simplified administrative option to just come up with a new article in the County Code that would deal with landfill diversion, and it would authorize DEM to write rules to identify categories of recyclable waste that are covered; who is prohibited from disposing as trash those designated recyclable products or waste at a county solid waste facility; and who can use the transfer stations and be able to create a fee schedule and reporting requirements and to provide rules that would provide exemption. So that would be just kind of a broad “Do it, DEM with all your massive staff you have available”? Rules without much guidance from the Council, I could guarantee that Council Members will have some opinions they want to get in there. So it would expand from there. Or we could throw them her draft as a starting place that we could use to go back and forth and discuss. So I have two questions. Are we ready to move and try to hook up with Council and do you have some specific things that you absolutely want to lay down? No, we don't support this, yes, we support that. Or can we just leave it more open? We need to do all of that in face of not leading to enhancing illegal dumping, Vice Chair Olson said. That's the bottom line. We don't want to do anything that is going to enhance the reason to illegally dump. So once you get over that hurdle, we're back again to this whole thing of having to monetize all of this in a way that leads us to encouraging recycling and reuse. Now, I've thrown out my thing about how to go about that and I certainly would like to hear what anybody else has to say to get to that end, he said. Chair Adams said a couple of things that she tried to build into the draft was one that we would phase this in, start with commercial entities and tell them you have to recycle this stuff or 2 V.2: Proposed bill: http://records.hawaiicounty.gov/weblink/DocView.aspx?dbid=1&id=124637 3 V.2: Proposed rule: http://records.hawaiicounty.gov/weblink/DocView.aspx?dbid=1&id=124638 4 divert it or not generate waste in the first place. That would establish they've got their logistics, they've got people that can do things, and it would be a fairly steady stream, so that it would be enough in the stream of feedstock that haulers and recycle people could count on getting this kind of on a fairly routine basis. And they have hopefully enough money to support that once that gets established. And maybe we see some more businesses in the recycling goods loop, if you will. Then we could look at going to smaller businesses and then eventually to residents saying, as a resident, you cannot trash greenwaste, for example. It has to go into this chute or this container and you've got to find somebody to haul it or do it yourself. So, trying to phase it in so that it's practical, it's not going to encourage illegal dumping. But yeah, that's a really big concern. And one of the things that she tried to build in there is that DEM wouldn't do anything unless there was an expectation that it could indeed be recycled and that people had the availability of recyclers to get it done. So kind of a stepwise thing and that was to start with the things that we are currently recycling and try to grow them. Commissioner Acasio asked about folks’ mana‘o on the language in the draft ordinance that specifies what we're currently able to recycle at this time, as opposed to a little bit more general language about whatever the County has programs for, cannot go down the chute. For example, does that mean we would have to amend the ordinance every time the County comes forward with a new recycling program or a new item that can be recycled? Does that make sense? She was wondering on that instead of just to say the programs that the County has recycling for, cannot go down the chute, a little bit more general. It might be different language but as opposed to specifying them. And, or, it has a chute to go down, it just isn't the County’s, Vice Chair Olson said. Yes, you can take it to Mr. K’s, you can take it to Atlas, Chair Adams said. It doesn't have to go through the County. That would mean that they would have to buy facilities to do that or the equipment to do that, Commissioner Otsuka said. So that opens another door as to, how are they going to fund that? Are they going to get a loan or a grant for the County in order for them to help us do that? Chair Adams asked is there an economy for it, and that was what Ms. Navarra commented about having some kind of credit. The financing of all this stuff is always the challenge. One of the things that she was hoping for is that we would push toward private businesses building up and then, what the County would be doing through an ordinance saying we'll guarantee you that you're going to be getting stuff. Will that be enough to expand services? But that was one of the things- DEM would have to evaluate whether or not any particular recyclable met criteria: people can get there, there is a way to collect it, and get it recycled, and that it makes sense from a lifecycle standpoint to do that and DEM would have to make a finding, and I don't know if the County does findings, she said. Chair Adams comes from federal rulemaking so it’s a little bit different but it’s saying, here are the things we found out, that this is available to this size organization, and this kind of waste, and they write out the facts. And it would either be there or not. If they couldn't support this feasible thing to do, they couldn't get it. 5 Which brings us all the way back to monetizing it at the point of purchase, Vice Chair Olson said. Which we can’t do unless we go to the State, Chair Adams said. It is costing us now, Vice Chair Olson said. It has already been monetized. The monetization of it is what it costs us now to dispose of. That's the bottom line. So how much more do we have to pile on top of that to get the private sector to take over where the governmental sector wants to leave off? Does that make sense? The funding has always been a challenge for us, Chair Adams said. What she heard from Corporation Counsel was that no, the County cannot have a fee at the point of purchase. We as a Commission can make the recommendation to Council and to DEM that they push for such a state rule. And in fact we have done a little bit of that with a letter that we sent to the state Solid Waste Branch saying, have you looked at point of purchase? And if you haven't, would you? We think that's a really good idea. Have we gotten a response to our letter? We got a response, DCC Tavares said, but we're still trying to figure out what the response actually is. They acknowledged receipt of our request, and they are working on something, and I should have that ready for you folks by our next meeting. So we'll get some idea of what it cost us to dispose of it now, Vice Chair Olson asked. No, it was more how would the state be interested in having a way of purchase fee, Chair Adams said. We are already paying for the disposal, Vice Chair Olson said. It lands on this island, and we eventually end up with it coming out of the property tax with the disposal cost. The bottom line is that if it lands on this island, we get the bill for its disposal, whatever it is. I don't think it's quite that simple, Chair Adams said. Commissioner McIntosh said it shouldn't lead to increased dumping because these are recyclables that you can drop off at the canisters as you're going to the dump -at least most transfer stations. And in the code, are the other items that are not allowed or banned to be dumped, are they also listed, or is it left up to DEM to determine that? So then it wouldn't be necessary for us to list each individual recyclable. And the other thing is, have we gotten any feedback from DEM about what we're proposing, see what they have to say, and then incorporate that, and then I don't know if we can forward it on to the Council or if we have to send it to DEM and DEM sends it to the Council? I'm sure there's some process we have to follow, he said. 6 Chair Adams said that relative to the way she set up the draft, which she expects to be beat up in conversations with others and especially at the Council, is that DEM would be required within the first year to evaluate the list of recycling waste that we are doing right now, which is HI-5 corrugated cardboard, non-HI-5 glass, greenwaste, and scrap metal. And that is not available at every transfer station. There are some limited transfer stations for greenwaste, for example, and scrap metal. Each may have glass and corrugated cardboard. But the process that she had in mind was DEM would evaluate the list of the current recyclables and say whether or not they could support a ban, that there would be a practical way to expect people to do it immediately. Again, starting with commercial, not residential. Residential would come after we worked out the details. Commissioner Acasio suggested we don't want to have to go to the council every time we add a recyclable to the ban. So, try to figure out how you get Council to authorize DEM once they've made the finding that we think this is feasible, then they write a rule and it exists. So DEM will be issuing rules that would say, okay, we've added food waste, or we've added plastic No. 2, non HI-5 to the list. She wouldn’t want to have to go back to council and get a code revision every time, and that is something Corporation Counsel can work on and how to do it. DEM has not given her any feedback on this. And that's another thing she would want to come out. What would they like to see? But the idea would be, annually DEM would have to do a status report on, where are you on recycling? One thing she has not quite figured out how to do is to reduce volumes going to landfill by X percent. She just said in general, they've got to report how much they've reduced the amount of stuff going. So the ordinance is going to set a target, and then they've got to report back to council, “This is where we're at. I'm meeting the target, and this is what we're trying to do.” So have some bit of a pressure on DEM to get reduction, but not have council say, “All right, we're going to ban all this.” Commissioner Cardwell cited the practical matter of enforcement. For example, she uses mostly the Kea‘au Transfer Station. There are multiple bins to properly dispose of things. You've got your glass, your metal, your cardboard, but that doesn't stop people from throwing all that stuff in the dump. And her question is, how would this be enforced? And she is speaking mainly from a residential trash perspective, because someone could easily throw a bunch of glass, for instance, in a trash bag and then just dump that. How are we going to enforce this? We can ban all these things from being thrown away. But if there's no one to enforce it, then it's sort of meaningless. And then her second thing is the convenience factor. In her mind, it's convenient to properly dispose of things at the Kea‘au Transfer station, you just have to go to multiple bins. But if someone has to go to a transfer station and Mr. K's and a HI-5 place, people aren't going to do that. If I want to properly dispose of things, I got to go to Mr. K's for electronics, she said. I got to go to the HI-5 place for my HI-5 stuff. Then I got to go to the dump for all the other stuff. It's a very inefficient system. Her third point is that in an ideal world, we would have curbside pickup. People could just have the bins like most other places, where they need to put their recycling, their food waste, and it's picked up and that's it. We're far from that, and we don't have the money, we don't have the infrastructure. But her concern is what the Vice Chair said, okay, so we can ban all these things. But again, then, like, if we don't have a convenient place for people to bring the stuff, then she doesn't know. It's an incomplete solution in her thoughts. 7 And one of the things that Chair Adams is hoping is that we'll hear from is the status of this operation study that DEM has coming up, she said, of looking at curbside because that is the best way to do it. Which is why the Chair was starting with commercial. We can do some enforcement of it, it's bulk stuff. They're already in some of it. You can swing by and look and see in their dumpster and go, hey, what are you doing to stop this? Even require them to do some pollution prevention recycling report at some point. Moving it to residential part of it is just peer pressure, if you will. This stuff is banned in this county, and we've got ways to do the collection if we just get in there and do it. And meantime, we keep looking for ways to make it easier. If we can get more businesses in place for pickup and recycling that are handling commercial, that could then move to picking up residential, a way to step toward it initially. On the other hand, you can start going into haulers, and the people who are picking up the big trash bins from different locations, you can say, hey, what's in there? Where's that coming from? And couple it with education programs. When Sanne Berrig was here at DEM, we were trying to work on a program for volunteer master recyclers who could be at the transfer station and say wait, don't put that in the trash. You put that here or don't put things wrapped up in a bag in the recyclables bin. So education is a large part of it to stop residents from doing it wrong. In San Francisco, they've got cops that look in the bins and they give you tags and if you get too many tags, you get penalized. They knock on your door and they say, here's what you've got to do, and if you don't do it, here's the bill. I don't think we're going that far, but it would be an employment program potentially. But yeah, it's tough and so we're trying to make sure people can do the right thing conveniently and will do the right thing conveniently. Commissioner Acasio highlighted the statement on education. That is critical to really engage our population. And it's really an ‘ohana, it's a whole family, and it can come into play really carefully in our school system as well. But in terms of curbside pickup, if we are truly adopting and going toward zero waste, that curbside pickup will not be viable in terms of, if we're making less waste, then that expense and that whole infrastructure to develop that is no longer relevant. Commissioner Otsuka asked if the private haulers are required to let us know what kind of trash they have, if they have only that? Which means that maybe we should be talking to them to see how we can make it so that whatever they say they are picking up is what they're picking up because they're having to go over and beyond if they're receiving other stuff. So she would think they'd be communicating with DEM about what stuff they are picking up. So maybe then DEM can do some studies about how not to- because we're going to lose the haulers if they're going to be picking up all kinds of trash and having to separate it themselves. So maybe it's good that we have a conversation with the different haulers about how the process is going for them, if they're having any problems that they can talk to us about, so that we can address that on that scale. We won't get the haulers to do any of that if we can't help the ones we have. Chair Adams said she has been trying to get Nick Riznyk from Hana Hou Recycling to address the Commission. All he does is pick up recycling. He doesn't pick up trash. He just does recycling. Business Services Hawaii once did pickup, whether they're still doing it is unknown, but it's a separate pickup, separate bins. So it isn't that they're doing sorting out of their trash. 8 Once they do the haul, if they find stuff that doesn't belong there, they should be letting DEM know so it can help us better, Commissioner Otsuka said. Certainly we would hope that the DEM would be talking to the whole cycle, who is out there and making the finding that it's feasible to get done, Chair Adams said. And one of the reasons that the Chair has been talking with Nick, he's got some commercial business, and thinks he could get more commercial business if there were a hammer saying you can't landfill that stuff. We are talking about commercial to start with because residential has lots of other issues and a lot of that is around education, Chair Adams said. Don't put the wrong kind of cans and bottles in the bins and don't put the paper in even though you'd like to recycle it. It's not recyclable at this time. So education on sorting, but even as a recycler, we've heard Mr. K tell us everybody treats his operation like a transfer station and gives him everything that they think is recyclable. And good soul that he is, he separates it out and he tries to get it recycled. My concern about Mr. K is he's getting old. How are we going to support Mr. K? Because he's a good soul and I appreciate what he's doing. But there are lots of hurdles separate from starting with commercial. And this is again, I'm kind of a let's face it, let's pilot, let's see if it works. What do we need to improve? How do we build education programs? So we're still trying to get a public information officer hired into DEM to help put together some of these programs. So yeah, I don't have all the answers. It's going to be, “work it, incrementally.” Vice Chair Olson said the fact of the matter is you got to back up to where the transfer stations are, and if you could more inconveniently site them, I dare you to do it. I think the county has already accomplished that. They are the most inconvenient places that you could possibly imagine to get to. And once you've gotten there, getting out is a life-threatening adventure. The whole thing, it's a mess. It's a mess, Chair Adams said, and she hoped to get to Craig Kawaguchi’s report on that operations announcement. That's one of the things that we would be looking at, and it's one of the factors that before we ban landfill, we've got to have viable options, which includes education for people who create so much waste. There are lots of ways to achieve zero waste. So back to her earlier question: Could she get a motion that we contact Heather Kimball as Chair of the Council and say, we'd like to begin and think you need to start thinking of a county code amendment that would start us on the path to reducing how much material goes to our landfill by banning certain recyclable material. First you go to the Council, they've got to authorize DEM. They've got to come up with some little hammer that says, this is what we want you to do, and then authorize rulemaking. And rulemaking would get into the nitty gritty of who, how, what, with reports back to us as well as the Council to make sure progress is being made. Motion and second: Commissioner Cardwell made a motion, to which Commissioner Acasio seconded, for EMC to request Council Chair Heather Kimball to support reduction of landfillable 9 waste with an ordinance banning certain recyclable materials from the landfill, beginning with commercial waste. Discussion: We've got to be able to move these things along in parallel, Vice Chair Olson said. None of them is going to stand up on its own to any kind of significant revision. You can't just pull out one little section and hope it will move forward on its own leg, because everything is connected to everything. So we've got to do a better job of describing what we're going to do and how we're going to do it on a broader sense. Just that one thing isn't- we're not going to get very far with that because everybody's going to want to know, what about the rest of it? We better have an answer for what about the rest of it? I was on the committee that wrote a solid waste management plan with 80 different recommendations in it, Chair Adams said. There's a whole schmear of things, yes, that need to be done and prioritized. This is but one component of many. Moving a whole bunch of things through Council and expecting DEM to be able to manage it all is unrealistic, she said. I was trying to look at what could we do? Baby steps to begin to reduce the quantity going forward. There's management and there's oversight, Vice Chair Olson said. I don't think we want the County to be managing it. We want the County to have oversight because that comes from the County budget and it does have a role to play. But in terms of the management, we're going to do a whole lot better. And this is where we always get ourselves in trouble, is that you try to manage these people's private businesses. You're not going to win that one. They have to make a living doing what you want them to do. We can talk as an example with Nick, hopefully next month, about can he make a business of it, Chair Adams said. What are the hurdles in making a business? I do not want to add more responsibilities in handling trucking and collection and sorting and whatnot. DEM's got enough with just managing the existing transportation and the landfill. What we want to do is lower the volume going to that landfill because it's running out of space and when it finishes having any room to put more junk in it, what are we going to do? So the push, the pressure for this is we've got to figure a way to reduce landfilling. The next hurdle, which is also ongoing to a degree right now, is Waste Management expects to make money, too, and the way they make it is about pounds going into their landfill. So what I'm talking about is reducing, which means contract renegotiation. So, yeah, there are many moving parts in this whole system. The whole thing that we even have a landfill, Vice Chair Olson said, that is the best the 19th century can bring you. Right there at the top, there it is. Commissioner Cardwell said this is a good start. Our previous director, Bill Kucharski, when we asked him about the amount of time that we had with WHSL, he said 100 years. And that was only a couple of years ago. And now we've exponentially decreased that time and now we have about 15 years. So we have to do something. This is a good start and that there's going to be a lot of details that are just going to have to be ironed out. But to sit back and do nothing and to say, well, it's too difficult, it's this, it's that, that's not really an option. We have 15 years and the 10 amount of trash that's going in that amount of time left might decrease again, we don't know. And so I think unless we want to dig another or have another landfill, then we have to do something. It’s a good place to start. Commissioner McIntosh said the two directors had different ways of coming to their predictions. And so that's why there's a difference. Kucharski began with 150 years to now 15 or 20. So he wouldn't put much stock in that. The Commissioner would just focus on the current one that we have for about 20 years and work on diversion. Director Mansour said it’s never been 100 years. He doesn’t know where that number comes from. It's not prediction. It's actually based on airspace calculation. And that should be within reason, the lifespan. Because you look at it as a bubble and you just calculate the volume within that bubble. So it's all calculated. He does not know where he came up with the 100 years. It's based on the excavation and the final fill grade that we're trying to achieve. That's how we usually do the calculation. The current contractor assumes it's probably about 25 years. So it's not like we just went from 100 year to 20 years because the landfill is being filled. That's a misconception. It should be a science, it should be calculated, and that's the number we calculate. It’s not backfilled with waste where we lost 80 years over two years. On the other hand, it doesn't matter, what we're dealing with is today, Chair Adams said, and the information we have today. And so we have information that says the rate of landfilling is filling up is higher than it was before, and we're going to have less lifetime. We're going to build another one again at that location? Not likely to happen. But again, that's one of the things that they are potentially looking at in this operational study. Commissioner Otsuka said that along with what Commissioner Cardwell said about the landfill and know it came out in an article about two years ago, just when we started to move trash to Pu‘uanahulu and at that time, they gave the life of 50 years. But at the rate it's going, according to the record, it's 200,000 tons a year. But that landfill is holding all of this island’s trash. So it's like, yeah, if we're going to be talking about- and we are, and I'm glad we do about how to recycle better- until we get to the point we need to do that- we still need to start looking for land or other options for the landfill because it will fill up faster. And then all this talking about getting- we don't even have a piece of land yet. And if the crisis is so bad, I would think any one of these agencies that own land will at least give us the land. Because if I'm not mistaken, Pu‘uanahulu was given by executive order. So I'm just saying if we're going to talk about all the ideal ways of doing things which we should, in the meantime, we need to look for some way now or another option, which is nobody wants to hear it, but it's incineration because I see all the testimony going towards that. But that's all I'm saying. We can't wait. It's kind of like Vice Chair Olson was saying, it's a lot of parallel activities, Chair Adams said. And again, looking for another landfill site on the east side probably is also part of this wondrous contract that we'll hopefully hear about. 11 Kelly Hartman reminded the Commission that we just kicked off the operational study. So we're going to be reviewing the feasibility of all these things you're talking about. And we're also going to be setting up stakeholder interviews with all of you. We'd like to maybe set up a public meeting where our consultant can give a presentation in a public setting so we can get your back and forth included. Otherwise we're limited to two of you at a time. So we'll be looking into all these things. We'll also be looking at the staffing needs, any kind of enforcement we do. We're going to need a budget, we're going to need staffing to make it work. So I would just urge you to meet with our consultants when they reach out to you and we can continue this conversation. But we're moving forward on this project and it's a great step and it's very comprehensive. Commissioner Acasio said the timeline that we're speaking of is really important. Again, her question was similar earlier, but it did kind of get addressed around the 150 years down to 15. But now she is still hearing that the timeline is somewhere between 25 years, perhaps, and in other circles being shared that it's 15 years. Can we see those statistics and or the calculations a little bit more tangibly as to how the timeline is calculated. And then also, or even better, would be an independent assessment so that we can really have an accurate view on this. And then the other piece, secondly, is, again, back to the paradigm shift of, if it's truly an emergency, we need to stop producing waste. And so a focus in our direction is to, again, go back to this zero waste model and extended producer responsibility, refill, reuse, education, all of these components to increasing our infrastructure around reuse and local production. Not only reuse, but also compostable materials for packaging. And so looking at that as a forerunner, if we're truly in this emergency, we need to address our waste production model. DCC Tavares asked the Commission to take a vote. Chair Adams restated the intent of the motion: We would go forward to Council to start working on an ordinance to ban the landfilling of designated recyclable materials and would authorize DEM to make that happen. We need tons of data. This study, which hopefully will come up shortly in the Director's report that we'll hear more about the details are going on. The County ordinance is not going to be next week kind of deal. So we'll have plenty of time. We'll need to have public participation, hear from others who are in the business on what feasibility is, hear from generators, particularly on the commercial side, what they think about it and why they aren't already doing it themselves, and details to come. So do we take that next step and contact Heather? Chair Adams volunteered to draft a letter. Voice Vote: Ayes 7 (Acasio, Cardwell, McIntosh, Norris, Olson, Otsuka, Adams); Absent 1 (Burns). Motion carried. Following the vote, Commissioner Acasio asked if we need to specifically state commercial haulers, being that that was kind of more of the discussion or you're just still talking about in general. 12 In general, Chair Adams said, with the guidance, if you will, that it starts at a commercial generator level. Thank you very much, she said. I will write up a draft letter to bring to the meeting next month and then we'll see where we go from there. 3. Discuss issues and recommendations for maintaining the residential used motor oil program. (https://www.hawaiizerowaste.org/recycle/motor-oil/)4 Commissioner Acasio said the concern was that there is no drop off location for recycling UMO in Hilo and to prevent dumping and other putting it down the chute, for example, we wanted to see what we can do, and the council member is willing to help with that. Mr. Kawaguchi said the biggest problem is the illegal dumping when the volunteer sites are closed. So we checked with the colleges, we checked with other garages, oil changing places, and they all declined. I'm not sure if we even incentivize it, he said. It might make a change or not. The problem is the illegal dumping that occurs after hours, when the location itself is closed. And they're dumping it on site. Yeah. And it's not knowing what's in the container that they drop off, whether it's contaminated or if it's really oil or not. Commissioner Acasio asked if the other locations are having that same issue. It wasn't mentioned. I guess it's not a big of an issue like in Hilo, Mr. Kawaguchi said. But I would think that DEM should contact them and keep regular conversations with them to see how we can help them along the way, because that's what monitoring will probably be about. So we can catch it early, how we can help them. Otherwise we'll lose them as well, Commissioner Otsuka said. And then is there then a County program that could be the collection, or somehow we could contract that specifically for used motor oil, especially being that it's such an issue in Hilo, there must be a lot of used motor oil. And then also if other retailers decide to stop it as well for the same reason, Commissioner Acasio said. We're looking at all options right now, Mr. Kawaguchi said. He could not share them at this point, but maybe could by next month. As the Director noted, we're just understaffed. So we're basically doing triple duty on all our things right now. In addition to that, the Director said, if you have a chance, read the scope of work that was given to the consultant. We are crossing all these topics and you are getting ahead of the game, but if you read the scope that Ms. Hartman attached, all of the topics that you talked about are already addressed as bulleted items that the consultant will analyze as an independent party. That also addresses your landfill space comment, and it says “landfill practices, capacity, lifespan, vertical, horizontal, or debris utilization of the space.” So that addresses the 4 V.3: UMO resource info: http://records.hawaiicounty.gov/weblink/Browse.aspx?dbid-1&startid=124012 13 confirmation from a third party. So if you get a chance, read it. That way we don't have to speculate and go into different discussions. Chair Adams said the solid waste operations analysis is agenda item VI.2.2. So we crossed that a couple of times. And we need to have that scope of work copied out to us here so that we can all see what else in there. There's a lot in there. Going back to the used motor oil issue, it is a volunteer program. Eons ago, Recycle Hawai‘i as a nonprofit was acting kind of like a broker, lining up volunteers and making sure that they understood what to do and even finding contractors who had these totes to dump oil into and just making sure the thing was working. The past administration wanted Recycle Hawai‘i to take on a new contract to basically take possession, be responsible for, the oil in those totes. And the Chair was president of Recycle Hawai‘i at the time, and said, no, our nonprofit does not want to take ownership of that used oil. We were just providing this service, chasing down volunteers to make sure the things were working. So the issue will be coming back to EMC specifically, what can we do about it? It's basically, yeah, do something about it DEM. They have the slots for hiring people; they can't find people to hire. So what can DEM do about that? I don't know. Going back to Council, it's anybody you know who you can sweet talk O'Reilly’s or whoever is in Hilo, we can make this happen. And as part of the education program, make sure everybody knows it's not a good thing to just dump it out in the drain. Everybody knows that. Commissioner Acasio asked if UMO is accepted at household waste collection events, to which Mr. Kawaguchi responded yes. That happens twice a year in Hilo and Kona and once a year in Puna and Waimea, Mr. Kawaguchi said. So we're asking our business to hold on to their oil for half a year to get it disposed of. Is that the gist of what we're saying here, asked Commissioner Norris. Four to six months, possibly, replied Vice Chair Olson. There is a way to deal with it, not a real convenience, Chair Adams said. And the problem with collecting it from private individuals is contamination. You mix it in with water and it's worthless, Vice Chair Olson said. So controlling the returning oil is a major problem. I don't know that we have an answer for that or what it is we can do about it, Chair Adams said. The answer is an easy one, but actually getting participation is the hard part, Vice Chair Olson said. And that is, if you are changing your own oil, you pay for its collection at the point of purchase when you buy the oil. And that way you can get somebody who is interested in controlling it when it's received in small quantities. 14 If you look at the options and the Director's Report, Part 1 on page 6, it outlines some recommendations and those are probably good recommendations, Chair Adams said. It's not clear to her how the State changed what they were doing in terms of collecting money and allocating it. Are you asking any recommendations for EMC to support one or more? Ultimately yes, Director Mansour said. If you look at bulleted item No. 1 we need to start looking at funding opportunities and with your assistance as well as you mentioned, is a volunteer program, but there's certain locations now that are taking it. The challenge is what Vice Chair Olson said, if you do your own oil change in your backyard and it gets contaminated, it becomes useless. And we just need to educate the public. I don't know what percentage of people within the island will take it upon themselves to do the oil change. But nowadays with the synthetic oil up to 5,000 miles, you change it once every six months or so or more. So even with our collection twice a year, it should be adequate for people to maintain a container for two months in their garage or somewhere and take it to that collection site in addition to volunteered places that they need to take the oil to. So there is an option currently. We could work with the consultant also to navigate with the State. As you know, because it's a State funded program, you pay for it when you buy the oil. The State of California used to provide secondary containment, like what you see in these diesel gas structures that you see in certain areas, base yards and what have you. But it used to be to collect oil at each transfer station. So maybe that's an approach. If the State is willing to follow suit and fund these types of units, it may be good to have them at multiple transfer stations, but we have to find somebody who is willing to come pump the oil and recycle it. So these are things that we're going to be talking with the consultant during that operational study, brainstorming it, see what other options we may have, and how would they recommend to go about it. Chair Adams said we’ll circle back on this once we see the operational study report. And in the meantime, for Commissioner Acasio, it's the household hazardous waste collection day. Save it up, make sure it's on your calendar, blinking light, and take it those days. VI. NEW BUSINESS 1. Presentation by Stacey Breining, Environmental Education mentor and Conservation Specialist, Hawai‘i Wildlife Fund, regarding their efforts around waste management on Hawai‘i Island. Chair Adams asked Commissioner Otsuka to introduce Stacey Breining. Commissioner Otsuka said she knows Ms. Breining goes to the different schools to educate the kids, and they love it, so she wants to thank Ms. Breining for doing that. And the kids take that information home. So that's what we want to do. When we educate, we start with kids because the kids will share it with their parents, and the parents will say, oh. And the kids will even correct their parents. So that makes it a lot easier to get it through. (Screen sharing started)5 5 Presentation slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1blOUbcvC9lKgXr- dvWBoKpQVc8BPzTlR/edit#slide=id.p1 15 Good morning, Commission, Ms. Breining said. Mahalo for taking the time to hear about the work that Hawai‘i Wildlife Fund and myself have been doing down in Ka‘ū and around the island. A lot of the work that I've been doing revolves around marine debris and plastic pollution. My name is Stacey Breining, and I am an environmental educator, and I've been working with Hawai‘i Wildlife Fund since 2009, doing community-based restoration work, mostly on the south side of the island. Hawai‘i Wildlife Fund is a nonprofit organization founded in 1996 by Bill and Hannah. Those are the folks on the bottom left there on your screen. And our mission at Hawai‘i Wildlife Fund is to protect our native wildlife through research, education, and conservation projects. We are small but mighty. We have only a handful of employees on this island, and we are based out of Paia, Maui, and Volcano. We do have a team on Maui doing similar work, but also working more directly with turtle conservation. And most of our restoration and volunteer activities occur along the Ka‘ū coastline. So while you are going to hear some beach cleanup stats during this presentation, I want you all to keep in mind that we are not just a beach cleaning up organization, we are in fact restoring critical habitat for our marine wildlife. So that is the driving factor with all of the work that we're doing. So our story on Hawai‘i Island began in 2003 when our co-founder Bill Gilmartin was called to check out a monk seal puppy. It was actually the first reported monk seal puppy in the main Hawaiian Islands and it was near Kamilo Point, which is really close to this area that you see in the photo. This is the aerial shot of the Wai‘ōhinu Coastal Forest Reserve, which we did get turned into forest reserve to keep it protected from coastal development. But he stumbled across upon Kamilo, which is unfortunately known as Trash Beach, and you might be familiar with it. This is from the late 80s, early 90s, before anyone really started cleaning up down there and then began our mission to clean the place up. This photo is more like 2017, and unfortunately all this trash is being brought in by the wind and the waves. Protecting this coastal strand in Ka‘ū has been a huge part of Hawai‘i Wildlife Fund’s story and our work removing the marine debris from this area is what has inspired our environmental education program. Marine debris is a global problem. I think that you all are very familiar with our waste issues on the island, but we also have this marine debris issue that we need to deal with as well. We have the waste we're creating as an island and then the waste that is floating in. I don't really see there being an end all, be all answer to this as well. No, it's a very complex issue and we've got to hit it from all the angles. So that's kind of where I came in to focus on the younger kids, elementary school age kids. We have a marine debris keiki outreach program, which is how Ms. Otsuka and I got connected, was through that program. And we are focused on prevention. That is our main thing, preventing marine debris. We strive to inspire the kids to become responsible consumers and say no to plastics as much as possible. We offer small and relatively easy solutions for young kids or anyone underage that doesn't really have a lot of control in 16 their lives, what they can do to prevent these sorts of things. And it's as simple as giving them a fork at school so that they can at least not use a plastic fork every day. Most schools on the island get free or reduced full lunch, so most kids are getting a plastic fork with their meal every single day. So that's just one small thing that they can do. And I think kind of why I'm here is, how can we as adults working in systems, making choices for our families, how can we actually move the needle on this issue? Last school year, I had a teacher ask me, Stacey, I know I've got this soda bottle and I can recycle a bottle, but I really just don't know what to do with the bottle cap. Where can I put it? Do you know of any places that I can recycle this? No, and then the answer, the kind straight up answer is stop buying it in the first place, then we don't have to worry about where we're going to put a bottle cap. Marine debris is a global problem with global solutions. These are some St. Joseph students down at Kāwā, checking out the coastal ecosystem there. We did also get a beach cleanup that day. Last school year, we reached 447 Hawai‘i Island students. And by we, I mean I. That's me alone running around on a part time schedule making that happen. And it wasn't just our marine debris keiki outreach. It includes our Hawaiian Coastal Ecosystems program, which is more about inspiring stewardship, and then our Honu‘ea Ike, which is the endangered Hawaiian Hawksbill sea turtle biology. So one of those three programs hit all those students, and I'm really proud about that. But I'm also really excited to see how much more we can reach this school year now that I have an intern. So our education programs are more of our proactive approach in reducing plastic consumption and pollution. Some of our reactive tools that we have are our volunteers. So 95 percent of our efforts are from volunteers. We've amassed over 47,000 documented volunteer hours in the last 20 years. They are our best tools for learning. And then while we're at these between us too, we're able to help educate those folks on some of those simple daily steps that they can do to reduce their consumption. And then they act like a little beacon of light where they can then ripple out their decisions. They're going to inspire their family members or folks in their circle to also do the same sort of actions. So on average now, this data is before the pandemic. This is from 2008 to 2018. On average, each volunteer was hauling about 81 pounds of marine debris per beach cleanup. That's dropped off a lot in the last handful of years, not because our plastic production has been down, but because of ocean oscillations. We're going right now from a La Niña into an El Niño. And so now we're starting to see more debris wash up as a result of that. But we had a big lull the last handful of years, so that average might be down now and then. Also keep in mind, when we first started cleaning up, there was a lot of trash there. So those earlier years had bigger numbers. And then over time, we've also just been cleaning more and more often. So just something to keep in mind. From Hawai‘i Island alone, we're just over 325 tons of marine debris removed from our coastlines. So for the last 20 years, it's about 17 tons per year that's washing in, in addition to everything that we're creating while here. 17 That said, we do have some efforts within the state outside of the island. And in that case, we've removed over 370 tons of debris. That includes Maui, where our other team is, and Midway Island and French Frigate Shoals. This is a little map of our island that shows where our marine debris concentration is. So this is again from 2003 through 2021. High density areas being more yellow, lower density areas being darker from like pink into purple. So you can easily see that down south is where a lot of this stuff is accumulating in, washing in regularly. And then we've got smaller hotspots around the island where we have done smaller beach cleanups with school groups or private groups, businesses and whatnot. And there is a little bit of marine debris that washes up in other spots of the island, but not in this high of a concentration. I'm not sure how many of you all have been down to Kamilo. This is a shot of our survey area. We've been monitoring this 100 meters here for a good amount of time to try and see what kind of accumulation rates we can figure out about this stuff washing in. In closing, I think a lot of what we preach is getting people involved. Getting them down to the coastline is really important because they can see with their eyes, even in those photos, these photos here of a clean beach. If you were to zoom in closer, you would see that the sand is really quite layered with microplastics, so it looks clean to the eye. But you zoom down and you start really seeing how deep the issue goes. And that can be really annoying. So if we can prevent it, that's the best thing that we can. That's how we see our role here, is inspiring people to prevent and prevent marine debris by controlling, figuring out how to mitigate how much plastic they're consuming. And I'm not bashing all plastic here. Let's be real. We can't get away from it. You're going to go crazy trying to avoid the stuff entirely. Everything that's shipped here is on a plastic pallet wrapped in single-use plastic wrap. So we need to allow some grace for ourselves. But also know that this is what I tell the kids anyway. It's like when you go to the gym, if you work out one day, you're not really going to see any results. But if you go consistently over four weeks, six weeks. You're looking real like, oh, wow. I actually look much different, right? You're building those muscles, reducing our footprint here in the same way. Small, easy things. Over time, we're not going to make it go away overnight. But if we can start somehow expanding our reach more to the general public and even more to the kids, then over time, these small efforts like bringing your water bottle, bringing your own to-go ware, all of those sorts of things, being mindful about what you're purchasing, is it wrapped in single use plastic? Do I need this? Is this a luxury? Is this a necessity? Getting people to think about these things before they purchase, that's my goal. We're not going to stop everybody from doing it all the time, but if we can at least start getting people to look at their habits and what they're doing, their patterns, then we can hopefully then start seeing some change. And it's really up to county by county, right? That's how all these other single use plastic bills passed in the past. We haven't been able to just get the whole state to do something. It's county by county. So it's really important that we're having these conversations here with the commission because we need to figure something out. We've been talking about it all morning with our bulging landfills. We're already having issues with the trash that we're generating as a community, let alone 17 18 tons per year extra that's coming in. Now I would like to also say that not all of it is going into landfill. The big nets and stuff we are able to ship to O‘ahu list to be incinerated, which again, is not ideal in any way, but at least it's getting used for electricity there. Some small amount, a small percentage has been diverted in the landfill for art, big art installations or even classrooms. More like a little art project for their students. We're always looking for ways to divert it where we can, but obviously the bulk of it has ended up in the landfill. So, yeah, our next beach cleanup is going to be on August 19. It's actually a hiking cleanup from Kamā‘oa Beach, so more toward South Point. Hiking from South Point and Green Sands on DHHL land, we do have all the proper permitting to do something like that. So you're all welcome to join us for that. If you want to get together, I'd be happy to put a separate day on the calendar for all you folks to get down there to see it firsthand. My email is also down here. We also have our website wildhawaii.org, where you can look at our calendar and check out upcoming events. Yeah, we want folks really when it comes to plastic, we want folks to be more proactive. We want to inspire people to be more proactive about it. And there's a lot of hoops and tape that you all can jump through to get certain legislation and things passed. So my role has been to inspire people to do what they can outside of this. Thank you for your time. Happy to take any questions. (End of presentation). Chair Adams asked if HWF has to pay for the nets they landfill. No, they get fee waivers from the County. Commissioner Norris said there was an ordinance that passed not too long ago about using compostable items instead of polystyrene food containers. And now it doesn't seem to be enforced or really used anymore. Because when she goes to a restaurant, there are plastic containers given to her for food to go or something like that. Ms. Breining said the ordinance was for Styrofoam (polystyrene). Unfortunately, the loophole there was that folks are now using just other plastic that isn’t compostable necessarily, just another clamshell, harder plastic that's not styrofoam. Okay. And once COVID hit, she saw a lot of businesses reverting back to single-use plastics for sanitation issues. Chair Adams asked if Ms. Breining has any sense of where the plastic comes from. It's coming from all over the Pacific, Ms. Breining said. Plastic gets really brittle, and it's in the sun for a long time, so everything is sort of broken up into small pieces. Sometimes we get things with writing on it and we can identify it. Every once in a while, we'll get a tag with an address and a number. We can figure out where that came from. Commissioner Norris said she was working at Kahalu‘u a year ago, and a mess of old fishing line came up and was in the sensitive area of that lagoon, and they pulled it out and brought it over to her station and dumped it there. So all that plastic was still going into the bay. So is there somebody we can call or something like that that can actually come and clean the plastic out of the stand and actually take that stuff out? 19 Call us, Ms. Breining said. We have the rig to be able to haul that away. And then we do have a pile at the Wai‘ōhinu Transfer Station where we stage the big net piles that come in about once a year. We send a 40 foot Matson container over to O‘ahu to do the chopping and burning at H- Power. VII. REPORTS/CORRESPONDENCE Director’s Informational Report 6 1. Legislative update Chair Adams asked Director Mansour about Senate Concurrent Resolution 64 SD1, requesting the DOH Solid Waste Section to develop a plan of initiatives for improved waste diversion by working with the counties. Had he gotten any activity on that for how Hawaii County is going to participate? The Director said he had not. 2. Solid Waste Division Projects and Updates 1. Recycling and Landfill Diversion updates Chair Adams thanked Craig Kawaguchi and the Director for all the information in the report. It's good to see all the education outreach programs. She asked for an update on the status of the grant application. We're still waiting for the grant that would go to- is that both the county and to the program that Jennifer Navarro talked about last time? Sorry, we're still waiting on that announcement yet, Mr. Kawaguchi said. We didn't get the one for home composting. And they're working on that with the grant writer right now. 2. SW operations analysis Regarding the motion to contact Chair Heather Kimball (Pages 9-11), Director Mansour reminded the Commission to keep in mind that for the operational study, one of the tasks is also to explore any possible policies, procedure, ordinances that may come out of the study. So just keep that in mind because he does not want to put the cart in front of the horse as we are exploring the wider spectrum of options, policies, procedures, recycling and what have you. Eventually that study is going to lead to maybe implementation of how we're going to move forward with the solid waste operation that we have within the county. That's the reason everyone is going to be involved, the public is going to be involved on the options and we want to hear everybody's concern so we could convey it and potentially make it to policies and procedure and ordinances. So just keep that in mind. The ordinance-making process is a long haul so we should have plenty of opportunities to incorporate the learning from that study, Chair Adams said. 6 VII: Director’s report: http://records.hawaiicounty.gov/weblink/DocView.aspx?dbid=1&id=124651 20 Yes, as long as we don't present it in pieces, Director Mansour said. I just want to make sure that what we are going to present and what you are going to present it doesn't become solid as we do the study rather than come back and forth and not be able to answer questions that somebody may have. We've got to be on the same page, Vice Chair Olson said. Yes. And you're all going to participate and this study is long overdue, the Director said. We need to because it keeps coming up from diversion to recycling to the lifespan of the current landfill. As you all know, we've been talking to Waste Management Hawai‘i on potentially getting a cost savings on their contract because the tonnage we pay for them every year to design, monitor and construct the cells for us. And they did come back. It's tentative now. They came back with- the way I look at it, it may be a good saving, but it's not what we anticipate. But without the study, it's hard to move forward with the right decision because if we do get the saving, they want it to give us additional lifespan to that landfill and we may extend it longer. It depends on the analysis because we could go deeper to gain more capacity on the cells that have not been constructed. But to go deeper, that means we need to renew the permit, update the permit, but it's better than chasing the siting of a new landfill, but there's pros and cons, but we need to look into it in more detail. I don't want to give too much information because I really don't have it yet till I sit down with the consultant and the public and everybody else to put my hand around the needs and the do's and don'ts so we could deliver a good product to our constituents. And we have our Recycling Coordinator here with us, and Ms. Hartman, and they could give updates. From a solid waste perspective, our division is shorthanded, kudos to our staff, Director Mansour said. They've been doing a great job multitasking and trying to get to where we need and keep the services going. Equipment, we've been getting the equipment finally. Trailers are being delivered. As you all know, it took us about more than a year just to get a few trailers from the mainland to here. I hope at one point the backlog due to COVID goes away and things go back to normal. But that's still the challenge. Some of the equipment we still have not received. Wai‘ōhinu Transfer Station, we have the blessing for it. As you see from the picture that was attached, it ended up being a very beautiful site. Eventually, hopefully, this place will benefit the entire Ka‘ū District. Commissioner McIntosh was there. He witnessed it and I hope he liked what he saw. (Commissioner McIntosh gave a thumbs-up.) 3. Wastewater Division Projects and Updates. 1. Pāhala and Nā‘ālehu AOC Ms. Hartman said that for Pāhala and Nā‘ālehu, we're in compliance with all the AOC deadlines. The draft PER for Pāhala was completed ahead of schedule. It's being reviewed by the EPA. The Pāhala Environmental Information Document contract scope and schedule is in development, and the Nā‘ālehu PER contract was executed and is in progress. Our semi-annual report was submitted and our milestones are on track for this project. EPA is still reviewing the Pāhala Preliminary Engineering Report. We're hoping to get approval or revisions when we meet with them Monday (July 31) for our quarterly meeting. They are a bit behind schedule, so we're 21 hoping they can hurry up because our deadlines are not changing to close the cesspools. The next deadline is to submit the Environmental Information Document, and that is going to happen 180 days after the PER is approved by EPA, and then we'll start on the Cesspool Closure Implementation Plan, which is due 30 days after the approval of the Environmental Information Document. Chair Adams asked Commissioner McIntosh if he heard any comments from the public. No, honestly, nobody really talks about it, Commissioner McIntosh said. Because they can still use it. So it hasn't affected them. It's just those are the only thing they're concerned about is, is it going to cost them and what's the inconvenience going to be. And you all addressed most of their concerns at the meetings you've held. So at least nobody’s talking to me. Once we get the Preliminary Engineering Report approved and we are solid in the direction of the project, we'll probably get some feelings on the project, especially for Pāhala, Ms. Hartman said. 2. West Hawai‘i wastewater projects (No discussion) 3. Hilo WWTP upgrades Director Mansour said that Phase I went out to bid earlier this year. The bid opening was in April. Our engineers’ estimate was about $104 million, plus or minus 10 percent to 15 percent. It came up at $177 million. One contractor submitted a bid, there was no competition. The bid was canceled, and we are joining Phase I and Phase II together now. And we just had a meeting with the consultant about the 50 percent design of Phase II. So our projected schedule is to put it out on the street by the end of the year, award it hopefully by June of next year for Phase I and Phase II, with the hope that we get both of them within the budgeted amount we have. As you all know, we may be targeting the $200 million plus. So we will see, hopefully the market gets better by then. Hopefully we get more contractors, more competition. Just that the numbers were unreasonable, particularly for Phase I. It's almost double the engineer's estimate and we couldn’t justify it as we were looking at the breakdown. So that's for Hilo with the hope that- and we're going to do it with alternate bids so we guarantee that whatever bid amount comes in, at least we could select and choose what items need to be constructed so we don't have to fall through any predicament of not doing anything, because we have to do something. So the way we are structuring the contract to allow us that opportunity, and that's it for Hilo. Our staff are still doing a good job maintaining the operation, but let's keep our fingers crossed and hopefully we get more competition, a better price. 4. Wastewater plans 1. Addition of wastewater services for the Puna District 7 7 VII.3.4.1: Puna wastewater website: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/50e624065fa641598326febe6316327b 22 The final definition report was completed, Ms. Hartman said. We submitted the draft PEIS to the State in February. We completed the draft facility plan and county review, and the public comment period was ended last month on the 7th. Milestones on deck for this project include: We will file the final Environmental Impact Statement on September 23. That is our target deadline, and the County plans to reopen the link to comment on the website once we go public with the Facility Plan in a month or two. And we plan to coordinate a presentation with some of the committees with the County Council to drum up some conversation and comments on that. Vice Chair Olson asked Ms. Hartman about surveying the remaining small lot subdivisions in Puna in terms of how you're going to deal with the wastewater situations there. Yes, Ms. Hartman said. The facility plan for Puna will be coming out in August or September, and so we plan to coordinate a meeting with one or more of the council committees. We're not sure if we want to do the Asset Committee or the Finance Committee or the Planning Committee because they all would be interested in that subject. It's not required to be public, but we think it needs to be because the dollar figure is going to be high. So the County needs to figure out what they're going to get behind. So that will be coming and I'll keep you posted on what that date ends up being. 2. Puakō and South Kohala Regional Wastewater Master Plan This project was executed a year ago, Ms. Hartman said. We did renegotiate an earlier delivery date with the consultant, so we're going to get the draft Preliminary Engineering Report six months early. The draft project definition report was completed last month and the final was completed this month. Chair Adams asked if she had received public input. We have a lot of public input and a lot of agency input, Ms. Hartman said. We have at least 40 comments that have come across her desk. It's possible that some went straight to the contractor as well. The Puakō Draft Wastewater Management Plan is the next milestone for that project and we'll be looking for that in November of this year and then the final is about a year from now in June. So we have some other projects that aren't on the agenda, Ms. Hartman added. The Pāhoa project, we just kicked off the Integrated Wastewater Management Plan contract which includes the cesspool conversion plan and the wastewater treatment plant facility plans. And we've been working on a capital improvement plan with the EPA and our consultant. So that is to evaluate and prioritize capital improvement projects and create a financial plan for those, Ms. Hartman said. 4. Information requests to DEM from Commissioners 23 1. Further information on a countywide sewer district concept for managing public and private facilities. (Adams) Director Mansour said Ms. Hartman mentioned the contract we just signed to do the countywide integrated waste management plan. At least now we got a consultant working on it. We've been talking about the integrated wastewater management plan since we started, if you recall. So we had the kickoff and that wastewater integrated management plan is going to have a cesspool conversion master plan within it. It's going to have facility planning. They're going to evaluate the hydraulics for all of our collection systems countywide to see what capacity we have remaining, how many connections we can allow, et cetera, and what type of improvements we need to make for our current facilities, and the financial planning. They're going to look at how we're going to finance cesspool conversions. Is it through community districts, is it through state funding or is it through homeowners? So that all will be looked into. And also that study could lead to policies and procedures because everybody's going to be involved as well, especially when it becomes a major capital project cost and especially the cesspool conversion, as everyone is concerned about the cost for each individual homeowner. So that's going to be, just fasten your seatbelts as the consultants start reaching out to you. And we're going to have public meetings. They're going to meet with Council Members, they're going to meet with you, and they're going to establish public hearing workshops with the idea of coming up with a good roadmap that any of our constituents who lives here on the island could use their parcel number to be able to say yes, I should have my own IWS, or let's not do it’ wait till the county bring their sewer. So it's going to be a great analysis as we move forward. And just on behalf of the commission, Chair Adams said, she did send in personal comments on the Puakō South Kohala Master Plan as it's posted now. And we'll certainly look at this, anything coming out of the integrated master plan using the guidelines that we sent to DEM, and just making sure we're covering the breadth of what we did. I need to make sure you've got that, Commissioner Norris, so you can help make sure they're incorporating all the different issues that we think are important. And our Rick Gaffney is also still looking over it and submitted comments on the South Kohala plan. So we're still keeping our eyeballs on it and certainly want to encourage the concept and love that you're looking at innovative ways to achieve wastewater management. So thank you for that. Which contractor are you using for the plan? We're using Carollo Engineers, Director Mansour said. VIII. FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS a. Follow up on action items determined today. Chair Adams said she would bring the draft of a letter to start moving the concept of the ordinance for landfilling of recyclables. She would also try to pin down Nick Riznyk from Hana Hou Recycling to come and talk to us as well. We have an outstanding request to Corporation Counsel. If not, let me and the Secretary know and I'll try to work it up into the agenda. b. Other (Commissioners may suggest items they would like placed on the next agenda.) IX. ANNOUNCEMENTS 24 The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, August 22, at the Puna Conference Room of the Hawai‘i County Building (25 Aupuni Street, Hilo), and Zoom.8 Please contact the Secretary for the Department of Environmental Management or review the agenda posted on the County Calendar within six days of the next meeting for confirmation.9 X. ADJOURNMENT Motion, second, and vote: Vice Chair Olson made a motion to adjourn, to which Commissioner Norris seconded, and the motion was adopted. Ayes: 7 (Acasio, Cardwell, McIntosh, Norris, Olson, Otsuka, Adams); Absent 1 (Burns). Meeting adjourned at 11:34 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Peter Sur, Secretary 8 IX: 2023 EMC meeting schedule: https://records.hawaiicounty.gov/weblink/DocView.aspx?dbid=1&id=120846 9 IX: Hawai‘i County Calendar: https://www.hawaiicounty.gov/our-county/county-calendar