Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout23-10-24 EMC minutes1 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT COMMISSION COUNTY OF HAWAIʻI MEETING MINUTES Tuesday, October 24, 2023 9:01 a.m. to 11:55 a.m. Puna Conference Room Hawai‘i County Building, Hilo, and Zoom Commissioners present: Jon Olson, Vice Chair Laura Acasio Melissa Cardwell Gonzalo Garcia Lee McIntosh Dot Norris County staff present: Ramzi Mansour, Director Chris Laude, Wastewater Division Chief Kelly Hartman, Environmental Management Planner Shelise Lamb, DEM Project Manager Peter Sur, Secretary Keyra Wong, Deputy Corporation Counsel Others present: Kristine Kubat, Charles Roberts, Frank Kiesler, Alex Chernyshov, Lindsay Mason, Kahale Terry, others. I. CALL TO ORDER Vice Chair Olson called the meeting to order at 9:01 a.m. and asked members to introduce themselves. II. APPROVAL OF MINUTES FOR SEPTEMBER 27, 2023 1 Commissioner Acasio made a motion, to which Commissioner Norris seconded, to approve the minutes as presented. Ayes 6 (Acasio, Cardwell, Garcia, McIntosh, Olson, Norris); absent 3 (Burns, Otsuka, Adams). Motion carried. III. STATEMENT FROM THE VICE CHAIR Introduction of new Commissioner Gonzalo Garcia 1 II: Minutes: https://records.hawaiicounty.gov/weblink/DocView.aspx?dbid=1&id=126106 2 Commissioner Garcia said he was very appreciative of the opportunity to support this commission, and hopes to add some value going forward. I've had just an amazing career, traveled the world, saw what looks like, what good looks like, I've seen what bad looks like, and I want to try and apply what good looks like and help out any way I can here in my home. I've been a resident now full time for over a year, but I've been coming here for 17 years. I've been working on a remodel in Kona for four years. And you got to question my sanity, trying to do that during the pandemic, but I was here half time for the four years and now full time for about a year and a half. So I'm just very happy the remodel is done, and now I can give back to my community. IV. PUBLIC STATEMENTS ON ITEMS ON THE AGENDA Kristine Kubat, speaking on V.1.: Thank you very much. This is on behalf of Recycle Hawai‘i. Just very briefly on item V.1, the new business. We're very strong supporters of both Mikala and Charles and the work that we're doing actually very impressed and excited to have them active in our community. So I hope as things come forward to this Commission on the work that they're doing, you folks would be supportive. Kristine Kubat, speaking on V.5.: SB 1458 SD 1. This is a piece of legislation that our organization worked on. It's an EPR bill. We're calling it EPR, it's really reuse, which is very innovative, and we're hoping to get support from the County. We did get support in the form of testimony last session. So thank you very much, Director Mansour and others in the County. And we're going to be pushing ahead. Something new around that is that we realized that the infrastructure that you would need to put in place to collect containers and wash them is basically the same infrastructure you would need to fill them in the first place. So there's a very strong alignment between our goals and food security. We've been doing a lot of networking with people who are engaged in local food production. And we look forward to getting support from the Commission, from the County Council, from everybody here at the County level, because this would be an ongoing source over the next five years of a significant amount of money that could be used to stand up reuse infrastructure. It works very nicely with the work that Jennifer Navarra and Perpetual and those folks are doing with the SWIFR grant that they got. So it's really exciting. This would be the way for us to build on the work that they do and have these reuse centers distributed statewide. Kristine Kubat, speaking on V.6.: So this is something we support very strongly. And a couple of years back, I went undercover in the film industry and I got myself on one of these production crews and I got to see what actually happens. And there's this sort of idea that they're very green minded and they're doing the right thing when actually they're not. And it's not because they're bad people, it's just because it's not happening. So we have bins, collapsible movable bins, for collecting HI-5, and they are on permanent loan to one of the production companies as a way to at least do something. But we've seen HI-5 containers that already been collected. There's no effort to collect food scraps or food contaminated compostable paper. And so something really needs to be done. So the reason this is so important is what we found was if you arrive on scene after the production is there and everyone's set up and the systems are in play, there's no money, there's no interest really in doing anything around waste management. 3 And what we hear over and again is it's not in a budget, it's not in a budget. So in order to get it in the budget, it has to be part of the permitting process. Somebody comes to the County, they have to get a permit to film here and should be right within that permit. They should be required to have a zero waste plan or a waste management plan, and then it's in the budget. So you have this multimillion dollar film production. You think, wow, couldn't they just spend an extra $5,000 or something? If it's not in the budget, they can’t, and that's the way to get it in. So once it's in the budget, then it's there. It's going to build capacity for local consultants, for people to handle the materials. It would be a way to build relationships with folks like Hānai Kaiāulu. And so I very strongly recommend it. It's possible that the Mayor could just do it on his own through the film commission. Not sure Clerk-Council would maybe want to check that out. But if there was an actual ordinance that would say, if you're going to do a film production here as part of the permitting process, you need to come up with a zero waste plan, that would be awesome. Okay, that's it. Thank you. Vice Chair Olson asked who issues the permit – the State or the County? My understanding is the County film commission actually gives the permit, Ms. Kubat said. And I have talked to Film Commissioner Aulani Freitas about it. She's very supportive. Again, there's just this attitude where people are supportive, but it's not actually happening. And people think that these production companies are doing this, but they're not. And when you talk to them, they want to do it. They don't have money because it's not in the budget. Charles Kahale, speaking on V.4: See page 25. V. NEW BUSINESS 1. Presentation by Mikala Pieper and Charles Cravalho of Hānai Kaiāulu on efforts to create soil, engage community, and expand educational opportunities relating to resource recovery of cardboard. Aloha mai kākou, Mr. Cravalho said. We're with Hānai Kāiaulu. Mikala is also the founder of Hānai Kāiaulu, as well as the President. And we're going to start our presentation now. Aloha kākou, Ms. Pieper said. I am from Wai‘anae, Oahu. I was born and raised in Wai‘anae. I'm an educator for 24 years. I am a product of the public school system, and I am not leaving my community. And that's where I'm going to be till I retire. So who are we? Hānai Kāiaulu is a student-led nonprofit organization with a focus on our food systems through bokashi composting and cardboard shredding and education in our community. And our goal is to expand now to the outer islands and to other schools. So we're going to talk today a couple of topics that we're going to talk about is carbon abatement, recycling of cardboard, community engagement, and community service for students as well as the CRB and our help to curb or decrease the spread of CRB in my community. What is cardboard shredding? Basically, cardboard shredding is we take the cardboard, run it through a cardboard shredding machine, and I have some examples of the shredded cardboard here, Mr. Cravalho said. 4 Governor Ige declared Hawai‘i the first state to have a climate change emergency. We're in a climate crisis right now, Ms. Pieper said. And the declaration said we needed a statewide collaboration to restore a safe climate. So it's sort of a mandate for community and organizations to band together and start doing something. So we found that cardboard was rather not rubbish, but a resource. So we're flipping the script and hoping to change mindsets. Benefits for rubbish to resources. Reducing waste, promoting a clean environment, reduce emissions, and provides raw material for new products both eco-friendly and cost effective, Mr. Cravalho said. Also creating sustainable solutions, demonstrating a commitment to sustainability to consumers. So we got to be the front line at showing sustainability to our people in our community, Ms. Pieper said. What we created is called Sustainable Saturdays. So Sustainable Saturdays is a practice where community drops off cardboard. Obviously it's on a Saturday. Our first site is at the school. Communities drop off cardboard. We then shred it, prep it, get it ready, we give it to farmers in exchange for fresh produce. So you drop off your cardboard and you go home with some healthy mea ‘ai from our local farmers. So we're closing the loop. Yeah. Students get community service hours on this opportunity. Farmers get what they need. They also get clean mulch. They have access now to clean mulch. And they also go home with- this is the ahupua‘a system. We're closing the loop. This is a shared reciprocity. So this is nothing old. This was something that we lived on for years, for centuries, is that shared economy or closing the loop. Different applications that shredded cardboard can be used, Mr. Cravalho said. One is for sheet mulch or compost. Next one is packaging material for shipping, keeping your products safe instead of using bubble wrap. Plastic bubble wrap. We're using the shredded cardboard. Chicken and rabbit bedding, chickens love the bedding. Yeah, they love it. And also compostable pots, decorations and centerpieces. As you can tell in the lower picture that they do make beautiful centerpieces as well as worm food for vermicompost. Students are trying to eliminate our use of plastic pots, Ms. Pieper said. I don't know about you, but when I get excited about planting, I go to Home Depot, I buy like $100 worth of plants and I get $100 worth of plastic pots too, once I transfer them in the ground. But for this case, you put the plant in the pot and you just plant the whole pot. Nurseries are working with us, so some benefits right to the cardboard shredding. That piece that you have, it actually suppresses weeds. It retains water and moisture in the ‘āina. We're from Wai‘anae, so it's super hot. It helps build soil structure, and it also helps to absorb the impact of fallen fruit. So this is from our mango farmer, our lemon farmer. She's like, this is great stuff. If you put a few down together, it's quite soft. So it absorbs mangoes dropping and any kind of food dropping. Yeah, in my sense, I teach Hawaiian language and Hawaiian culture. It's returning ‘āina to ‘āina. Yeah, that's a big idea, the big takeaway when I present the project, we're improving the waste management in our food systems. So part of the food systems, the last part is the waste management, which we don't have a clear idea of what we're doing. We don't have that part. I look at other countries, I look at other states. They have a waste management system for food. They have a waste management system for cardboard. They got it going, like we are 100 years 5 behind and considering we’re on an island, yeah? We ship off, we ship in food, we ship off ‘ōpala. And considering where I live in Wai‘anae and I where I'm talking, I want to focus too on environmental injustices of where the landfills are. So the landfills are in my area, in my ‘āina, in my moku. So I stand strong with what I do here and sharing my ‘ike, my knowledge with you folks. So putting carbon back into the soil, once you put this back into the soil, the worms come back, garden gets greener, plant starts growing. You're just putting ‘āina back to ‘āina. Yeah. And we need those worms. Here's an example. This is not case studies, but this is like real life situations. Top notch fruit and farm in Mā‘ili. She's working with us for the past three years. Her kuleana, she wants to reduce the plastic weed mat. So this replaced the weed mat that she's been using for it. Also, she said that this is the first time she's gotten a second season of mangoes. So she's sharing that excitement to all her neighbor friends and all her farmer friends that, hey for you guys, you're getting one and I got two. She really likes it, too, because it actually absorbs the impact of the fruit. So there's less damage to the fruits, Mr. Cravalho said. And we have here the hibiscus lady in Wailua. Cost for pots is 75 cents. Cardboard pots are 20 cents. So you see the price difference there, saving money, and reducing, of course, plastic use, most importantly. Right. So if we had all our nurseries possibly connecting to one of our schools and one of our projects, our programs in each community, we could be servicing our farmers or nurseries with this project, Ms. Pieper said. Urban garden center, that's part of CTAHR, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. They don't purchase, we do all exchange. Everything is exchanging. They give us a whole bunch of fresh produce for our Sustainable Saturday. And we give them- they're requesting confetti. So it's a different type of process, but it's the same machine. And they use it for smaller areas in their garden, like their garden beds. So that's a picture of the shredded cardboard. And then this will be the last (picture) about bubble wrap and plastic use. So 42 percent of the packaging is plastic. Packaging is also the shortest lifespan. It's one time use. And we know that when it goes into the landfill, it creates microplastics breaking down into our soil, which we're already seeing, or breaking down into our oceans. And we've already seen that in shrimp, in fish, in us, in human consumption. So we have another business, Vintage Vinegars. He uses it for packaging of his vinegars and his fermented products with that elimination of bubble wrap. Environmental Impact- one ton or 2,000 pounds of recycled cardboard can save up to 17 trees from being cut down, nine cubic yards of land space, reduce landfill usage, decrease carbon emissions, return ‘āina to ‘āina, Papa and Wākea, Mr. Cravalho said. So Papa and Wākea is that picture on the top, Ms. Pieper said. When I work with native Hawaiian communities, there's no way you can teach Hawaiian language or Hawaiian studies without teaching ‘āina. Yeah, there's no way. So I teach about Papa and Wākea. So when we return to ‘āina, we're helping Papahānaumoku, Mother Earth, you may know her as, and where we're capturing all that greenhouse gases or diverting that we are helping Wākea or our Sky Father. And those two concepts, if you're Hawaiian, kanaka, keiki, you know that, you know that “he aliʻi ka ʻāina; he kauwā ke kanaka.” We are just stewards of this land. The land is the 6 chief. That data there on the side is actually my data from Sustainable Saturdays. That is the amount of cardboard that we collected. I think it was like 1,500, then 1,700, 6,700, and for this school year, we only had two Sustainable Saturdays, September and October, and we've already reached 7,000 pounds. So we are connecting our Sustainable Saturday with food distributions because they happen the first Saturday of the month. So with post-COVID and more food distributions being distributed to our communities, we have more cardboard as well. So they just drop it off to us and we got tons of cardboard. Student Impact: Environmental Stewardship. As you can see here, we have two of our youngest members, Hilina‘i and Aubrey, with that talented musician there, Jack Johnson with Kōkua Foundation, basically showing them how to make the ‘āina-friendly planting pots that were passed around earlier. Community service hours for schools exposed to natural resource careers, 21st century skills, also stronger sense of civic responsibility, Mr. Cravalho said. We service keiki all the way to high school, and high school loves it, Ms. Pieper said. They get their community service hours in their personal transition plan, which is a 0.5 credit in the Department of Education here in Hawai‘i. It’s a requirement. Younger students like that, they learn 21st century skills, speaking, presenting collaboration. They're 10 years old and they're presenting to the Kōkua Hawai‘i foundation director. If they can do this, I'm sure all this keiki that we get in touch with, will get a stronger sense of civic responsibility. That's a kuleana. Yeah. What's your kuleana back to the ‘āina? Student impact, community impact. What does the community get out of this? Education and awareness. What you don't know, you don't know. They get a healthy food swap. They get a clean supply of mulch. Those are all donations that get swapped with the clean cardboard, the shredded cardboard. And then the other picture is just a person coming to say, can I get some, can I take some home? And we're like, absolutely. So they can come and take some. They can come and drop some, either one of them. And then the CRB is just another way of helping our farmers access clean mulch on the west side. Sustainable Saturdays data. So back in 2021 to present so far, we've had 17 sustainable Saturdays, 354 in attendance, 1416 community service hours, 320 community impact, and 14,751 total pounds of cardboard. So that's huge, Mr. Cravalho said. That's just 17 Saturdays working 8 a.m. to noon, Ms. Pieper said. Where do we go from here now? How can our project expand to other schools? My students recently won $25,000 in a grant with American Savings Bank. And with this money, there's a little video over here, but you guys can watch that later. With this money, they said, let's buy cardboard shredders for all the west side schools. So what person will say, let me take my $25,000 and give it away? Basically, one cardboard shredder is $2,500. It gets shipped from the states. It's actually made in Germany, so they see the need for more outreach. And it's not like, we need cardboard, we need more people shredding, we need more schools shredding. We need more people helping farmers access mulch. So we started with spending funds, and they're doing the workshop as well. Because it's student led, I'm just the driver and the person that takes them to the different areas, and they're presenting their project and giving away the shredders. So with their task, 7 they created that name, Scrappahz Union 96792. And we were recognized at the Legislature here at the State Capitol back in April. So they got like this nice big award and really elevating the haumāna out in the west side, Ms. Pieper said. Yeah, not a lot of positive comes out of my side, but it is that people don't know about it. People don't know all the positive things. So for me, that is elevating my students, my community, and there is good. So Scrappahz Union, real quick, we know west side people want to fight and we're flipping the script, changing that stereotype. Yeah, we're still down to scrap. We'll scrap your food waste, we'll scrap your cardboard, we'll scrap your newspaper. They have a logo and a shirt and they're just changing that stereotype. And when we give the schools their shredded cardboard, we're like, okay, now you're part of the Scrappahz Union. You have to continue scrapping in this positive way. So really making a positive impact on not the ‘āina, but the whole social emotional part of students in our community. And also the schools that they did present the cardboard shredding machines to, Mr. Cravalho said. The first one was the deaf and blind school at the top right corner and then also Kapolei High School, Waiana‘e High School, as well as Mākaha Elementary. And they are still continuing to give out these shredders to the West Side schools. These are just a few articles and news clips that they're a part of, Ms. Pieper said. If you missed it, we've been on the news twice, Civil Beat came out. The students also went to the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia and presented their project there to schools and teachers there. And then we did some work with the Future Farmers of America. I really think we should change that name to Future Farmers of Hawai‘i, but that's another meeting and another topic. But they're sharing it. So this is how it would look in a school or community. You drop off your cardboard community collection, you can have it. Community cardboard shred day, Sustainable Saturday, whatever- we use Sustainable Saturday, the students de-tape, shred, process the paper, goes back to the farmers and then you receive fresh local produce while the supplies last. Everybody benefits. The students, the community, the farmers. It really is a win-win. The students also work on writing letters, donation letters, making possible October, November, December, a little bit more special with getting donations of pumpkins for October. We got turkeys for November, we got gingerbread house kits for December. So just a little bit other skills that they learn through this project, through my program. So potential trends that would be circular economy initiatives, right? That's the, ahupua‘a system closing the loop with the cardboard recycling materials. Collaboration between industries and people to promote and reuse recycling of our cardboard products. Like the nurseries, the decoration people, the wedding people, whatever it is. Because we've had already people ask like, hey, can you make it bigger? Can you make it smaller? Yeah, we can make them sort of whatever size you want and just collaborating with people like, hey, it's nice, it's aesthetically pleasing. And the kids get community service hours. And really incentive programs and policies encouraging businesses to adopt sustainable practices, as we heard Ms. Kubat say about the movie production. And to sum it up, key takeaways. 8 Environmental impact, waste reduction, economic benefits, community service opportunities. And by embracing these technologies and practices, we can contribute to a more sustainable and eco-friendly future while reaping the benefits of improved waste management, Mr. Cravalho said. And this is us. No website yet because we are boots on the ground people. We're so busy, we don't have time for that. But we try to go on Instagram (@hanaikaiaulu) and you can email us and ask our phone number. That's a presentation. We'll take questions. You guys got questions? Or outside in the computer world, got questions. First off, Commissioner Garcia said, Fantastic. That's beautiful. Awesome. Have you guys had any outreach to the coffee farms and stuff like that? Because he was at one recently and they had thousands of starters and they're in plastic bags. I mean, that application right there- So I live on O‘ahu, he lives here, Ms. Pieper said. We're a couple, but I live there and he lives here. So I come back, back and forth. And we're just trying to grow whatever we can. So this would be the second of our outreach for Hilo. We did come to the climate change fair. And then Commissioner Acasio, we've been in communication and discussion, and she said, hey, I think you guys should present. So here we are. So the next step would be connecting. Yeah, the next step would be- Mr. Cravalho is a custodian at Waiākea High School, and he connected with the Key Club, which focuses on community service. Working with Ms. Kubat, there's a possible site. I don't know if I should say it yet- but we can definitely hook up. We need the people to take the stuff from us once we get this in, once we get kids, they're like, hey, I need community service hours. Once we get that going, then we're like, okay, who needs pots? Who needs cardboard? So we're definitely looking at more collaboration on this item. We're still in the beginning process, and that's a very good suggestion, and we'll definitely consider that, Mr. Cravalho said. So right now, what I'm doing for my work here for Hānai Kaiāulu is working with the students at Waiākea High School. So I'm working with Mrs. Sato, the head for the Key Club. And she already was supporting the idea with the whole cardboard training, Sustainable Saturdays, basically implementing and replicating what Ms. Pieper is doing out on O‘ahu. We're going to bring that here as well. So definitely reaching out to the coffee farmers and other farmers as well and replicating the same thing that Ms. Pieper is doing. Commissioner McIntosh asked if the machines are able to keep up- I think you have one machine for each location. Are they able to keep up with the shredding? Or do you do shredding on a separate day? So we have multiple shredders on a Saturday, basically, Ms. Pieper said. Two, we can get more if we want to, but there's a lot that goes in that the students learn about even the plastic on the cardboard. So it's very time consuming. I mean, we know waste management is time consuming. They take up the tape, the staples, everything that- so they're learning in the process. Yes, it is service learning as well. They're learning that all these things are not good for 9 the ‘āina. So the machine that we're giving away is as big as a printer. So it's a small mobile one where you can move around in the classroom and the school, but there are bigger ones that you can purchase with, of course, more money. So there are bigger ones. Mr. McIntosh asked if they have to remove the tape. There is a machine. But that's almost like $100,000. But it does de-tape all the plastics and everything. But there is one. So later on down the line, 5 years, 10 years, you don't know where this can go, Ms. Pieper said. Commissioner Acasio thanked the presenters for being here. Really appreciate it. Super tight presentation and just I love the Scrappahz Union, especially being that my husband is from Nānākuli, so that makes a lot of sense in my world, she said. But not that you need more to do, but in terms of data collection and science for the kids and this is kind of EPR-related so that maybe it can push legislation in an EPR direction. Do you have kind of an assessment of which kinds of tapes are more gummy or keeping track of weight or anything of the plastic coming off of it? I don't know. We do weigh all the cardboard, so we weigh that and that's how we get the data for our cardboard, Ms. Pieper said. So that gets put into a carbon offset calculator. But that is not focusing on the plastic, which is the negative one. Focus on the positive, which is the diversion. I'm just wondering if certain ones are harder to get off and all those kinds of things in terms of if we utilize that data, maybe even if it's anecdotal utilizing that data, pushing forward for EPR, Commissioner Acasio said. Amazon is the worst tape, Ms. Pieper said. But they know we don't want to get any of these sticky things stuck in the shredder. And then once it breaks down, it'll be microplastics in the ground. So all of that gets removed. Right now, I don't know what label is. It’s best just to take everything off. We also shred the newspaper from Star-Advertiser. We do know that that is made with soy-based print, which is good for the ‘āina. The glue that we use is good for the ‘āina. So keeping in mind, even when we receive items that is from maybe a poison company or so, we're like, nah, negative on that one. Let's just put that in a blue bin where it's supposed to go so we can do what we do know. And we do know this. Commissioner Cardwell thanked the presenters. I've missed a bunch of meetings, but in my earlier days, cardboard, I was always like, the cardboard, we need to do something with it, she said. It's such an incredible resource. And I've grown food myself and use cardboard all the time in my gardens and especially here in Puna. As you know, we don't have a lot of soil, and so it's something that's really in need here. And so I just wanted to clarify. I think you guys pretty much answered it, but so all the cardboard that you collect, you collect on your Sustainable Saturdays, is that right? 10 Yes, we do collect throughout the week as well, though, from other people that can't drop off or a few small businesses like my friends, Ms. Pieper said. Because technically, at a time where COVID took away jobs, we're creating green jobs as well. So if you can put this system with the economic drive, you have a truck driver picking up cardboard from small stores and small places that don't have that recycling bin, because there's so many stores that don't. Or like the salon, the hardware store in Waiana‘e, the auto body shop, they don't purchase that recycling cardboard. So we go on the weekends during the week after work, we go and pick that up and then take that to school. So the whole community is just like, dropping off cardboard anytime. But you can't get the fresh produce until you come on Saturday, because that's when the whole show happens, on Saturday. There's so many people reaching out that, oh, we got carbon, I can give you a whole container. I'm like, yes, but not all schools did it. If organizations did it, there's just so much work to be done. Commissioner Norris said the project needs expansion real quick on this island. I live in a condo complex and our garbage cans keep getting filled up with cardboard things that are just really not supposed to be there. And I applaud you, and I think the best you can do is expand your project as much as you can, she said. Our system here seems to be dominated by the transfer stations because that's where the average duck in a pond ends up and it's kind of hit and miss, Vice Chair Olson said. Is there a system for the hotels and restaurants, Ms. Pieper asked. Not really, the Vice Chair said. So you could start there, right, Ms. Pieper said. They have that every day. Schools have it every day, too. That's why I focus on the schools, because just schools alone with all the supplies that come in. It's something. We're not hitting everything, but it's something. 2. Recommendations, if any, to the September 2023 draft of the General Plan 2 (Commissioners to propose specific comments for GP section 3.5, Wastewater Treatment and Reuse 3, and section 4.3, Solid Waste Management 4) (The following discussion took place at the start of the meeting) Vice Chair Olson asked whether everyone had an opportunity to look at any of the handouts yet. At the top of the list that we left off with at the last meeting was the discussion of wastewater issues and the solid waste issues. And the County is working on the new General Plan to incorporate all of this into that. This is the first that I've seen of this one, so I'm going to assume that nobody's gotten heads up on this prior to the meeting. 2 V.2: Draft General Plan: https://cohplanning.konveio.com/gp-draft 3 V.2: Draft GP – Wastewater: https://records.hawaiicounty.gov/weblink/DocView.aspx?dbid=1&id=126126 4 V.2: Draft GP – Solid Waste: https://records.hawaiicounty.gov/weblink/DocView.aspx?dbid=1&id=126125 11 It was in our agenda at the bottom of the packet, Commissioner Norris said. You could check it out there. I took a few minutes to read it. Yeah, but I mean, anybody had any chance to look at this prior to the meeting, Vice Chair Olson asked. Yes, she has. Anybody else? Okay, well, I mean, obviously the total of what we do is wastewater and solid waste, bringing the rest of the folks up to speed because they haven't received any other handouts other than this? Okay, let me go around the room. Do you have issues in your district? One of the things that I read in here, Commissioner Norris said, was that injection wells are allowed in exempted areas, but it doesn't really- I guess under chapter 62, it states that it has to be 1,000 feet from any drinking water source, but I didn't see a map of the exempted areas in either the General Plan or in this. So I was wondering if we could get an idea where those exempted areas are. And my concern is that in Maui and Lahaina, they were doing dye studies and injection wells along shorelines and found that injection wells were actually impacting areas along the shoreline. And I was wondering, do we have that here? I don't see it in the General Plan. I know we have it in Puna, Vice Chair Olson said. I know we have one near the airport in Kona as well. But whether those are impacting the area or not, we don't know, Commissioner Norris said. I don't even know if they're an exempted area, so if we could get some kind of idea on that, I'd feel more comfortable with this. (DCC Wong directed the Vice Chair to address the items on Page 1 of the agenda, after which the discussion resumed.) Vice Chair Olson asked if members had an opportunity to dive into the General Plan yet. Just what was posted in our folder, Commissioner McIntosh said. I'm assuming this is the only thing they want us to comment on. Well, yeah, more or less, Vice Chair Olson said. We are talking about specifically the waste handling issues. And again, leading off in Puna, we have all of these, what are now large lots, but they are all capable of being subdivided into much smaller pieces by the thousands. We've kind of, sort of already had a discussion with them about it. When I say we, particularly Pāhoa Main Street Association is concerned about how this is going to play out. What are the concerns, Commissioner Acasio asked. Vice Chair Olson said that adjacent to Pāhoa town, there is a subdivision, Nānāwale. It is 5,000 one-fifth of an acre lots. No sewers, no water. But they've all been sold. And how are you going to fix it? And of course, just kind of icing on the cake, it sits on an almost solid basalt feature. That'll be fun. 12 Just get out your chipper, and keep chipping for days on end, Commissioner McIntosh said. I can tell you all about it, Vice Chair Olson said. My niece, back in 2018, she had been out here for Christmas visiting. She and her mother bought- well, my niece and my great-niece bought two lots in Nānāwale. And they were planning on building houses. And of course, COVID came, and that whole project just kind of died on the- but we'd already dug the hole for the septic tank, and the septic tank has been sitting there all this time, and I watched them hammer this thing out. And that times 5,000, and/or you're going to go up and down the roads to make it so you can connect up sewers. I mean, wow. So I have a question and a thought related to it, Commissioner Acasio said. One would be, what recommendations would we want to give? And in that light, I know there's been the working group, the Cesspool Conversion Working Group as dictated by the Legislature, and they came up with some very clear bills that I know at least the comprehensive bill died in committee. So looking at that, is that something that we as a Commission study those bills a little closer? Is that part of our recommendation? For example, what would be the work of this Commission to give recommendation regarding this plan? That is a good question, Vice Chair Olson said, and particularly given the variability of climate and terrain, the possibility of actually putting sewer systems into some of these subdivisions that otherwise would require them, the feasibility, have you made it basically impossible to financially accomplish that end the way you've got it worded? So is the County or the State going to be buying them back? Reconsolidating? What's the plan, the reality of it? This is on paper, right? And the reality is solid blue rock. And what are you going to do? So one or two as an offshoot of it is one thing, doing 5,000 of them and laying a sewer line is another. So that's just one of the issues, at least for my district. And I'm sure everybody's going to come starting to look at it. You're going to come up with your own constraints as to what you're going to make it meet the law. And it is federal law. The County and the State is not doing it out of the grandness of their heart. The EPA is leaning over them going, there's a fine out here somewhere if you don't get this done. Commissioner Cardwell said she didn't get a chance to read it before the meeting, but one of the things that is mentioned in this draft plan is just speaking to what you said is that sewerage disposal system designs must be examined with a particular region in mind. So, you know, Puna does have particular challenges because of the blue rock. There's a lot of blue rock, which is really hard to break through. And I guess my question is, is it being considered to put a sewage treatment plant in Puna? Because if that's the case, there would need to be multiple- these subdivisions are really spread out. I mean, I'm thinking of the town I grew up in, it's 7 miles long by about a mile wide and there's one sewage treatment plant for that town. But Puna is a lot bigger than that and these subdivisions are spread apart and seems to me like septic would be a more, I don't know, economical and efficient way to go. So, I don't know, are we making recommendations, I guess, based on our districts because that's what we're most familiar with? I'm most familiar with lower Puna. I mean, maybe that's the way to think about. 13 I mean, of course we're dealing with an island-wide entity, Vice Chair Olson said. In other words, this body, we kind of cover the whole island with representation from each of the districts. Yeah, it's kind of on us from the district to carry the water back to and get a discussion started on, how are you going to in reality do these things. I mean, I was on the very first community development plan that the County ever did, which was for Puna. And we raised those issues back then. That was 20 years ago and we've just kind of sailed along over it and here it is now. Now we have the feds looking at us and nobody's going to walk away from that. That's federal law. And they're no longer amused by the way the state as an overall has dealt with these issues. And we're a sore thumb sticking out. Commissioner McIntosh said Action 24(d) covers that: “Develop plans to improve, connect or develop new wastewater systems in unsewered urban coastal communities.” So from what I understand, from our perspective as a Commission, I'm assuming they want us to just comment on what they have here and not necessarily propose brand new things that aren't on here. We collectively know about the areas that we live in, Vice Chair Olson said. I know Puna pretty well. I've been involved in the planning process for a very long time. So these things I already went through in the first planning process that the County ever had. We've been asking these questions for a very long time. We are going to get a wastewater system for Pāhoa Village and that's commercial primarily, right? But you got 5,000 one-fifth of an acre lots here. You got 12,000 one-acre lots in Hawaiian Paradise Park. You go up the hill and all of those, what are large lots now are actually in Ag-1. The owners of those lots could subdivide them. They have the right to subdivide and they're going to be facing all of the same problems. And the wastewater treatment issue, you can only put so many septic systems in a place before you are going to end up being mandated to do an actual sewer district. That's a Puna problem. That is more of an engineering question. Can it be done? We need input from the engineers rather than say, it can't be done, Commissioner Norris said. And that's kind of sort of what the reason I'm bringing it up here is. We're going to carry this back up the hill and see what they really plan to do about it, Vice Chair Olson said. The Department is also doing a comprehensive study for the entire area. So hopefully in a year or two they'll have some ideas for you, Commissioner McIntosh said. Well, and I don't think they've got a year or two, Vice Chair Olson said. That's usually how long the studies are for. But they're not going to act unless they have a study in hand with recommendations, Commissioner McIntosh said. Well, I mean, this is raining all the way. They put it off long enough that Big Brother is now looking, and Big Brother is not happy, Vice Chair Olson said. 14 As long as they don't have gang cesspools, the EPA won't say anything. That's all they're concerned with. The state on their own volition banned cesspools. So it's a state problem, not an EPA, federal problem, Commissioner McIntosh said. But not dealing with a wastewater issue accommodating the federal law, Vice Chair Olson said. Yeah. They put stuff off they shouldn't have for 30-plus years and they're trying to play catch up now, Commissioner McIntosh said. Yeah. So, I mean, is somebody planning on buying all these lots back, reconsolidating them in some way, Vice Chair Olson said. That would hurt the County's pocket, Commissioner McIntosh said. And the State, Vice Chair Olson said. Because have you ever read “Land and Power in Hawai‘i”? Bits and pieces, Commissioner McIntosh said. So, I mean, the rain starts way further upstream, Vice Chair Olson said. So I have a question pertaining to this, Commissioner Acasio said. Would it be helpful to have someone come and give a brief on the legislation that was proposed from the Cesspool Conversion Working Group, which I believe has some folks on there coming from the engineering side. And it's a pretty diverse working group and they've been working on it for two years, I believe, at least. Have you seen a finished draft of it, Vice Chair Olson asked. So first thing would be to distribute their bill recommendation and their final output, their study, their recommendations, Commissioner Acasio said.5 Yeah, I haven't seen that yet, Vice Chair Olson said.6 Oh, yeah, it's out last legislative session, they had bills recommended to the Legislature. So we can get that. We should get that. I've kind of sort of asked around and I get the deer in the headlights look, Vice Chair Olson said. 5 Full reports of the Cesspool Conversion Working group and slide deck from the January 4, 2023 presentation to the Legislature. Recommendations for legislation are contained in the Final Report. https://health.hawaii.gov/wastewater/home/ccwg/ 6 January 2023 Director’s Report to EMC containing recommendations of the Cesspool Conversion Working Group. Pages 14-17. https://records.hawaiicounty.gov/weblink/DocView.aspx?dbid=1&id=120887 15 It's available. It was presented to the Legislature prior to the 2023 session, Commissioner Acasio said.7 Maybe we need to be updated and rewatch the presentation to Council.8 We probably should research and look up that and be updated on that as well as their bill recommendations and perhaps even a brief as to what happened in the legislative session or what part of those- I think it would be good just for our own due diligence. Then we can also make recommendations based on that, but we'd have a broader idea about it. Commissioner Garcia asked whether there had been any analysis on technical feasibility of being able to do something- clearly there's an economic feasibility, but is there a technical feasibility. And then in my mind, I'm looking at thinking about cumulative impact, 5,000 dischargers and then another 12,000 dischargers. Has there been any environmental study done on what is the cumulative impact of all that new stuff going into the environment? Because absent the risk assessment part of it, that's my background, you really don't know how to target and frame. I acknowledge I'm the new kid on the block, but I like to understand the whole picture before I start trying to noodle in on specifics. How does that protect- I kind of answered the question. The answer is no and that's been deliberate. You don't ask questions to which you don't want an answer, Vice Chair Olson said. We had to go to the Feds to get a community development plan done. That's how far up the chain we had to go to make the County and the State comply with the Federal requirements. I mean, we had 600 people screaming and yelling out in the parking lot because the Council refused to pass the necessary legislation to look at the district as a whole and to say how this was going to work out. That's where we went and there's been no real any further work done on it since then. So this again, this is all coming down from the Federal level and that's why they're wound up about it. It sure wasn't us that kicked it. Commissioner Cardwell said there is work being done right now and there is a programmatic environmental impact statement that has been done and so it seems like there is work that's being done. They're working on the wastewater system for the town of Pāhoa, Vice Chair Olson said. Well, it's for Puna, Commissioner Cardwell said. It's a Puna feasibility study. So it's for the whole district of Puna. And so there's maps on there. We've been working on two projects in the area, both the Pāhoa wastewater feasibility and cost study as well as the Puna district environmental EIS and facility plan, Ms. Hartman said. We're expecting the final facility plan to be complete in November. The EIS was just filed September 23 and approved by the Mayor. So I can speak to that more when we get to it on the agenda. But we reviewed 20 different project alternatives in Puna. So basically every option 7 January 4, 2023, presentation to the Legislature of the findings and recommendations of the Cesspool Conversion Working Group. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EIH1Cfbmls 8 February 21, 2023, presentation to Council of the findings and recommendations of the Cesspool Conversion Working Group. https://hawaiicounty.granicus.com/player/clip/2634?meta_id=81114 16 under the sun was evaluated from “the County does nothing and everybody goes IWS” to centralized treatment, to bringing the water to Hilo or mix and match in between. So you can review the facility plan on the project website. We're wrapping up our public comments now. We just had our last community engagement this weekend at Revitalize Puna. But I can answer any of your questions when we get there on the agenda. All right. Apparently I missed something. Thank you, Vice Chair Olson said. Commissioner McIntosh commented on General Plan objective 24.15 that talks about incentivizing the collection of rainfall (for non-potable uses). That's the last thing you want to do is have a bunch of rain barrels everywhere. My neighbor did that. We've had problems with mosquitoes ever since. I know they say there's things you can do to try and abate that but it didn't make any difference other than using chemicals, and most people for collecting rainwater aren't going to use chemicals, so I don't think that's a good thing to put in there. So that's my comment for the draft. You can do covered catchments, so I don't think it should be removed, Commissioner Norris said. Maybe we should amend it so that it ensures that there are no pest problems with the catchment. Are we supposed to make recommendations, Commissioner McIntosh said. Somebody make me a motion, Vice Chair Olson said. You can collect water without having mosquitoes or any other type of insects and contamination into the catchment. It is possible without causing a mosquito problem, Commissioner Norris said. Yeah, I agree with that, Commissioner Cardwell said. That's what I do. But it has to be treated, and that's up to individuals to do that, to treat their catchment tanks to cover it. We have two coverings on our catchment tank to make sure that nothing gets in. The thing is in lower Puna, we are going through a crazy drought, right. Have it's so dry down here. And so any little bit of water that people can collect for themselves to use if they're growing food or for whatever, I think is actually really important because we don't have access to- that's our only water source. We don't have access to County water, so people have to be able to collect water. But again, yes, I don't know how you enforce people properly treating their catchment tanks, but I think that's important. DCC Wong suggested that perhaps if we defer this to next month's meeting and people come with their written recommendations so that the Commissioners can go around and discuss individually what their recommendations are and the reasons. So then by the end, there's one document with the recommendations that the commissioners are okay with, that's going to be sent to the Planning Department. And also, I don't know if you guys know, but there's been two public testimonies submitted where people are asking the Commission to provide more time 17 for people to come in and give public input on the recommendations to the General Plan with respect to wastewater and solid waste. I'm not sure if either of you have seen that yet. So I guess maybe at this point what I'm suggesting is it probably would be prudent to defer this to the next month's meeting where people will have an opportunity to come with their written recommendations to share it with the other commissioners. I support that, but I don't think we're quite done with the discussion at the moment, Vice Chair Olson said. Puna runs from sea level to 4,000 ft. You basically have four climates. You have four areas of level of rainfall. So it's not homogeneous. You have to deal with it more than anything else by its elevation. By the time you get up to the 4,000 foot level, it's practically a desert. It gets one-tenth the rainfall that I get down at sea level. So the complexity of it is what I'm getting to, even though it's all in one district. So you're not going to come up with an answer that's a fix-all. Each one of these segments are going to have to be looked at. The reason I know that is that the university many years ago did a study, and theirs was agriculturally aimed. They wanted to know what you could grow and where you could grow it. And basically all of the climates were there in Puna. I agree with Melissa that maybe we should table this until we can get more input from the public and other people who are concerned about this, Commissioner Norris said. Do we need a motion? Commissioner Acasio agreed with needing to put our recommendations in writing and we can know about them ahead of time so we can move forward. Motion, second, and vote: Motion made by Commissioner Acasio, to which Commissioner Cardwell seconded, to postpone discussion on agenda item V.2 to the November meeting. Ayes: 6 (Acasio, Cardwell, Garcia, McIntosh, Norris, Olson); absent 3 (Adams, Burns, Otsuka) 3. Recommendations, if any, for the Solid Waste Operational Study regarding disposal surcharge at the point of purchase. Well, to start with, we don't know what's coming, Vice Chair Olson said. It comes in, it's sold, and it's out there. And on any given day of any given month, you don't know what the volume is going to be because there's no heads up on it. There's no telling what the costs are going to be. The costs can run up and down. And two things, if you collected the disposal fee at the point of purchase, you'd know what was coming down the pipe because it's going to end up being disposed of at some point and we'd also have you're no longer depending upon the property tax to fund it. I guess for me, the icing on the cake is that you're responsible as the purchaser for its disposal. You pay for yours, I'll pay for mine. Are you suggesting sort of like a HI-5 for plastics, Commissioner Norris asked. Well, but I mean, basically you're going to end up with it being across the board. You buy something, it's going to end up in the waste system and you're going to pay for its disposal at the point of purchase, Vice Chair Olson said. 18 Yeah, I think this is almost the opposite of the extended producer responsibility which is later in the agenda in the sense that I would like to see it pushed to business models that are producing waste and having those business models that are profiting off of that them pay rather than the consumer. So point of purchase is going to be the consumer paying for it as opposed to an EPR that pushes it to, we're charging producers for the amount of waste that their business model produces. You're getting it at point of sale, you're collecting the disposal fee at the point of sale from the retailer, Vice Chair Olson said. From the retailer as opposed to the producer, Commissioner Acasio said. I would push back on that and push it to the consumer. I would push back on the retailer because that hurts our businesses, as opposed to the business model that's making- their global market share is enormous as opposed to putting it at the retailer and the consumer level. I agree with that, Commissioner Cardwell said. It's the producer that's producing it in the first place, therefore they should be responsible also for the disposal of it and that's the whole idea behind extended producer responsibility. How would that work, Commissioner Norris asked. I mean, would you have a producer who produces shampoo bottles or something like that from the disposal? We can get to the details when we get to V.5, Commissioner Acasio said. I just was using that as a kind of cross reference because it's a similar idea, I think, except putting it more downstream to the consumer or the retailer as opposed to pushing it upstream to the producer. I suppose what I liked about it is I get to make the choice. In other words, I come up to the cash register and I can purchase product A or product B, and the disposal fee on product B is less than A, Vice Chair Olson said. Why would it be less? It should be across the board the same, Commissioner McIntosh said. Well, but I mean, that depends upon the components of the manufacturer, what it's going to cost to dispose. You can have similar products that are made of different components of different things that are easier or harder to dispose of. And you're talking about a nightmare that I don't think anyone's capable of figuring that out, Commissioner McIntosh said. Well, I mean, the manufacturer will certainly figure it out quickly enough, Vice Chair Olson said. The way the State does it usually is they just make the businesses- for TVs, I think they make them pay a flat fee in order to sell in the state, Commissioner McIntosh said. And so somehow 19 that's supposed to be used toward disposing of the TV. Well, if you're trying to figure out, okay, this is made of plastic, this is mostly glass, so you're going to have different charges for disposing it. That's too complicated to keep track of and figure out on the, I don't know who would be in charge of that- State, County- and then your reliance upon the manufacturer. But anyways, the County lawyer says that you can't do this, that this is something the Legislature would have to enact. You can't do it from a County point of view. So the only thing you could do would be to make a recommendation to our House or Senate representative. That's what we could do, but I don't see a purpose in discussing this in depth. I was aiming at giving us a point at which we could make some references to what it's actually costing us, Vice Chair Olson said. In other words, if I get some choice at the point of purchase of A and B, and I know that A is less expensive than B, then as the purchaser - because I end up paying for it no matter what - rhetorically, I'll ask the question, how do we get there? In other words, the consumer needs to be in the loop. We're going to pay to get to dispose of it when we're done, and obviously we want to pay the least amount when that happens. How do we get there? This was a shot at it. I can't answer that without going into V.5, Commissioner Acasio said. So I don't know if we have motion to merge those two or just wait until we get to V.5, but I can address that when we talk about EPR. Probably better if we just try to stick to the agenda and move through V.4 and then we can get to V.5, DCC Wong said. The Vice Chair asking, what's the solution, Commissioner Acasio said. She continued: The answer to your question is that in my understanding of it is the whole point of an extended producer responsibility is pushing it to incentivize and engage the producers based on maybe a charge per weight or volume of waste that they produce that now our municipalities are tasked with the cost of disposal. So pushing that to them incentivizes them to do reuse and refill, truly compostable packaging, which then the consumer still has a choice and the retailer still has a choice as to what they provide. But basically the consumer then ends up dictating- or because of the incentivization of cost per volume, especially if we just start with fast moving consumer goods, for example, then the producer has the burden and engagement of paying that cost. We still, as consumers, have a choice. But it's also pushing it more upstream so that they're incentivized to send less volume to our landfills. So they're going to change, like instead of buying a whole toothbrush, they're going to figure out how to produce it where you just buy the head. So we don't have 1,000 toothbrushes going daily into the landfill. We just have the head. Or dental floss. They're going to be incentivized to sell them just in the pack with the floss and you reuse the container because they open up anyway. You put them in, you know what I mean? Those kinds of things. So that's less volume. And then the packaging that all that comes in doesn't have to be in these triple giant plastic packages, like when you see the Colgate at Costco, when it comes in all this packaging, it'll be just much more consolidated and wrapped with a tight piece of cardboard or paper that we can then turn into soil versus to the landfill. 20 And then they are charged less, but it incentivizes them to engineer it in a way that is responsive to those needs that we live on an island and we need to reduce our landfilling. You blew me right out of the water, Vice Chair Olson said. All right. But there's no way to answer that question without talking about Senate Bill 1458. Okay, I'm done, Commissioner Acasio said. 4. Recommendations, if any, for the Solid Waste Operational Study regarding solid waste hauling contingency plans during the closure of the Daniel K. Inouye Highway. You're looking at a diesel mechanic, Vice Chair Olson said. Four thousand feet up and 4,000 feet down and then 4,000 feet up again day in, day out. They build trucks to do that, but we don't own any of them. So, how do you want to do that? What's the contingency when Saddle Road closes. It's not an if. I mean, we had a little example here. Mauna Loa just kind of reached out and gave you a little touch on the shoulder to say “Oh, by the way, I'm still alive and well and this road could be closed in 20 seconds.” So we better have a really solid Plan B. How long is it planned to be closed? What period of time are we looking at? I have no idea of what the plans are, Commissioner Norris said. If you were unable to truck it over Saddle Road, Vice Chair Olson said, that means the trucks have to go all the way to the other end of the island and then come back to empty if they can't get over the Saddle. And you're going to add, I don't know exactly how many miles, but probably, what, 50 to 60 in any given run. So machinery and time and fuel and that'll add up way quicker than you can ever want to think about. There's only two ways they can go up- one way or the other, Commissioner McIntosh said. What is it asking for? Recommendations, I don't understand. We may just accept the fact that we're going to be shipping it off island, which may be less expensive. I mean, they're still running the incinerator on O‘ahu. Yeah, but as far as I am still aware, Honolulu does not allow in their ordinances to accept waste from other parties. So we wouldn’t be able to ship it. I thought they did, Commissioner Cardwell said. I'm sorry to interject, but there was that group that we had a presentation from, the group of people that were doing the beach cleanups in Ka‘ū, like that one area, and I remember they mentioned that they do send some of those fishing nets and whatnot to Honolulu to process it. So I'm not sure if that's entirely true. And also because they often don't meet their quota- in fact, they're often fined. CCH is fined because they don't meet the quota of garbage. I'm not at all for incineration, but it exists. And so I'm just like questioning whether or not that's true, that they can't accept waste from other islands. I don't think that's true. 21 Yes, they have a law they passed that they will not accept it. And I've talked to one of them, they're not interested in changing it, Commissioner McIntosh said. Also, trying to woo them to get them to change their mind. And processing nets is different than incinerating at H-Power. So they might be shipping it to the mainland to take care of. I think that's what they do. I thought they said they shipped it to O‘ahu and it was processed by H-Power, Commissioner Cardwell said. So I guess my question is, OK, Saddle Road gets closed. Is some of this already being considered in emergency management planning and stuff like that? I'd like to know what they envision, Commissioner Garcia said. How they would propose- because of all that increased traffic going through communities and all that. So in emergency planning, I think it would be good for us to understand that before we proceed with any thought about a recommendation. I would like to understand more. Yeah, well, but I mean, given the roads, the State highways here are in such poor condition, I mean, it's just insult to injury. Any way you go that doesn't take it away, doesn't ship it off the island, trying to corkscrew it around would be that would be ridiculous, Vice Chair Olson said. Commissioner Norris agreed with Commissioner Garcia. That might be just the purview of emergency planning and that maybe we should make a recommendation to that group to have a plan for solid waste removal of the east side if the Daniel K. Inouye Highway closes, and that will take it off our table and put it on theirs. It kind of seems to me that's where it belongs, Commissioner Garcia said. As far as I understand, we don't have the jurisdiction to recommend to emergency management, but I think what I would concur with Commissioner Garcia that they probably already do have something, Commissioner Acasio said. And if that's the case, our due diligence would be to look that up and get information on that to see where that's at before we make an additional recommendation for another study. I'm imagining that is part of the emergency (planning), and then if not, then that's a whole other task at hand. Might already have something drawn up because of the Mauna Loa eruption, Commissioner Norris said. I mean, I did sort of ask as part of that, and I didn't get anything back about it if there was already a Plan B or Plan C, Vice Chair Olson said. It would be as simple as asking emergency management and looking into their protocols to inform our next steps, Commissioner Acasio said. We did kind of get the trucking idea, but when the trucking idea goes down, which the possibility is certainly there, so what is Plan C, Vice Chair Olson asked. 22 Director Mansour joined the meeting, and the Vice Chair asked what happens when the highway gets closed and what are we going to do with it then? Because obviously the loop around could not be sustainable. That is true and we went through that when we had the Mauna Loa eruption last year, Director Mansour said. It created some challenges because the idea is, the lava was close to reaching Saddle Road and what we need to do next. So we kind of looked at it, talked to the Department of Health to see how many days we could be able to retain waste on the east side. Was it possible to stockpile waste on the closed landfill? There's certain areas there we were thinking about maybe just start to taking waste. Once we control the issue, we haul it back to the west side. That was thought of under the Governor’s emergency proclamation. Maybe he could allow us to pretty much create a temporary landfill site. And Maui is going through the same thing. I believe they got an emergency proclamation to allow them to do that because their current landfill may not have enough capacity for certain wastes. So we entertained the idea. So we were ready in case of Saddle Road get interrupted, and that's why we're doing the operational study as well, with the idea of moving forward with better planning, what is the best way to analyze our current solid waste operational system. But in the meantime, before we get there, it's going to take some time. If the preferred option were to site a landfill on the east side, it's going to take some time but in the meantime we have to have Plans A, B and C as you guys have mentioned. And all those containers go back empty, the Vice Chair said. I know we have talked, the Director said. He asked former Senator Acasio, what type of legislation would it take? This is time to write and submit any legislation that you foresee if we need to legislatively ask the City and County to amend their county ordinances (regarding waste acceptance). Or you could make it a statewide legislation to allow inter-county exchange of wastes based on availability of facilities and for emergency needs as well. Maybe that's time to start drafting some legislation and figure out who's willing to sponsor legislation. The state acknowledged there's challenge when it comes to solid waste statewide between Honolulu and the other counties We are probably the county with the largest space in our landfill so far, but 20 to 25 years, it's not large because it could come quick with the growth that we have been seeing on the East Side. Therefore, my comment to the State is they need to figure a State solution, even if they are willing to take H-Power under the state, and I said it many times, it kind of makes sense to me because it's the only such facility in the state. So it's going to need a lot of teamwork between counties to be able to allow the State to jump in, either assist or take the lead. Because regulation is being very stringent even about siting a landfill with the idea that they're making it so hard to landfill. So if that's true, every County is going to be driven to- technically you cannot just go to zero waste overnight. And I don't think zero waste is ever going to happen because you're always going to have a residue. So the idea is you reduce, trying to reduce, eliminate waste, and that's where we start. So through diversion, recycling and reduction. And I think that's the way to do it. And a lot of people are trying with legislation and with public education. Hopefully with this proposed operational study that we're working 23 on, we're going to have different venues of implementation plans, hopefully once it comes. So there's a lot of things are going in the same time. But given that we are at the end of the year and it's the time to propose any legislation, I urge you, former Senator Acasio, you have the experience in that, maybe you could lead the team of recommendation on the process, and maybe you all could come up with a few ideas, and maybe we could find somebody that would sponsor them. Commissioner Acasio asked if the Director was aware about emergency management having a specific plan around our waste issue if Daniel K. Inouye Highway gets closed. Director Mansour said if the Governor would make an emergency proclamation, we could handle the east side waste without going through the saddle road. But eventually once it opens, we need to do a clean closure of the area that we utilized to bring it back to the waste site. So it'll be double or triple handling of the waste. But if we have to, that's probably one of the solutions he would be recommending if we cannot go over the highway. Commissioner Cardwell asked if there a proposed collection site on the East Side where the waste could be collected and stored until it could be brought over to the West Side. I think the area where the old Hilo landfill is, we have some areas that are excavated as sump- like basins, Director Mansour said. We could utilize them temporarily and we need to do the calculation to see how much they could hold. And probably we need to line these areas as well. So it'll be on a temporary basis if they allow us through the emergency proclamation. I would imagine that'll probably be the quickest plan to implement. And eventually, we're going to end up excavating it and hauling it back to the west side. It's going to be costly, but we don't have any other options unless if they're willing to ship it in containers and send it to Honolulu. But remember, you cannot just put waste in containers because you're going to contaminate the containers. So the idea is you have to have a baler, and we don't have one. So we're not ready for one, unless we know for sure, Honolulu will take it. So what you do is you bring these balers and you compact the waste and you bring it like a sausage. It's literally a 40-foot container size waste wrapped in plastic and that's what goes inside the Matson container to prevent any leachate from leaching into the container and creating any contamination. And we don't have that. We don't have the equipment. But eventually if the state decided, yes, probably the best way is to go to waste-to-energy statewide. And just to remind you, this is standard practice all over Europe. They convert their waste to energy through incineration. So then we have to invest, each County has to invest into these compactors that could create a waste sausage that could fit into a container, and it goes to H-Power for incineration. So the idea is just to allow empty containers to start filling with waste. Probably you are going to have challenge because these containers are not watertight and waste will create leachate. So we just need to check all the boxes. Well, on the upfront end we could do a lot better on diversion to begin with. That's something just watching what's happening at the transfer stations here where I am. We could do a better job, Vice Chair Olson said. 24 Yeah, hopefully with public education, Director Mansour said. Allow people to start controlling it at the source. Right now we have these transfer stations open seven days a week. So it's an unlimited amount of garbage from each household. Curbside collection allows for behavior control at the source where people now understand, “I got one container, I need to be able to fit my garbage bags into these containers once a week. How would I go about controlling that?” So when you go to the store, you think, do I need to buy this huge box or versus just buy a few individual items to get me through the week rather than getting a whole box and you end up throwing it and the food in it. So it's retraining the behavior and controlling and reprogramming the human mind for reduction. How would you reduce waste, and the only way to do it is at the source so people could change their behavior. Yeah, there's a whole lot of different approaches to go to, but we're going to have to pick something and start moving in that direction, Vice Chair Olson said. At this point, we don't have a plan. Well, the idea of people reducing, I think just through public education, this could start today, Director Mansour said. Absolutely. But we have no plan, Vice Chair Olson said. Well, hopefully that operational analysis plan will come out as soon as the consultant finalizes it, Director Mansour said. But like I said, in the meantime, talk to your neighbor, have your neighbor talk to their neighbors. It's waste reduction through communication and awareness. We need to make the people aware of the ramification of not thinking about waste reduction. Well, you know, when we did the design for the transfer station in Kea‘au, we did initially do all of these things and of course in the end there was a change in administration and those elements were never added to the transfer station, Vice Chair Olson said. It's amazing, Director Mansour said. People are still demanding more hours and more days at certain transfer stations. That kind of defeats the whole purpose of going to zero waste and also reducing the waste. And we know we're not going to be able to satisfy 100% of the population, but at least environmentally, we need to be custodians of our environment. DCC Wong asked the Vice Chair to see if the Commission would like to make any recommendations for the topic on the agenda, or move on to the next item. Vice Chair Olson said the only thing he can add to it is that the components that were left out of the Kea‘au Transfer Station were intended to reduce through reuse a lot of the waste that goes through that facility. Director Mansour said members could sit together and submit recommendations. We could take that recommendation and include it in our operational study as well. I think that's the 25 reason I think we've been requesting this information. So you can be part of that operational study because whatever you advise, we need to make sure that get funneled down to our consultants so they could make it part of the study as well. We don't want to leave you out. You are stakeholders and that's why there is request for six different recommendations and maybe more because the operational study is very important. So we need you to be part of it. We're planning on it, the Vice Chair said. Statement from the Public: Kahale Terry, speaking on V.4: So just a little recommendation. I am from O‘ahu. I noticed that in the plan it said the landfill is to expand 100 years. O‘ahu has always said it will expand to that effect, but almost every 10 years it comes up on under that the landfill is closing and we got to file for an extension. Based on what I've seen in the landfill and with the population growth, with the population growth that's continuously coming into Hawai‘i, I see the volume of trash increasing. So I don't think that 100 years is an accurate number. Having alternate plans in place to fix or not fix that, but to remedy that problem, I believe, and I've been a strong advocate, is the waste-to-energy process. I understand furnaces are expensive. Our rubbish doesn't meet the data or the volume to make furnaces. But we can have engineers engineer smaller furnaces. Perhaps one on Hilo side, one on Kona side. So you have that if any of the loads go down, we have that capability in our pocket to keep the operations moving forward. I don't know what the Governor's plan was. He paid $50 million to this group of new people that was supposed to remedy our problems with trash and cook the rubbish underground to create methane and energy, collect that. I think we're in a process moving forward with that now. I don't know. As far as reducing for the group of people that was here earlier, it's almost like a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle that we have to correct. That's the biggest part. We're the biggest waste consuming population right now, especially America. And then everything shipped in, shipped out, everything double that, triple that. So a lot of it has to do with the manufacturers’ responsibility, consumer responsibility. And groups like this has to bring out the artisans in the people to really reuse these things. So just was thinking educating the kids because they're passionate, they're the best sellers. If you can teach the kids, that's the next generation coming up, because I see this generation right now, they don't care. They expect the Department of Environmental Management to do the sorting, the cleaning of their rubbish, to process their rubbish in the proper way. So I think just working on groups like this, promoting groups like this to help reduce and divert reusable resources out of that, that will be a great big help. But I mean that takes us full circle, Vice Chair Olson said. Like with the transfer station in Kea‘au, that those elements were never completed. It was in the design of the transfer station. But the next administration now is not going to fund it. And that's where it died. But they say we're at full capacity right now. But under Mayor Kim's administration, Mr. Terry said, we had more green waste pickups, we had plastic recyclable, we had other resources, recycling programs available. But I think we're at like at 50 percent capacity in my opinion. We're only operating I'm not going to argue with it. 26 5. Adoption of position regarding support for extended producer responsibility legislation such as SB 1458 SD1 (2023) in the 2024 legislative session.9 Commissioner Acasio said she had a recommendation for our commission to look at Senate Bill 1458, which was introduced in the 2023. A very similar bill was (SB 2399 – 2022 session). The previous year a similar bill went to conference committee and did not pass out of conference committee. It's a biennium. So (SB 1458) technically is still able to be heard in committees and it's an extended producer responsibility bill that addresses fast-moving consumer goods. I don't know if you folks were able to look at that in the footnotes for our agenda, but my recommendation is that we look to that. And if we haven't have enough time to study that as individual commissioners to have a discussion, that we do so and we make a recommendation next meeting, a motion to support this in the Legislature, moving forward on a similar idea of what Director Mansour had said in asking for legislation for solutions. So I don't know if we've had enough time to discuss it and if not we can table it. But I would really like us to look at the language from that and the ideas behind extended producer responsibility and our own due diligence so that we can have a robust discussion. Commission Acasio continued: So it's about packaging, but the legislation engages the top 20 producers of fast-moving consumer goods by volume, imported, and then there's a fee that comes in with the amount based on the amount of weight, which they already know because it's all based on shipping. And these are producers many of whom are engaged at the UN level with a commitment to reducing their plastic production and reducing plastic in our waste stream. And the fees would go into setting up reuse, recycle- mostly reuse and compost in our communities. It would also help pay for a needs assessment because every island has different needs. Every locale within our island particularly has different needs. And to do a needs assessment as to what kind of infrastructure would be set up based on that in order to divert and reduce our municipal solid waste. So what is a producer, Commissioner Norris asked. Danone, Mars, Nestle, like these big corporations that are fast moving consumer goods, Commissioner Acasio said. So we're talking about things like hair care, toothpaste, as a place to start. Obviously we can put on our agenda other things, like construction and demolition. I can see how construction reduces the amount of waste, Commissioner Norris said. Then they would be more concerned about only providing the amount that's necessary for a project. So C&D would be a whole separate section, Commissioner Acasio said. This particular Senate bill only addresses fast-moving consumer goods. If commissioners have not looked at that, I would really encourage that. And I will also maybe I can ask the Secretary to send out the bill number from the previous year because it's very similar. But you could look up the testimony 9 V.5: SB 1458 SD1 (2023): https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=SB&billnumber=1458&year=2023 27 and the committee reports and things like that to see what the input was from different stakeholders in the industry. Of course, that brings us back to the Kea‘au Transfer Station where the receiving end isn't there, Vice Chair Olson said. Well, it would provide funds for that sort of thing, right, Commissioner Norris asked. Right. So that's part of it, is that funding would be earmarked specifically for setting up reuse in our communities, Commissioner Acasio said. Well, back then, what we were planning on collecting actually had an over-the-counter value. People would buy it, Vice Chair Olson said. But would it be used by disposing of the product, Commissioner McIntosh asked. The idea would be that it would be used to set up reuse and refill, Commissioner Acasio said. So that we're going toward-and that the producers of fast-moving consumer goods that are creating the waste packaging would be incentivized to reduce their packaging waste volume or pay for reuse and compost. But let's say reuse, refill, even if we just focus on that, so that the consumer then has an opportunity in our community to choose- because we don't have a choice. Yes, if you go to the store and this is cheaper and all we have is all plastic bottles for our laundry detergent, there's no choice. But if you have a choice to go to a bulk bin and refill your own because the infrastructure has been set up by Danone, by these larger fast-moving consumer producers, then we have an option. But just like the Director was talking about, there is no option, or very little. You have one store you can go to do refill, but it's very expensive. So if they're paying for the infrastructure. In theory it gets kicked up to them and their business models that are having larger profits versus on the lower end, which we don't have a solution. So, they'll be setting up reuse systems in our community with that money, in theory. That's what the point of purchase thing was, to collect the money to build the facilities to do that, Vice Chair Olson said. But this just pushes it upstream just a little bit more, Commissioner Acasio said. Director Mansour had mentioned Europe in terms of waste to energy but also in Europe this is a very common practice. They have EPR set up in Canada as well. These producers know it's coming and oftentimes they set aside a lot of their advertising and their marketing for this kind of thing because they know it's coming. Really need both distribution centers in our island. It's just too much waste that's going in individual packaging, Commissioner Norris said. I would encourage the Commissioners to please look into this deeper so that we can have a perhaps we can have a motion to recommend supporting this for DEM and maybe our Council 28 can recommend a resolution for them to support it if that's something that the commissioners agree on. Commissioner Garcia said he would like more time on this. Again, I'm the new kid on the block, he said so I'd love to be able to table this till next meeting. I promise I will come back with my thoughts. Motion, second, and vote: Commissioner Garcia made a motion, to which Commissioner Norris seconded, to postpone agenda item V.5 until the November meeting. Ayes 5 (Acasio, Garcia, McIntosh, Norris, Olson); Absent 4 (Adams, Burns, Cardwell, Otsuka) 6. Recommendations to the County to adopt a policy on waste management, reduction, and/or landfill diversion regarding the film industry.10 Commissioner Acasio said her recommendation was distributed in the packet and we had one testifier from Recycle Hawai‘i who spoke to it and it is just recommending whether they can do it within their current rules or whether we need to ask them to pass an ordinance for them to apply a waste management as part of the permit process. I would like to personally add that also, which wasn't mentioned, I would concur with Recycle Hawai‘i's testimony but also add that there's a construction and demolition aspect to it as well because a lot of times they do sets. Ms. Kubat was referring to the day-to-day usage and such. But I know a lot of times they do large sets and such and so the same thing would apply. I would think that we would include a waste plan for those materials as well. If they have to put up a privacy screen, for example, and they use plyboard that that plyboard then gets repurposed in the community and that that's part of the plan when they do the permitting. But the county bans construction or demolition in the landfill, so they already must have an alternative for that, Commissioner McIntosh said. Commissioner Acasio said the recommendation is to have the film industry, when they're coming for their permit, include a waste management plan that focuses on landfill diversion, waste reduction. So going to either zero waste or waste reduction. But they have to have a plan of how they are addressing their waste stream and reduction or diversion, or reuse. In other words, you want to add to the permit a plan for how they treat their waste, Commissioner McIntosh said. Yeah. For example, do they have water jugs or are they giving away single use plastic water bottles, Commissioner Acasio said. And that in itself will create a lot of waste versus if they have a system set up and so they need to address that in their permit process. How are they addressing their waste production on set? 10 V.6: Film industry waste diversion: https://records.hawaiicounty.gov/weblink/DocView.aspx?dbid=1&id=126124 29 So it sounds like it's putting in the permit some requirement for a comprehensive waste management plan, Commissioner Garcia said, to which Commissioner Acasio agreed. And so I think this ordinance we would recommend to the Council and maybe Corporation Counsel, you might jump in here if I'm wrong because I am still learning this process, Commissioner Acasio said. EMC would recommend to the Council to draft an ordinance based on this. And we would give them some ideas and some language, but ultimately that it would be similar to the one that we just went through with Chair Adams, where we're recommending to them, and then they would go through the details of what this looks like. So for the one you're talking about with Chair Adams, did that go to the DEM Director first to be sent to council? Did that go directly to Council? I think it was to Council. My understanding was Council, Commissioner Acasio said. So usually since the Commission advises the department, you would draft the proposed legislation seeking support from the Department, and then the Department would seek a Council Member to introduce the proposed legislation by request, DCC Wong said. And then of course, you could attend the Council meeting to provide kind of the context of what you're talking about. But generally speaking, it's probably best if there's a drafted ordinance already since you folks are the expertise in this area, rather than tasking the Council member to come up with what exactly should be in the proposed legislation. I think it's more efficient that way. I'll draft that and I'm just asking if anyone would be interested in working on that, because I think we can have one person, if I'm not mistaken, working on that, if anyone is interested. And if not, I'll draft it and bring it to the next meeting, Commissioner Acasio said. Or we can have a Permitted Interaction Group also. Commissioner Garcia volunteered to work with Commissioner Acasio on a draft and to discuss it at the next meeting in sending it to DEM for recommendation. VI. REPORTS/CORRESPONDENCE Director’s Informational Report 1. Legislative update This is the time to submit any possible legislation that you would like to address so we could coordinate with our Administration and the Secretary will be the contact. He'll be doing what 30 he did last year. He will have a list of all the legislative matters and bills that will be presented or the department will be supporting. 2. Solid Waste Division Projects and Updates 1. Recycling and Landfill Diversion updates 1. EPA SWIFR grant for reusable foodware and bottleware 2. Other recycling initiatives The Director said the County was able to work with a nonprofit to secure $1.5 million and there's a few workshops that are going to happen so hopefully you all participate, become part of the decision making as well because it was on Hawai‘i News Now two nights ago. And so now the entire State has eyes on us to figure a way how we're going to spend that $1.5 million and come up with a good model that some other counties could take it and run with it as well. So definitely there's a lot at stake here to make sure that we have good suggestions that could be implemented. But yet we need to stay focused and we need to be able to recommend certain programs or pilots that could achieve the goals and objectives that our community wanted. For years that discussion has been going around. I remember when I first started I met with the group and they wanted to use these reusable foodware items and the idea is, how it's going to be funded? Now there's $1.5 million that could be spent to be able to come up with a great pilot program that could be implemented hopefully statewide. So we could take the lead on it and our county here working with the nonprofit and our communities probably would take the lead on it and hopefully become like a statewide model. 3. Solid Waste Operational Study update Director Mansour said she knows Ms. Shelise Lamb is working very hard and committed to making sure that the consultant connects with all the stakeholders to make sure that we collect all the information, recommendations, input that we could capture so we could analyze it and create that countywide operational analysis on the current solid waste system. 3. Wastewater Division Projects and Updates. 1. Pāhala and Nā‘ālehu Large Capacity Cesspool Closure AOC 1. Update on Pāhala Environmental Information Document Pāhala and Nā‘ālehu are moving forward as per the timeline identified within the Administrative Order on Consent. So far we met every timeline EPA had requested. We still are waiting on the community members to vote and give us their input on what system they preferred to use. There was four options: 1) Package unit utilizing the current collection system versus 2) the installation of a new collection system versus 3) the Individual Wastewater System that is maintained and operated by the county, versus 4) the IWS that is given to the owners for maintenance but through a contract. So these options were presented to our community at Pāhala, and we still waiting to make sure we get enough to be able to make the decision on the preferred option so we can move forward, the Director said. 31 2. Update on Nā‘ālehu Preliminary Engineering Report and Environmental Information Document EPA just approved the Preliminary Engineering Report for Nā‘ālehu just two days ago. So that by itself will now trigger us to move into the next step, which is the Environmental Information Document that could be performed as environmental assessment or some type of environmental document that we need to create to allow for the funding of state revolving funds, the Director said. 2. West Hawai‘i wastewater projects We got a handful of projects still under the design process. Kealakehe, Kaloko, these are two wastewater treatment plants. Currently, staff are working on design projects and replacement of the package wastewater treatment unit, one of the trains at Kaloko, Director Mansour said. 3. Hilo WWTP upgrades Hilo is moving forward, the Director said. We anticipate the project would go out to bid in April next year with the anticipation that we're going to issue a notice to proceed by June. So that's right on schedule. 4. Wastewater Plans 1. Addition of wastewater services for the Puna District 11 1. Final public engagement was held October 21 (Revitalize Puna) on the Pāhoa Wastewater Feasibility Study and Puna Wastewater Facility Plan We presented this plan to County Council members. The Mayor has signed off on the environmental programmatic impact statement. And we had multiple meeting with the communities. Ms. Hartman was there last Saturday as well, the Director said. Following our presentation at County Council, it was requested that we do one last community engagement opportunity to incorporate more community feedback into the final facility plan, Ms. Hartman said. So we participated in Ashley Kierkiewicz’ meeting with Revitalize Puna this Saturday. We designed a public engagement game to solicit feedback on how the community likes to basically score all of our project alternatives against each other. We evaluated 20 different project alternatives for Puna. The County priorities were concerned with cost, but others have other priorities as well. So we solicited a bunch of feedback and had prizes, and we're going to take any new comments that we received from Saturday and incorporate it into the final draft, which will be expected from mid-November, and that will be the end of that part of the project. 1. Puakō and South Kohala Regional Wastewater Master Plan (No discussion) 2. Information requests to DEM from Commissioners 1. What options are available, if any, for removing derelict or abandoned vehicles on roads in limbo and public property? (McIntosh) 11 VI.3.4.1: Puna wastewater website: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/50e624065fa641598326febe6316327b 32 The Commission reviewed the written response in the Director’s report. Just to let you know, since Bill 200 also passed, we are working on the budget under that DAV section to make sure that we are able to set certain funding to be able to implement, to the extent possible, Bill 200, which allows us to go to private property and pick up two vehicles a year. But it's going to be contingent on availability of funds. Where are they going to come from, Vice Chair Olson asked. The funding is going to come from the section itself, the $12 that we collect, it's in the reserve. So it's going to come out of the reserve from that fund. That's why it's going to be subject to availability of funds, Director Mansour said. Do you have any idea when the last time that $12 fee was raised, Vice Chair Olson asked. It was 2002, Director Mansour said. I was trying to plant the seed at County Council when that Bill 200 was approved. Maybe it is time to maybe introduce ordinances to increase that, right? I mean, that's what we were going after when we were working on it, Vice Chair Olson said. Yeah, it's been a long time, Director Mansour said. Twelve dollars a year, it's costing us almost- the highest I've seen is $800 to tow and dispose. If you take that $800 divided by $12, you need at least (66.7 years) to recoup that $800. Vice Chair Olson asked on the expansion of the disposal fee on the vehicles, did I miss it? Did you say that we actually got an increase on the registration of that? No. It had been $12 since 2002, I believe, Director Mansour said. Yeah. Long time, the Vice Chair said. So did we put in for one or they just skipped us? They skipped us, the Director said. It seemed like we need to take- I planted the seed to County Council that eventually we need to come back or it's if it's a state legislation, because the money goes to the state through the DMV, I believe, and DCC Wong could help me out on this one, if it's going to require ordinances at county standalone by changing that DMV fee. Where does the $12 authority come from, DCC Wong asked. Is that state law? Or is that in the County Code? If it's a mandate by state, which I can't imagine, it would be a mandate of $12 in the statute, but it might be in the county code or perhaps an administrative rule of a county that could be changed. If it's an administrative rule, it doesn't need to be by ordinance. If it's in the County Code, then it needs to be by ordinance. And in that case you would go to County 33 Council to seek an amendment to that section of the County Code. But yeah, it sounds like you need to double check that authority.12 No, I believe it was by ordinance now that you bring it up, Vice Chair Olson said. So then it would be a proposed amendment to that section of the County Code to increase the amount to, I don't know, an appropriate amount, DCC Wong said. And I guess I leave that to DEM and the Commission to comment on what would be the appropriate amount of increase. It's going to be a very sensitive topic because Number 1, it's been since (2003), Director Mansour said. Number 2 is I hear that we are the highest in the state for collection, but our population is probably lower than Honolulu. And we need to figure out because if people bring their cars from the mainland or from different counties, we don't collect the $12 so somebody else collects them. So we need to dive deep into these ordinances and figure out either from a legislative tackling or ordinances or doing something that with DMV through Finance to ask, could we re-charge the $12 if somebody brings their car from Oahu to here? I don't know. Because eventually if they abandon the vehicle here, COH is going to pay for it rather than CCH. We need to start thinking how we could tighten this program to make sure we are getting compensated for the work we do. Back to the point of purchase. Full circle, Vice Chair Olson said. Also maybe reuse because I was just recently in this position where I needed to have a vehicle disposed of and I did call the county, Commissioner Acasio said. Problem is it had so many good parts on the- it's a truck that is very sought after as far as parts, but we don't have a program for parting out cars or basically reusing, like a junkyard would be. And it could be in an organized fashion but basically cutting up and taking apart cars that it could also be job creation for folks, basically green jobs in the sense of reusing it instead of just trashing the whole car. There's a lot of good parts that are very well sought after. We have two right in Kea‘au, but they don't take cars. I was told they have sort of like their own area where they part out machines, from what I've heard, Commissioner McIntosh said. Well, there was nowhere that I could find in calling DEM that I could give this vehicle to. It had a lot of good parts on it. There's a few nonprofit organizations that take vehicles, Commissioner McIntosh said. 12 Hawai‘i County Code, Chapter 24, Article 4, Section 24-19(i): “An annual fee of $12 per vehicle shall be charged for each vehicle registration, which shall be paid at the same time as the motor vehicle tax paid pursuant to section 24-17 of this chapter. The proceeds from this fee shall be allocated to establish a fund for the towing, removal, disposal and recycling of abandoned or discarded automobiles and automobile parts, and such fund entitled ‘vehicle disposal fund’ is hereby established.” Ord. 2003-32, effective June 1, 2003. 34 They take them, but then they smash them. My understanding is they smash them and they dump them, Commissioner Acasio said. Some cases they part them out, obviously, depending on what it is and the condition of it, Vice Chair Olson said. We went to Craigslist, and it was great, Commissioner Acasio said. It's getting used, but setting up a program would be awesome. Well, of course. That's why I was going after the point of purchase. In other words, you bring a car onto the island, the county automatically gets money. You take the car away, you get your money, Vice Chair Olson said. VII. FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS a. Follow up on action items determined today. b. Other (Commissioners may suggest items they would like placed on the next agenda.) Commissioner Acasio noted action items to read up on SB 1458 (2023) and extended producer responsibility, and also drafting a bill to be brought to the agenda next time for film industry waste management protocols. VIII. ANNOUNCEMENTS The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, November 29, at the Community Meeting Hale (Building G) of the West Hawai‘i Civic Center, 74-5044 Ane Keohokālole Highway, and via Zoom. 13 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.14 IX. ADJOURNMENT Motion, second, and vote: Commissioner McIntosh made a motion to adjourn, to which Commissioner Acasio seconded, and the motion was adopted. Ayes: 5 (Acasio, Garcia, McIntosh, Norris, Olson); Nays 0; Absent 4 (Adams, Burns, Cardwell, Otsuka). Meeting adjourned at 11:55 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Peter Sur, Secretary 13 VIII: 2023 EMC meeting schedule: https://records.hawaiicounty.gov/weblink/DocView.aspx?dbid=1&id=120846 14 VIII: Hawai‘i County Calendar: https://www.hawaiicounty.gov/our-county/county-calendar