Honolulu City Council Policy Resolutions

(Link to original Word Processing Version)

03-09



ESTABLISHING A CITY POLICY THAT MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE LANDFILLS SHOULD NOT BE LOCATED OVER THE CITY'S UNDERGROUND DRINKING WATER SOURCES.

WHEREAS, both the groundwater protection zone, established by the City's Board of Water Supply, and the underground injection control line ("UIC"), established by the State Department of Health, are intended to protect the City's precious underground drinking water from contamination; and

WHEREAS, the State Department of Health has expressed its preference for the City's "non-degradation approach" of protecting drinking water sources by siting landfills seaward of the UIC line; and

WHEREAS, the City's Board of Water Supply also opposes the placement of a municipal solid waste ("MSW") landfill over the City's drinking water sources; and

WHEREAS, there is no current landfill technology that can guarantee that hazardous or other harmful substances from a MSW landfill placed over the city's aquifer will not, over the long-term, enter the city's drinking water sources and pose a risk to the public health and welfare of Honolulu's citizens; and

WHEREAS, in Hawaii, a number of toxic waste contaminated sites are former landfills; and

WHEREAS, prevention of contamination of the City's drinking water, through the placement of MSW landfills outside the groundwater protection zone and the UIC, is preferable to the remediation of contaminated drinking water; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Council of the City and County of Honolulu that it hereby establishes as a policy of the City that municipal solid waste landfills should not be located anywhere above the Department of Health's Underground Injection Control line, within the Board of Water Supply's groundwater protection zone, or over any of the City's drinking water sources; and


BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the Clerk is requested to send copies of this resolution to the Director of Environmental Services, the Director of Planning and Permitting, the State Director of Health, the Board of Water Supply and the Mayor.

                         INTRODUCED BY:

                         Mike Gabbard

                        

                        

                        

                        

                        

                        
DATE OF INTRODUCTION:
                        

January 10, 2003         
Honolulu, Hawaii                    Councilmembers

(OCS/040803/ct)