Something To Think About

While Waste Stream’s recent letter to the ‘The Kohala Mountain News’, uses a lot of printing ink, they really have not shared much.  They even conveniently forgot to spell out the actual location involved for the planned waste facility.  But, thanks to our previously published letter with photo the readers now know, and from feedback we got, they are angry.  One reader says, his home is 200 yards from the planned waste site, that is definitely much less than the 0.4 miles (702 yards) claimed by Waste Stream.

While one should feel good about reading their comment that, "None of us have ever received any benefit from the work done with Waste Stream", one has to wonder if, for example, selling land to the county qualifies as a benefit.  Heaven knows what other benefits could spin-off from such a multimillion dollar project.  When do deals like that spring from pure altruistic motives?  Generally, somebody always seems to benefit financially or otherwise in the end.

Waste Stream says they, " ... are involved because we care deeply about these issues."  Well, if they would care equally deeply about our community, our health and quality of life, they would not propose to process waste 700 yards (more like 200 yards) from our downwind homes.  It is obvious their priority rests with the garbage, and not with our well being.  On their road to glory, by creating a "... state of the art waste management showcase....", they trample on the very community, they pretend to care for.  They go on to say, "Our goal is to accomplish this in a way that has as little impact as possible on our community."  Any good, environmental friendly project must have no adverse impact on a community. As “little impact as possible” is not good enough.  What is little for one may be too much for another.  Especially those with an agenda have a much higher tolerance, than those who suffer because of an adverse impact on their health and quality of life.  Children and older people will be less tolerant yet to negative environmental impacts.

Waste Stream says that this planned waste processing location is "a convenient center to manage all of our waste ...".  The fact is, it is on the way to nowhere and has only one road to get to, unlike the existing transfer station, which has two roads leading to it.  Most people would have to drive out of their way to drop-off their rubbish.  How convenient is that?

Waste Stream makes a big deal out of 11 tons of trash going to the landfill daily; how many truckloads are we speaking about?   Well, for example, “A garbage collector in Portland visits about 900 homes a day, and each truck can hold about 12 tons of compacted refuse”.  (Ref.  http://www.pressherald.com/news/refuse-collectors-deal-with-nitty-gritty-from-900-homes-a-day_2010-06-28.html).  So, we talk about one truckload of compacted trash a day.  One County report shows that our West Hawaii Sanitary Landfill (WHSL), apparently, can accept not only our waste, but also, if need be, the additional waste from South Hawaii for many years; so what is the urgency?  (Ref. http://www.hawaii-county.com/env_mng/swm/iswmp/Final/IRSWMP_ExecutiveSummary_Dec2009.pdf)

We understand, the hardest pill to swallow, by readers, is that out of 104 sites proposed by the consultants, only the site 200 yards from Ainakea homes is suitable to process waste. Area residents deserve more respect for their intelligence, than Waste Stream gives them by pretending that they are not smart enough to see their plan for what it is.