The city’s managing director cautioned that the military has not yet given the green light and City Council members had many questions Wednesday.
The city’s managing director cautioned that the military has not yet given the green light and City Council members had many questions Wednesday.
Waipio Soccer Complex is emerging as the top contender for the city’s next landfill location, prompting Honolulu City Council members to question what the logistics would look like.
It’s not without complications. For one, the fields are currently used by Oahu’s approximately 30,000 soccer players, according to the Department of Parks and Recreation’s website.
And using the land would require permission from the Navy, which currently controls it and plans to use it as a location for ferrying materials across Pearl Harbor as it constructs a new $3.4 billion dry dock for submarines.
Nothing is set in stone yet, especially without Navy permission. But Waipio peninsula is “the most promising location” for now, Managing Director Mike Formby said at a March meeting of the City Council’s budget committee.
Still, questions remain about its feasibility, as evidenced on Wednesday at a council committee hearing. Council members prodded for answers on the cost of relocating the heavily used soccer fields and how a landfill there would stand up against natural disasters.
Currently, Honolulu’s only municipal landfill is at Waimanalo Gulch near Ko Olina. That location is scheduled to close in 2028, meaning that the city has a limited amount of time to find and open a new site somewhere else on Oahu.
The city was supposed to name a new location by the end of 2022, per language in its permit.
But just before the deadline, Mayor Rick Blangiardi and director of the Department of Environmental Services Roger Babcock requested an extension until the end of 2024. The Planning Commission is likely to approve that request, according to a draft decision published March 1.
Finding a new location has proven to be difficult.
State legislation passed in 2020 prohibits a new landfill from being within a half-mile radius of schools, hospitals and residences. Other restrictions include airport buffer zones and “no pass zones” that sit over the island’s drinking water aquifers.
Blangiardi has said that the city is negotiating with the military to use a portion of its land. Waipio peninsula remains the current frontrunner, but opposition has surfaced already.
Frank Doyle of the Hawaii Soccer Association, who played a large role in starting the Waipio Soccer Complex and was director of the Department of Environmental Services under Mayor Jeremy Harris, testified in opposition.
“Lives have been improved by this facility in many, many ways,” Doyle said.
The facility has 24 regulation fields and was built in 2000 for about $23 million, or a little over $40 million with inflation. Scott Keopuhiwa, president and executive director of the Hawaii Youth Soccer Association, testified that they’re expecting to host 200 teams from the mainland during a tournament in June.
“Tens of millions have already been invested in Waipio Soccer Complex at its current site. Why would we consider moving it, spending more money to build another soccer complex, to make a landfill where we’ve already infrastructure and so on?” he asked.
Formby said that one possibility would be to move the soccer facility west to Kalaeloa, where the city is also proposing to build a racetrack. But that wouldn’t be as central a location, Keopuhiwa said in an interview.
Council members also asked about the site’s location near a tsunami zone and whether the facility would require a special management area permit since it would be near a shoreline.
Babcock pointed out that the land being considered actually falls outside the tsunami zone. Formby, however, said that many questions still need to be addressed.
“Everything that you’re raising are valid questions and challenges — issues that would have to be resolved once the property was green-lighted. But because it hasn’t been, we have not gotten that far,” Formby said.
If discussions with the military regarding Waipio peninsula don’t work out, some of the city’s remaining options include finding private land, using eminent domain to buy existing residential areas or asking state lawmakers to modify state law. Formby said that he has consulted with some lawmakers about that last possibility, but “they’ve advised that that would be a very difficult process.”
If discussions with the military do work out, city officials then would begin a process of community outreach and looking into next steps such as getting permits. The whole process would likely take about eight years, Formby said, meaning that they would have needed to start in 2020 in order to meet the 2028 deadline for closing the current Waimanalo Gulch site.
Space isn’t too much of an issue — Babcock said that the current site, which opened in 1989, still has room until about 2036. But city officials haven’t publicly announced a decision to extend use at the current site, which Formby said is partially because they may find a site where a landfill can be opened quicker.
He acknowledged the tightening timeline, though.
“Most people do the math and realize that at some point we’re going to have to make that decision. But we’re not making it at this time,” Formby said.
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