No cabins or landfills on Ka Iwi!

Dear Mayor Carlisle:

Much to my surprise, Hawaii Kai was listed in a recent report as a place for relocation of the city’s landfill now located on the Leeward coast. According to a report by your Advisory Committee on Landfill Site Selection (Star Advertiser, April 21, 2012) Hawaii Kai was listed as having 451 points on the list of 10 other possible locations.

The designated location for the landfill in Hawaii Kai was a nondescript, undescribed and undesignated area of 97 acres called “Uplands Hawaii Kai”. While this is too generic to know with absolute certainty, the only uplands Hawaii Kai land that I know of is called the Ka Iwi coast where the Hawaii Kai Golf course abuts Queen’s Rise and Mau’uwai.

If this is the case, and “Uplands Hawaii Kai” means Ka Iwi, you will certainly have a battle on your hands. This is the area that our community has fought to keep free from development for over the past three decades, and more recently where cabins were proposed to be placed on these slopes around Queen’s Rise just a few years ago. More recently than this a “golf academy” was proposed, and now a landfill?

As the state representative of this area that has fought alongside the community for so long to keep this place pristine and undeveloped, I write to express my firm stance against any land in Hawaii Kai being used for landfill purposes. My office worked diligently with the community in 2008 to keep cabins off of Ka Iwi and we worked with Governor Lingle to get the makai Ka Iwi lands reclassified from urban to conservation in 2010. I am simply aghast that such a possible use for these sacred places would or could even be considered for a landfill.

Lastly, may I note that this is not nimbyism. It is simply a fact that the only areas in Hawaii Kai that fit the criteria for public landfill development are those that are considered environmentally reserved. These areas have long been fought for and protected by the residents of Hawaii Kai and I’m sure they are prepared to fight again for these lands.

Therefore, in light of the need to protect our natural environment of this area, and seeing the long history of protecting our Ka Iwi coast by the residents of Hawaii Kai, I repeat that under no uncertain terms, conditions or pretenses should the proposed landfill development be implemented in Hawaii Kai.

I trust that your site selection advisory committee will agree with this assessment and cease and desist from any further consideration of this area of Oahu.

Aloha,
Representative Gene Ward
Minority Leader