Panel kills waste-to-energy plant

JUST LIKE EVERY THING in Hawaii,they going contest for another 10 years and end up building it anyway but for far more moneey.125M is going to turn into 500M in 10 years to build.Does nobody see this pattern that has been going on for the past 50 years?????

Kalli wrote:

Push the garbage into the nearest volcano and then tap into the geothermal for electricity. Done.

WOW, I think you should be making the big bucks,that is a great idea

Yeah,$125M was too high. But the council has seriously erred in not taking the next step,(which this article convienently leaves unaddressed) to have Wheelabrator do the EIS and refine their pricing at no further cost to Hawaii Island taxpayers. This is as in free, gratis, and no charge. However, 5 councilors decided that they knew more about building industrial facilites and running power plants than the experts. That's the problem when you take regular joes and try to make them something that they're not. But hey - that's politics and it sucks. The downside is that these esteemed folks (no not really, but they are all up for re-election this year) have doomed the next council and administration to a really big problem with no alternatives but to truck trash across the Island to the Puuhanahulu landfill in west Hawaii as there is no backup plan when the Hilo landfill becomes full in 2012.
So Hawaii County Council - what's next? Not that anything stellar is expected from the current sitting members other than continued lip service! A plan, any plan is better than nothing, which is what we now have. Bad move Ikeda, Jacobson, Naeole, Yagong and Ford!
More Geothermal would be a good step, but that has its own issues, the least of which are the same clowns that fought it in the past. There are other geo resource zones around the Island, and they need to be developed as well instead of putting all our hope in lower Puna where the lava tends to flow.

When Mayor Kim 1st ran in 2000 he put solving our opala crisis at the top of his concerns. So now he leaves office 8 years later without it being solved. I have good reason to believe he thought there was just not enough will to 'do the right thing - massive recycling' so he opted for what Good Ol Boy Jimmy Arakaki wanted - WTE.

Dumping STILL happens outside of the Pahoa transfer station. It is not the tipping fee, its the lack of will amongst the population, and the utter disrespect for the aina by the residents. No matter haole, local, or kanaka. All are to blame

Too few respect the aina they are all too busy playing GTA-4 & smoking ice.

Wheelabrator is going to do the EIS for free. They have had a lobbyist working full time on the big island , again for "free". Does all this "free stuff" ring any alarm bells? San Francisco recycles 70% of their trash. We do 5 %. Get real. Swannie , Ka'U

First of all, KALII for governor! A man with actual good ideas. Second, don't blame the stupid politicians - blame the stupid people who elected them (and will probably re-elect them)!

A previous article on power showed that the big island had overhead of at least 40 percent. Including information that they were running the geo plant at half capacity or less. I wonder if the other fossil fuel plants had any part in this decision. With the price of importing fossil products, the new station could put other existing stations out of profitability. If those execs have any 'friends' in politics, that could be the end of common sense. They built the coal burning Haina power plant in the last 8 years after the mill closed, its a shame no one had the foresight to make it waste burning instead. By NOT making a waste power plant, the trash problem will only get worse, and shipping it to the mainland will cost an exponentially larger amount of money than spending125 mil now.

I really feel sorry for Mayor Harry Kim. He's an extremely intelligent Big Island Boy (he is an educator by training and profession, who reluctantly became involved in government as the civil defense director because no one else could handle the job), who is honest (the first honest mayor Hawaii County has had in a very long time), and who is foresighted, and only wants the best for the Big Island. Yet he is stuck with a bunch of small minded, small town kuaina, on the County Council who can see only as far into the future as next Sunday's chicken fight, and a bunch of marijuana growing/selling druggie hippies who proclaim in a drug induced stupor that recycling by digging through rubbish for cans and bottles is the answer, all of whom, when combined turn down his brillient garbage to energy plan. These uninformed people don't see that the biggest recycling answer is right in front of their noses -- recycling garbage into elcetricity. Both the kuaina and the druggues complain about the high price of gas, especially on an island where they have long drives, yet they can't see that their electricity is made from the same crude oil that their gas is made of. Using free fuel -- trash which is made up of 70% plus combustibles like paper and cardboard -- instead of expensive oil, means cheaper electricity. The deal breaker was how to pay for the garbage to energy plant. that's a no brainer. Arrest all the druggies, conficate their bank accounts and land, which used to make their illegal drugs and/or are the proceeds of their illegal activity and you'd raise at least $30 mil right there. Arrest the chicken fighters and do the same thing with their illegally obtained money and property, and there is the other $30 mil. Combined there is the $60 mil. difference between the first projected cost and the final cost. Mayor Kim, don't give up. There are plenty of smart people like me (whose family comes from Kona - Capt. Cook area) who know that you're right.

Kalli -- you're right -- geothermal is also an answer. However, diversifying alternate energy sources is logical. Putting all of your eggs into one basket is dangerous. My answer stated above will make geothermal happen. The reason why geothermal was stopped was because all of the druggie hippies killed the idea because it would infringe on their marijuana fields in Puna. However they put up the (marijuana)smoke screen of detriment to the environment to stop the project. Put all of them in jail, take their drug profits and no more opposition to geothermal and start up money for geothermal.

Kalli wrote:

Push the garbage into the nearest volcano and then tap into the geothermal for electricity. Done.

Right on the kinipopo, but no can do!They(The polititions and enviormentals,that right mentals) needs 10 million dollars to see if can work, and even if can they going protest it down cause they have nothing to do but blame Bush! Hawaii no can think outside of the box. They like to keep us in the stone age. Da Valacaneno is free, but NO day like pay. "No free," go figa.

My uncle is a council member who supported the mayor. We had a debate in school, and we had to educate our selves about what the council was dealing with. My uncle helped get us all the information, and I admit I was against the incinerator at first. After debating and learning all the facts, I came to the same conclusion as my uncle,we should go to the next step and then see if it would work, all for free. Then public input for the final decision. He was on the losing side with the mayor, and I think we all will lose now.

Pay now or later, recycling hasn't work before what makes you think it'll work now. Garbage to energy was one of the best things that Frank Fasi ever did for Honolulu. In addition we may have to expand what we have because its already at capacity.

For "an attorney who knows," you are awfully short on facts. And clueless about constitutional rights, too. Do you ever drink alcohol? That makes you a druggie too. And rather than blame Puna residents, you can thank HELCO's corporate mentality for putting the brakes on more geothermal development because it refuses to accept more electricity from PGV.