The toxic debris from the Hawaii fire could fill 5 football fields 5 stories deep

Hinano Rodrigues remembers being 4 or 5 years old, carrying a bucket across a highway to the ocean in the community of Maui, where she still lives.

At dawn, he would accompany his grandmother to a reef at low tide, where she plucked black snails, spiny lobsters and sea urchins from the rocky cliff. In Hawaiian, she told him to break a kiawe branch, a type of mesquite, to bring out an octopus hidden in a hole.

He taught Rodrigues, 71, the value of ahupuaa, a native Hawaiian system for dividing the land from the mountains to the ocean, with the inhabitants of each section living off the land and the waters within it.

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But now, the section where he lives and where his ancestors have always lived – ahupuaa Olowalu – is also home to a temporary landfill used to store debris from the deadly fire that decimated the nearby historic town of Lahaina last summer, destroying thousands of buildings . and killing 102 people. That’s enough refuse to cover five football fields five stories high, including soil contaminated with lead and arsenic.

A dispute over whether that site is truly temporary — and where the debris might eventually end up — has sparked a fierce legal battle, with tens of millions of dollars at stake, not to mention an ecosystem priceless, rich in corals, manta rays and other seas. life only at sea.

“Why would you go and put the opal like that in a clean place?” Rodrigues asked, using a Hawaiian word for trash.

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Handling debris after large fires is always a logistical challenge. After the 2018 wildfire killed 85 people and burned most of Paradise, Calif., more than 300,000 trucks were needed to transport the debris to three different depots, said Cole Glenwright, deputy commander of the operation debris removal. The whole process took about a year.

It’s taking much longer in Maui, given environmental concerns, how long it took to clean up destroyed land, worries about Native Hawaiian cultural sites and a fight over ownership of a potential permanent site for the debris.

The Olowalu interim landfill is a former quarry on state-owned land and close to Lahaina, which made it a convenient choice for quickly storing debris that is being cleaned up so the town can rebuild. Officials believe its arid climate will reduce the risk of contamination spreading, and they say they have taken many precautions, including using thick liner and stormwater controls to limit runoff.

Officials analyzed soil, groundwater and surface water samples and found no trace of contamination, according to a quarterly report released in July.

But the site is just up from a coral reef, and some locals fear an ecological catastrophe if the pollution reaches the water.

The operation of the site also threatens sacred Hawaiian sanctuaries and shrines and desecrates ancient Hawaiian burial sites, according to a lawsuit filed by two people who do not want the remains in Olowalu. One of the plaintiffs is Manoa Ka’io Martin, whose ancestors are among those buried nearby. The other is farmer Eddy Garcia, who worries about the contamination of the food he grows, including taro, bananas, pineapples and star fruit.

Amid requests to remove debris from Olowalu, Maui County is seeking to seize a former private quarry near the island’s Maui Central Repository for use as a permanent repository.

That prompted another legal battle. The company that owns the land, Komar Maui Properties, doesn’t want to give it up.

Komar bought the land in 2015 with plans to build a private warehouse, but says permitting issues have stalled development. It challenges the county’s effort to take ownership of eminent domain — a process by which governments can seize private land for public use with fair compensation to the owner. A federal judge has blocked the county from immediately taking possession while the lawsuit plays out.

Andy Naden, general counsel and executive vice president of Komar Investments, the parent company of Komar Maui Properties, says the county moved to seize the land only after learning the Federal Emergency Management Agency would pay “tip fees” associated with the disposal of debris from Lahaina. — fees usually paid by weight to landfill owners. Maui County charges a tip fee of nearly $110 per ton for municipal solid waste.

“FEMA is going to dump 400,000 tons into this hole,” Naden said. “That equates to $44 million that the federal government will give to whoever has the hole.”

Shayne Agawa, director of the Maui Department of Environmental Management, disputed that. He said his department has long been interested in acquiring the land as part of plans to expand the adjacent public landfill.

Agawa, who lives in Olowalu, said the county does not want the debris to remain at the temporary site. But he has yet to come up with a backup plan in case the court prevents the county from seizing Komar’s land. Officials are looking at other nearby parcels, he said.

To address cultural concerns, Maui officials consulted with county archaeologist Janet Six, and FEMA had one of its historical advisors evaluate the site. Six told The Associated Press that he could not rule out the presence of ancient cultural sites or burial sites, but noted that the area had previously been disturbed by mining. FEMA found that no historic properties would be affected.

The lawsuit filed by Garcia and Martin claimed that the construction and operation of the temporary pit damaged or desecrated such sites by exposing them to toxic materials, violating Martin’s spiritual practices.

Garcia said he feels uneasy as rumbling trucks haul debris down the road near his farm. He worries that heavy rain will cause toxins in the debris to contaminate the food he grows.

The two dropped the lawsuit after the county announced plans for the permanent site in central Maui, but their attorney is considering next legal steps while the remains sit in Olowalu.

“I have a feeling they’re going to try to make it permanent and just say, ‘Sorry, we can’t move it to the other site,'” Garcia said.

Further complicating the problem is that the ashes or bones of some fire victims could be mixed in with the debris. Raenelle Stewart’s 97-year-old grandmother died in the fire. Stewart often wonders if the ashes the family received contained all of her remains. Fire debris should be kept nearby, she said.

“I think they should designate a place in Lahaina for it,” she said. “I don’t think it’s so toxic that the earth can’t handle it.”

Randy Awo, a retired administrator in the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, is a native Hawaiian resident of Maui. He would prefer the scraps be shipped out of state — an option rejected by officials as too expensive.

Awo called concerns about the remains “a sacred subject” and said he did not want to be insensitive to the families who lost their loved ones. But, he added, the community must also protect Maui’s limited amount of land.

“When our environment is subjected to toxins that threaten life itself,” Awo said, “we have to start making decisions that weigh both.”

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Catastrophe Natural disasters Fire in Hawaii