Hawaii Senate Bill SB668

Hawaii 2025 Regular Session

• Introduced: 1/17/25
• Refer: 1/23/25

Caption

Relating To Waste Or Disposal Facilities.

Summary

SB668 amends Hawaii’s landfill and waste facility siting law to add a new prohibition on constructing, modifying, or expanding waste or disposal facilities on land that is above a “significant aquifer,” as determined by the Department of Health. The bill applies to municipal solid waste landfill units, construction and demolition landfill units, and their components, and it preserves the existing permit requirement for municipal solid waste landfill units. The bill also changes the required setback for new or expanded waste or disposal facilities by reducing the buffer zone from one-half mile to one-quarter mile around the facility. The buffer zone is measured from the edge of waste or waste activity to the nearest residential, school, or hospital property line. Existing, properly permitted facilities may continue operating without meeting the new buffer requirement so long as they do not physically expand in a way that triggers additional permitting review and modification.

Impact

SB668 would amend section 342H-52 of the Hawaii Revised Statutes, tightening groundwater protection by barring new construction, modification, or expansion of waste and disposal facilities over significant aquifers while also narrowing the statutory buffer zone requirement for covered facilities. It would affect landfill operators, counties, the State, and any federal agency undertaking covered waste facility work, and it would leave in place the Department of Health’s permitting authority and discretion to impose conditions to protect human health and the environment. The bill excludes individual, state-certified, non-industrial redemption centers from the buffer-zone definition.

Sentiment

No committee transcripts or recorded votes were provided, so there is no direct evidence of debate, support, or opposition in the available materials. Based on the bill text and report description, the measure appears to balance environmental protection concerns related to aquifers with a regulatory relaxation on setback distances for waste facilities. The overall sentiment cannot be determined from the record provided, but the bill’s structure suggests both protective and permissive elements.

Contention

The main policy tension in SB668 is between protecting drinking-water resources and easing siting constraints for waste facilities. Environmental and public-health concerns are implicated by the new ban on facilities over significant aquifers, while landfill operators, counties, and other facility proponents may view the reduced buffer zone—from one-half mile to one-quarter mile—as a significant relaxation that could make siting or expansion easier. Another possible point of contention is the Department of Health’s role in determining what qualifies as a “significant aquifer,” which gives the agency substantial discretion over where facilities may be located.