No environmental impacts detected from Maui wildfire debris dump site, county says

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - After 270 days, the amount of Maui wildfire debris at the temporary dump site in Olowalu now weighs about 360,000 tons — nearly the same as the Empire State Building.

Despite its size, the West Maui Temporary Debris Storage site remains in compliance with county, state and federal environmental regulations, the county said Wednesday.

Read the full quarterly environmental monitoring report here.

Highlights include:

• More than 1,550 residential and commercial properties have been cleared of more than 360,000 tons of ash and debris in Lahaina.
• More than 21,000 truckloads of ash and debris have been taken from Lahaina to the TDS site.
• There have been no exceedances of health-based Action Levels in air quality monitoring.
• There have been no events of any leachate leaving the lined basin; thus, there have been no suspected or potential impacts to groundwater or nearby waterways.
• All stormwater run-off/run-on Best Management Practices (BMPs) are functioning and inspected regularly.
• The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) installed two groundwater monitoring wells around the TDS site with the results of the first round of samples taken on July 7 posted. Test results from ground monitoring well samples taken Oct. 7 are expected next week.

The county’s Department of Environmental Management is also developing a plan to transfer ash and debris to the Central Maui Landfill.

Once commercial cleanup efforts in Lahaina are complete, the TDS site will stop receiving waste, and be temporarily closed and secured.