Shipping Hawaii's Garbage to Idaho? Plan could ship Oahu's trash through Longview By Venice Buhain Jan 18, 2005 - 07:51:00 am PST Hawaiian trash on its way to Idaho could reach the mainland at either the Port of Longview or the proposed Teevin Brothers dock in Rainier, if officials on the island state accept a landfill company's plans. Idaho Waste Systems, Inc., of Mountain Home, Idaho, has been pursuing the idea of shipping bales of trash from Honolulu to Longview or Rainier. At either location, the garbage would be transferred to railcars and shipped to a landfill 25 miles east of Boise. Honolulu, which handles solid waste on the island of Oahu, has no current plans to ship trash, but companies on the U.S. mainland have made unsolicited proposals to the city-county government. It grapples with a rapidly filling landfill and limited space, said Eric Natamura, Honolulu Director of Environmental Services. A new mayoral administration took over in Honolulu this month, after limits ended Mayor Jeremy Harris' term. But Idaho Waste Systems plans to keep pursuing the idea with new Mayor Mufi Hannemann's administration, Renee Ruscoe, company official said last week. "The problem isn't going away. The problem doesn't change even if the administration changes," she said. "as long as Hawaii is an island state, which I don't foresee changing." "It wouldn't be all of its waste, just a percentage of it," Grant Gauthier, the company's vice president of business development said Monday. "It takes some of the burden off of them." Oahu's waste is a hot political topic that emerged during the election, Natamura said last week. The City Council recently voted to expand its landfill, but Natamura said his staff would revisit the idea of shipping waste in a few months. "The idea is not dead," he said. "But it's not really alive." The landfill in Idaho can handle about 210 million tons of waste, according to a company press release. The landfill currently accepts waste from four other states, including Washington, Oregon, Utah and Nevada, Ruscoe said. No one with the company would identify any specific companies in Rainier or Longview that might serve as a docking station for the trash. Calls at the Port of Longview were not answered Monday because of the federal holiday. Shawn Teevin, developer of the Teevin Brothers log yard in Rainier, verified Monday that he is speaking with Idaho Waste Systems about the possibility of using their proposed 50-by-230-foot dock. Teevin Brothers earlier this month announced plans to pursue shipping outside of the company's past specialty of forest and natural resource products. The company also runs a trucking business and rock quarries in Clatsop County. Teevin emphasized that he does not propose using the dock as a transfer station, where locals could bring their trash. The K