April 10, 2006
The Honorable Mufi Hannemann
Mayor, City and County of Honolulu
530 South King Street
Honolulu, Hawaii 96813
Dear Mayor Hannemann,
On behalf of EnviroWatch, Inc, a non-profit organization based in Mililani, Hawaii,
I urge you to seek the voluntary resignation, or use your authority to remove
Dr. Eric Takamura, Director of the City and County of Honolulu’s Department of
Environmental Services (DES). I believe that the public expects and deserves a more
efficient and professional management of the operations and affairs conducted by
the DES. I make this recommendation based on the numerous events that have presented
substantial negative impacts on the human health and welfare, environmental, and economic
well being of the City andCounty of Honolulu.
In making this request, I would like to point out a few incidents that I believe warrant the
voluntary resignation or forceful removal of Mr. Takamura. Under his management, the
City and County of Honolulu:
1. Has not implemented a much needed City-wide curbside recycling program.
2. Has experienced numerous incidents of raw sewage spills, dwarfed by the shadow of the
dumping of over forty-eight million gallons of raw sewage into the Ala Wai Canal.
3. Has failed to monitor and prevent the waste hauler, Pacific Waste Services, Inc. dba GMI,
from hauling waste without a permit, and permitting it to dump it’s trash at City waste facilities
despite the fact that they owe the City and County of Honolulu in excess of
nine hundred thousand dollars and are being fined 2.8 million dollars by the Environmental
Protection Agency for unlawful activities relating to the operation of the City and County of
onolulu's Waimanalo Gulch Landfill.
As an administrator, how much do you think the public can bear? I believe that Mr. Takamura's
inability to manage these matters has gravely eroded the public trust in the DES. Removal
of Mr. Takamura would be a first step in restoring the public confidence in the DES.
Sincerely,
Carroll E. Cox, President