January 8th, 1998.

I was on the way home, driving the new H3 around 2:30 p.m. and saw the bright new grass shining in the sun atop the "new mountain" ewa side (west) of Kailua and the Kawainui Marsh.

I turned off Mokapu Saddle Road onto Quarry Road and headed for the Kapa`a Refuse Center, which used to be the Kapa`a Landfill and today, I dubbed "Mauna Opala"!

A quick request to go up top aimed at the security guard got me directions to an office up near the Recycling Center...a huge garbage collection and drop off facility. Up the stairs and into the hallway, I wandered past an office with four guys playin cards, a couple guys hangin in the hall tellin jokes and a large lunchroom kind of place.

hmmm...who to ask...?

I went back down to the card room and asked the general audience..."Hey can I get up top of Mauna Opala and take some pictures?"

"Yeah, shoots...but ya gotta check in at the Kiewit office...", answered one guy peering over his cards, and the shuffling continued.

The Kiewit office I wondered. Then I saw the sign - "Kiewit Pacific Field Office" and a yellow arrow.

The road up was alot nicer than what we used to have to travel to dump lawn rubbish and junk just a few years back. Methane collector tubes and piping ran along, up and over the newly planted hillsides that loomed up before me.

I found the Field Office and asked a local Japanee guy with a hard hat if I could go take some pictures and he told me to go talk with the Supervisor. In I went.

Manny, was his name...and a good Portagee kinda guy. I explained all about what I wanted to do and he chuckled...seems he's on the net now too. I gave him a card and up I went.

Mauna Opala or the Kapa`a Landfill rises over a thousand feet above sea level. The new road of crushed gravel is great and a few workers were busy putting finishing touches on the methane retrieval system and some of the landscaping and planting.

The methane drawn off from the Mountain of Refuse is converted, cleaned up and sent by pipeline to the Ameron Quarry operation you'll see as you pan around to the right from the opening window. They burn the methane to power their rock crushing operations and apparently they are able to generate more electricity than they can use so the rest is sold into our local power grid.

The opening shot is of the Pali notch in the Ko`olau mountain range which runs along the windward coast of O'ahu.

90 degrees right we see the new H3 freeway and the Quarry. At about 120 degrees we see the Mokapu Peninsula, then we see the construction offices, Kawainui March, the canal that runs from the marsh to Kailua Bay and at about 180 degrees we are looking at Kailua and Kailua Bay. Then we pan around the rolling hills that rise up along side of Mauna Opala and catch a shot of the one of the work trucks.

Someday you too might be able to go up top Mauna Opala. Manny told me he thinks the city will make it into a park of sorts and allow folks to go on up to enjoy the view.

Reminds me of a similar landfill I drove by in Virginia quite a few years back. As I drove across the normally flat coastal terrain there, I saw a small hill...a mound by our standards, a mountain by theirs. It was a converted landfill that had been made into a park and it is now called "Mount Trashmore".