The state Department of Transportation and educators are at odds over a plan to store wet storm drain waste near two Leeward O'ahu schools.

That waste will include trash, residual oil and grease from vehicles, as well as litter, gravel, mud, tires, diapers, glass, plastic and other materials that flow into storm drains from state highways.

The material will be collected in so-called dewatering plants on state land near Lehua Elementary and Wai'anae Intermediate schools. The facilities will dry the debris before it can be taken to the landfill.

"This is right next to our kindergarten playground," said Fay Toyama, principal at Lehua Elementary School, who attended a recent presentation about the dewatering plants and read a brochure about how they work.

Toyama has concerns about smell, people using the facility to dump personal items, noise pollution, and dump trucks coming and going, kicking up dust.

"Why put this next to a school? Why does the school have to fight to keep their environment safe and clean for its children? If you're having the dump trucks come — and I have children with asthma — this is going to affect our environment."

DOT officials said a federal mandate to improve the condition of the state's storm drains doesn't give the department much choice. Part of those requirements include drying the waste because wet matter can't be taken to the landfill.

Rod Haraga, DOT director, said the state plans to build other dewatering facilities, but the Pearl City and Wai'anae locations will be the first. To start the cleanup soon, the state must put the dewatering plants on land it already owns, which is why these sites have been chosen, Haraga said.

The DOT wants to hear the concerns of those communities and believes it can deal with them.

"As much information as we can get out, we will," he said. "And on demand we'll be out there. We have nothing to hide. We would like the public to know exactly what we are doing so that there are no surprises."

Haraga said he knows the plan is controversial.

"In Wai'anae, we had a whole host of folks, including the Wai'anae Coast Neighborhood Board, to raise concerns about putting this dewatering facility there," he said. "We promised them that we would landscape it, that we can hide it obviously with fences. It's going to be an enclosed building. The smell will not be a factor because it will just dry the material that we sweep up off the streets."

The plants are arising from one of the nation's largest stormwater violation settlements, in which the DOT last year agreed to pay $52 million as part of a consent decree with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Health.

That agreement included a $1 million fine, another $1 million for a program to assess its environmental responsibilities, and $50 million over five years to resolve violations of the federal Clean Water Act at highways and airports.

EPA and state Health Department inspectors found that storm-drain violations in the state between 1999 and 2002 had polluted Island reefs. Their report found that Hawai'i was "significantly behind other state and local governments in meeting national and state stormwater requirements."

The consent decree settlement requires the state to follow rigid storm-drain cleaning requirements, Haraga said.

"The consent decree mandates that we sweep the streets, clean the culverts, take care of construction sites, take care of hazardous materials — anything that can get into the waters of the United States," he said. "And that's about everything here because whatever we do is going to go right into the ocean."

DOT officials said after an environmental assessment, the plants could be built next year.

Board of Education member Breene Harimoto would like to know why dewatering plants are being built near schools.

"The biggest objection to the dewatering plants next to schools is the unknown consequences," he said. "As I said at the recent Pearl City Neighborhood Board meeting, anytime these things come up, they tell these rosy stories about (how) there will be no problems. But, once the facility is built and in operation, if problems occur, they aren't going to move the plant."

Harimoto said last year the BOE passed a resolution urging that dumps or landfills not be built next to a school. Now, he said he's suggesting that the board revisit and expand that resolution to include dewatering plants.

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.