Mayor Mufi Hannemann's idea for claiming part of the money from the state's recycling deposit surplus and earmarking it for Wai'anae projects shows the Leeward Coast the concern it is due, but it misses the mark for one inescapable reason.

That's not the purpose for which the fund was established in the first place.

Under the state deposit law, money from the fund that goes unclaimed by recyclers can be spent on operating the program and related education, development and training.

And the surplus likely won't remain quite the cash cow it appears to be now, with more than $17.5 million left over at the end of the last fiscal year. As participation continues to rise, with more people claiming their deposit rebates, there will be less to spend on expanding the collection sites and other necessary tasks.

It therefore can't be relied on to compensate the people of Wai'anae for enduring the Waimanalo Gulch landfill for longer than promised; even if that was a good policy, it wouldn't be a lasting solution.

And it's not a good policy. Raiding the special fund and spending it on a single community converts the bottle deposit into a special tax, an unauthorized tax at that.

The city and the state need to find the appropriate source of funds, within their own budgets, to help Wai'anae and to spread the burden of accepting our waste more fairly.