Address: Cemetery Road, Pahoa.\u00a0 As you travel down highway 130 and pass the police station you stay straight while highway 130 veers to the left.\u00a0 In just a quarter mile turn right on Cemetery Road.\u00a0 Travel another quarter mile and the street turns left.\u00a0 Right after the turn you will see the transfer station on your right.<\/p>\n
What is a “Transfer Station” and why would you want to go there?<\/p>\n
A transfer station is a nice word for a dump. \u00a0Actually, it isn’t the final resting place for trash, just the location where residents go to dump their trash. \u00a0Hawaii doesn’t have public trash pick up. \u00a0Every resident must take their trash to a transfer station, unless they hire a private company to dump their cans (as I do for my Hilo vacation rentals).<\/p>\n
As in introduction, lava has flowed continuously since 1983\u00a0 from the “East Rift” zone of the Kilauea volcano.\u00a0 The vent that has been spewing lava all these years is called the Pu’u ‘o’o crater.\u00a0 During those early years, the Royal Gardens neighborhood was wiped out.\u00a0 Starting on June 27, 2014 lava flowed from this crater went in a new direction.\u00a0 Instead of directly East into the ocean, it went north\/west, toward Pahoa.\u00a0 On November 13, 2014 lava from Kilauea’s Pu’u ‘o ‘o vent entered the town close enough to burn one house and enter the transfer station (being on the edge of town).\u00a0 At the rate it was flowing, it would have burned down much of the town the next week.\u00a0 The gas station was empty and the tanks filled with foam.\u00a0 The grocery store and neighboring shops were all emptied.\u00a0 Then the lava stopped.\u00a0 From that time until June of 2016 lave only flowed within 5 miles from the crater safely away from Pahoa.<\/p>\n
This stop is just minutes above Pahoa and is a great way to see just how close active lava came from wiping out the community and cutting off the main road south.<\/p>\n