The full impact of a bill to create a buffer zone around Puna Geothermal Venture’s plant remains to be seen, county officials said Monday.
Bill 256, proposed by Council Chairman Dominic Yagong, goes before the full council Wednesday in Hilo for first reading. Yagong said the bill is the first step in dealing with the potential health ramifications of living so close to the geothermal energy production plant, although it could also have impacts, in the future, on people living in other parts of the East Rift Zone.
“The real key is, we need to take care of the people around the plant first,” Yagong said, adding that whether the buffer zone should extend farther into the rift zone is a good question. “We can go and expand it even farther from there (the proposed one-mile buffer).”
One thing the county cannot do, he added, is force people to leave their homes, even in a buffer zone.
Yagong’s proposal would move responsibility for the geothermal royalty funded Geothermal Relocation and Community Benefits program, which would be renamed the Geothermal Relocation and Public Safety Program, from the Planning Department to Civil Defense. Bill 256 would also allow spending relocation money for health studies, Yagong said.
Yagong said it would be up to Civil Defense to decide whether to conduct health impact studies before relocating residents. Civil Defense Director Ben Fuata was out of the office Monday. Mayor Billy Kenoi did not immediately respond to a message left Monday afternoon.
Planning Director Bobby Jean Leithead Todd said Yagong’s bill is “superfluous,” because the county already has the authority to spend the royalty money to relocate residents.
Homeowner relocation requests have increased significantly — from two between 2005 and 2011, to seven in the last few months — after the County Council began debating the bill, she added.
The existing program does give priority to people who have owned the house since before 1991, she said, but anyone living within that radius may apply for the program.
The department continues to issue permits, she said, because not doing so might be construed as the county taking an owner’s property.
Leithead Todd said one change to the existing relocation program she’d like to see in place is the ability for the county to purchase vacant land adjacent to the plant. Doing so would create a better buffer and would be cheaper than just buying homes.
“If I’ve got to buy the house at 130 percent of real property appraisal, that’s a lot more money,” Leithead Todd said.
Officials with Puna Geothermal Ventures’ owner, Ormat Technologies, expressed concerns about the bill Monday, through Policy and Business Development Director Paul Thomsen. Thomsen provided West Hawaii Today with a letter, being provided to community members, explaining the technology used within the plant, including the reinjection of the brine heated to create the steam that powers the turbines.
“PGV must operate under stringent air emission, water quality and noise standards set forth by the Hawaii Department of Health and Environmental Protection Agency,” Thomsen wrote. “In doing so, PGV continually monitors (hydrogen sulfide) through 35 point-source detectors placed throughout the power plant. PGV also maintains three monitoring stations that are located on the perimeter of the facility. These stations monitor meteorological and noise data, which can be viewed on the company website and is provided in a formal report given to the (Health Department) on a monthly basis, or as requested. For over 20 years, PGV has complied with state-mandated emissions standards.”
PGV also submitted a letter to Agriculture, Water and Sustainability Committee Chairman J Yoshimoto, requesting time to discuss the plant’s safety protocols and respond to the community’s concerns.
Thomsen said he sees bigger issues facing Puna residents than PGV, particularly naturally occurring pollution of water as it flows from Mauna Loa through the East Rift Zone, picking up chemicals from magma along the way.
“So the fresh water aquifer between the East Rift Zone and the ocean, from Volcano to Kapoho does not meet EPA drinking water standards,” Thomsen said. “This is a natural process that has been going on for millennia and is the source of the warm ponds along the coast from Kapoho to Kalapana. … Natural emissions from the rift in the Puna District are much greater than any potential emissions from PGV.”
He noted a 1998 Department of Health study that found no adverse health impacts from living near the plant.
The council on Wednesday also takes on the first reading of another Yagong measure, this one to ban aerial game hunts in Hawaii County. Bill 261 “declares that the acts of eradication by aerial shooting on this island shall no longer be practiced, and ensures that other methods of animal population control are utilized.”
Mainland magazine Outdoor Life ran an article online last week urging hunters to contact Yagong and tell him they opposed aerial hunting.
