KAILUA-KONA — The University of Hawaii has canceled permits for geothermal exploration on Hualalai, and a lead researcher on Wednesday said the university has no plans for future scoping of the dormant volcano’s potential for producing geothermal energy. ADVERTISING KAILUA-KONA
KAILUA-KONA — The University of Hawaii has canceled permits for geothermal exploration on Hualalai, and a lead researcher on Wednesday said the university has no plans for future scoping of the dormant volcano’s potential for producing geothermal energy.
But that doesn’t mean plaintiffs plan to back down on a lawsuit originally launched to block the exploration.
The project ran into funding and staff problems last year, and the UH asked the Board of Land and Natural Resources to rescind exploration permits in February. Meantime, a lawsuit by Native Hawaiian groups and residents on the slopes of the mountain has been ongoing, with the opponents of the exploration claiming the state needed to conduct an environmental assessment before it approved the permits.
Now that the project has been scuttled, the state has filed a motion to dismiss the case. But plaintiffs are saying they need assurances the same thing won’t happen again when the funding picture is brighter.
“There is credible evidence this wrongful activity could be resumed,” said Terri Napeahi, vice president of the Pele Defense Fund.
A hearing on the lawsuit is set for May 11 before Judge Ronald Ibarra in Environmental Court in Kealakekua.
In June 2014, DLNR contracted with the university for magnetotulluric and gravity surveys on 19 parcels of agricultural land on the Hualalai West Rift Zone. The surveys, in part, would have mapped the electrical conductivity of rocks to depths up to 20,000 feet. The BLNR approved two permits in March and June of 2015.
The exploration was to be part of a larger effort called the “Geothermal Resources Exploration Plan for Hawaii,” with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and DLNR. But that funding expired nine months ago, and attempts to find other sources were unsuccessful, said Don Thomas, director of The Center for the Study of Active Volcanoes at UH-Hilo.
Additionally, one key staff person took a job on the mainland and another person who would have done much of the data processing and analysis passed away unexpectedly last November, according to court documents.
The university spent $40,631 applying for the permits and obtaining right-of-entry agreements and permissions from 40 to 50 different landowners as well as archaeological inspections for 65-70 different proposed test sites scattered over 154 square miles on the slopes of Hualalai, according to legal documents.
“There is no further geothermal exploration work being pursued on Hualalai, nor is there any plan or interest in pursuing further geothermal exploration work on Hualalai by anyone at UH that I know of, and I know pretty much everyone that does that kind of work at UH,” Thomas said in an email.
But plaintiff Robert Petricci, president of the Puna Pono Alliance, said his group wants a promise from UH that it’ll receive notification if the university does any more surveying — even for water, since water surveys could serve as a guise for geothermal exploration.
“Geothermal is an environmental problem,” Petricci said. “It’s a huge industrial activity they put right in a residential area and they say it’s safe and that’s just not the case.”
