A nearly $500,000 federal study of the impacts of Puna Geothermal Venture on Puna’s groundwater should begin soon.
Back in March, the Hawaii County Council approved a proposal to fund a U.S. Geological Survey study of lower Puna’s groundwater sources to the tune of $428,000.
Puna Councilwoman Ashley Kierkiewicz, who introduced that proposal, said she believes the 18-month project will get off the ground soon, as the final stages of the planning process are underway.
“The contract with USGS is going through the (County) Planning Department right now,” Kierkiewicz said. “I think there should be something coming out of that very soon, like later this month.”
Once the contract is inked, Kierkiewicz said, the project should be able to begin immediately, although she noted that the Planning Department is currently short-staffed.
The project is a follow-up to a decade-old study — called the Adler Report — that found no sufficient data to confirm or deny any link between PGV and public health. Similar USGS studies in 2015 and 2020 were also not conclusive.
Puna resident Paul Kuykendall said the earlier studies only targeted public wells, and ones upslope from PGV at that. He added that there are many springs, pools and private wells around Puna that he hopes USGS will investigate for a more comprehensive picture of the area.
Kuykendall said USGS will meet with the Puna community to determine appropriate testing sites and what to test for. He added that this study, nearly five years since the last one, is prudent simply because groundwater contamination can take years to be detected.
In particular, Kuykendall is concerned about a 1991 well blowout at PGV, which could have spilled chemicals into a series of underground natural dikes. The chemicals could have been slowly filtering through those dikes for decades, and could still pose a danger to the district’s groundwater.
Kierkiewicz said community members are “just curious” about PGV’s long-term impacts on the water, but added that a key component to the project is to get community members working with USGS so they can do follow-up measurements themselves.
“There’s just not a lot of trust from the community right now, because they haven’t been given a seat at the table,” Kierkiewicz said.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
