2019-03-07 Hearing Transcript - Piilani Partners Request for Reconsideration SMA 18-000070

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Kona has a shortage of water which is also on this island. It's one of the four areas most prone to drought. On February 7th, you had a deferment, the Water Commission must finish their process. The resources and trust for the residents of this County, not an outside county trying to make money. Lastly, if someone came to your house at your backyard and started filling up water bottles and trying to sell them, you would be upset. This is the same thing, but for our island. THAL: My name is Sherri Thal, and I live in Hawaiian Paradise Park. Thank you very much for your work that you do. We really appreciate what you're doing. Thousands have lived without love, but no one without water says W. H. Auden. Water is critical for sustainable development including environmental integrity and the alleviation of poverty and hunger, and is indispensable for human health and well-being says the United Nations. It is with a heavy and strong heart that I am here today opposing granting any permits or rights whatsoever to Piilani Partners or any affiliates for a water extracting and bottling facility in Hilo, Hawaii. To think that a company would want to come to Hilo, drill for our water in our pristine and unique aquifer, and then bottle it in single -use plastic containers and ship it off -island is a travesty. Absolutely ridiculous. An extraction and bottling plant could pose an enormous threat to our water safety and resource on Hawaii Island. If we take this from a purely business standpoint, a water bottling facility such as this would be completely outmoded and outdated before it could even be built because single -use plastic containers are toxic and are rapidly becoming an item to eradicate on our planet. It would be a shame if Hilo fell so far behind the curve by thinking that a bottling plant would be a good business practice. This would truly be a disastrous investment not only for our town but for our environment. If we take this project from an environmental view, this, too, would be horrifying for a number of reasons and just a few single -use plastic toxicity to our oceans and species of all kinds including humans. Breast cancer has long been associated with plastic bottles, and sea life is deeply threatened by plastics. Do we want to be adding to the already out of control mid -Pacific gyre? I don't think so. Drilling our pristine aquifer could permanently contaminate Hawai`i's deep water source along with a posing a threat of contamination all the way down to the ocean, potentially destroying many fragile ecosystems on our island. Flying or shipping bottled water from this island is a huge carbon footprint. Water is the most precious resource on our planet. Public water rights must be, will be adversely affected by a bottling plant. We must keep Hawai`i's water sources, especially the deep water aquifers such as Kaohe clean, pure, and unadulterated. We must deeply consider Hawai`i's water security and future. Please stop this project. Mahalo. WARD: Good morning, aloha. My name is Deborah Ward. I haven't testified on this issue before, because I fully expected that you folks would make a good decision, and I think you will. I urge you to deny the reconsideration. This is not a use, a beneficial use of our water. It's not a protection of our resource, and these are the waters of Kane. It's a large aquifer, but it's being challenged because Pohakuloa wants to use it, the military base. The Hu Honua plant is proposing to take 21 million gallons a day out of the same aquifer for a carbon producing energy EXHIBIT B 12