2019-03-19 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes (Amended)

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – March 19, 2019 KO: No. It’s a closed cycle. GD: So you recondense the water back... KO: We recondense – correct – and that is a separate part of – it’s totally separate from the brackish water well. It’s a closed cycle going from steam to water to steam to water to steam to water and that’s on the boiler side but then you get a cooling median that the condenser uses to condense that from steam or vapor back into water. GD: And so the water that you pump out of the ground – because from what I read as statistics and where it was many, many thousands of gallons a day – is that correct? KO: Our permit is for 21.6 million gallons a day but it goes back, right back into that same aquifer and that’s what I’m saying – whatever we’re taking out we’re putting right back in. GD: Does this water touch any contamination or is it completely closed off from contamination other than the purpose of – this is where I’m confused because if you’re pumping 21 million gallons a day of water from the aquifer and you putting that much back in – why pump it from the aquifer? Why not have it stored on site? KO: Because it is acting as a cooling medium so it’s taking heat away from the boiler so it’s going from steam back to a liquid and that is what helps with the production of electricity. NP: So you might be harvesting albezias and using them too? KO: That is a possibility, yes, I mean, we’re looking into that also. NP: Would you have standards of not harvesting herbicide, poisoned albezia’s and cycling herbicide in the system? Most of them have been injected with poison – well, so many... KO: I see what you’re saying. No, they – you know that would go through, again, our forestry side I don’t think that they would take anything that was already dead that had been poisoned. 9