2025-01-07 Mike Reimer, Ph.D. - Laserfiche WebLink

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TESTIMONY: Hawaii County General Plan 2045: Leeward Planning Commission January 16-17, 2025 p. 5 The Army states "While not an enforceable regulatory standard, this represents a concentration in drinking water that is not expected to produce adverse health effects if the water is consumed over an entire lifetime." (https-//aec.army.mil/PFAS/HI/PTA,. No reference to support that claim is given in that notice. However, this is now in conflict with recent U.S. EPA levels. In April of 2024, the U.S. EPA set levels for drinking water, depending on the type of forever chemical, at 4-10 parts per trillion. (ittps://www.epa.gov/sdwa/and-polyfluoroalkyl-substances-pfas). "EPA expects that over many years the final rule will prevent PFAS exposure in drinking water for approximately 100 million people, prevent thousands of deaths, and reduce tens of thousands of serious PFAS-attributable illnesses." Ibid.) This statement from EPA about PFAS contamination foretells a tremendous health benefit with the elimination of this toxin in the environment. Why would fracking be done at PTA? Perhaps for several reasons, not only to increase water flow from the perched water reservoir but to include underground waste disposal and energy production. It was noted that when this perched water was found at PTA, lower levels of that groundwater were found to be at higher temperatures, up to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. It was suggested at the time of that finding, the warmer water could be used as a source of steam to run electricity-generating turbines. (https-//eos.org/articles/underground-water-reserves-found-hawaiis-high-country). The contamination risk could be exacerbated with fracking operations, opening flow paths from a larger volume for water migration. Another potential source of contamination is injecting waste underground. In 2005, when the EPA began enforcing elimination of cesspools containing human excreta, it provided the U.S. Army at PTA with minimum regulations to prevent the contamination of groundwater that could be used for drinking purposes by underground injections of that waste. Fracking is a means to increase underground storage reservoirs for fluids and gases. The U.S. Army operated six large capacity cesspools at that time. (https-//www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-09/docuiiients/calo-pohakuloa05.pdf). A study conducted by the University of Hawaii showed how injecting wastewater into a saline underlying reservoir would contaminate a freshwater reservoir above it (Duane L. Heutmaker, Frank L. Peterson, and Stephen W. Wheatcraft, March 1977, Technical Report No. 107, A laboratory study of waste injection into a Ghyben-Herzberg groundwater system under dynamic conditions). Fracking would increase the pollution potential.