2012-10-04 Windward Transcript PD yagong & blas

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One of the things to share is that, you may know that when the volcano started to erupt at Haleamaumau some time ago and we had really major vog issues, those issues were driven by sulfur dioxide, SO2; and that’s what ends up in vog. So there was a concern that there were respiratory issues and we needed to be concerned about respiratory issues in our, in our community. So they did an, there has been an 8-year study, an island-wide study, of SO2 that really was a well done community-based study; and its reports are just beginning to be finalized. One of the interesting things about that is we would have assumed that the right location where that, those respiratory issues that we were expecting, we would expect to see them in Pahala where the vog collects, or in Ocean View, or in South Kona where you see that concentration. Oddly enough, the highest level of outcome was in Hamakua upstream. Okay? That’s not to say that there isn’t impact from SO2. It’s just that there are other things that might be causing respiratory distress – molds, other kinds of activities that might have prompted that kind of experience. So these are just little lessons that come from science. But I think the point is that our challenge is to find and isolate what the problem we’re trying to solve here, and throw the study right around the outside of that. So I have copies of a project description that was written by Mr. Adler that is a, that I wanted to share with all of you. It’s out on the web, it’s available, this process. Again, Mr. Adler will be fully responsible for it. We have no on-going interaction on this process, unless he needs to be paid for his next step in the process. So -. And I do hope Mr. Petricci and others really take the opportunity to work with him. And I think that there are a lot of people out there who would appreciate the chance to, you know, voice their concerns. And I fully agree that the answer is ultimately a study that we all have to understand and buy into across the board. So we’re taking that action today. And we hope that we can provide to the Commission the kind of guidance that you’re going to need to expend the monies that you have at your, that is your kuleana to manage. So that’s our goal, just to do that. KERN: Thank you, Mr. Melrose. Are there any questions for Mr. Melrose from Commissioners? Seeing none, could you provide that to Maija or Jeff, and they can pass it out. PETRICCI: Can I use my last two minutes? I got something that’s relevant and -. KERN: I’ll give you two minutes. You’re already sworn in. Just give me your name and go for it. PETRICCI: I’m Robert Petricci. So I wanted to address the monitoring issue because it is important to the study. Without accurate monitoring we’re not going to be able to get this done. And Monday, this Monday, there was a leak at the hydrogen, at the PGV plant. They had a hose break. And I was driving by the plant and it was a quite strong smell. I could smell it. I reported it to Civil Defense, I reported it to Daryn at the Planning Department over here, and I reported to PGV, and I forget who else. Anyway, so they confirmed, or Mike can come up here and tell you this, they confirmed that they did have a leak. And, but the monitors all registered zero. Now this happened two months ago also. I, Paul in the room here and me smelled the H2S. We called, we complained. And then I came back later that day and the same thing happened. And they finally came down and did some monitoring; and up on top of a hill they got a 2 parts per billion reading. So the point being that the monitors aren’t picking this up. So you’re not going to be able to do a study because you’re not going to know. Their monitors are going to say zero. So they’re going to say we didn’t do it, there was no exposure. And so the first thing you’re going to have to do is fix this monitoring system. This has been going on for 30 13 EXHIBIT C