2012-10-04 Windward Transcript PD yagong & blas

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KERN: Well, no, since you guys are, it’s the same letter. Let’s move with that. So you’ve got ten minutes. And before we begin, please raise your right hand. Use the microphone. Do you swear to tell the truth today before the Windward Planning Commission? PETTRICCI: Yes. KERN: And give me your name, and area in which you live, and then you may begin. PETRICCI: My name is Robert Petricci. I live in Pohoiki. I live near the geothermal power plant, since 1981, which was the HGPA original power plant. So I am a founding member of Puna Pono Alliance; and I did submit a letter to you, some testimony to you guys. Since then I hadn’t seen the Planning Director’s or the presentation from the Planning Department, so there may be some things that are, you know, have changed slightly. You know, it doesn’t seem like there were any rules in place at the time. I think that’s why we’re here. And so just some of this, we’ve been working, Puna Pono Alliance has been working on a health study for six months or so, quite a while, before Bill 256 came up. And the County Council, Dominic Yagong was, you know, we asked him to do that; and so he brought Bill 256 forward. And so then when that was -. And during that process when they killed the bill, the bill was vetoed, we were told that that was because there was another process in place, the Asset Fund, and that was the proper way to do this. So we had the proposal, we had been working on it. And so when they did that we went ahead and filed the proposal with the Asset Fund Rule at the Planning Department; and that’s how we ended up here. Because it turned out there really wasn’t a process in place to do that. And so now we’re trying to figure out how we’re supposed to do that. So, let’s see. We’ve been, it has 30 years this has been going on. We had a Department of Health do the study with the National Health Institute, then we had Dr. Legator come up from Texas University, he did a study; and nothing has been decided. We’re still here after 30 years. And, so hopefully this time we’re going to do this in a way that’s going to really answer this question so we can move on. Because it hasn’t, you know, this has been going on for a really long time. So it’s very important that all sides are satisfied. Like it has been mentioned by several people, you know, the industry side and the community side all are going to need to feel that this study is going to actually be a real study and it’s not tilted to one side or the other. So I hope that we can accomplish that. I’m just going to go through what I read here, submitted here a little bit. And Mayor Kenoi recently said the County will develop a framework for a geothermal health study that’s going to be devoid of a political agenda, and he's going to rely on Peter Adler to help the County develop guidelines for such a study. So we think that’s a promising statement, although a Puna geothermal health study is already heavy with political issues, obviously. On the one hand, we have the residents near HGPA and PGV have said for decades they’ve suffered toxic effects from geothermal emissions. A study 10 years ago by Dr. Marvin Legator, University of Texas, documented such symptoms. On the one hand, geothermal proponents say geothermal emissions are safe and cause no toxic impact at low levels - some of them even, have even attacked the Legator's study as being biased. So assuming the Windward Planning Commission is in tune with Mayor Kenoi on how geothermal health issues will be studied pursuant to guidelines developed by the County, the participation of Dr. Kilburn in such a study is essential, from our point of view, in the community, and to be considered a partner in developing the guidelines. Only within the recent years have serious medical studies of low- level exposure to hydrogen sulfide been undertaken and published. Dr. Legator was one of the 7 EXHIBIT C