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the community, and the County has failed to protect the community. There have been significant <br />hydrogen sulfide releases. The original project, HGP-A, free-vented into the community. <br />Perceptions of hydrogen sulfide have changed over the years; the EPA now recognizes hydrogen <br />sulfide as toxic in low doses. And the community has been trying for 30 years to get a health study, <br />a comprehensive health study, of the impact of geothermal development on a community. They’ve <br />been continuously thwarted. And I urge this Commission to do whatever you can to make sure that <br />that does not happen again. This community has never been fairly treated by the State and other <br />agencies with respect to geothermal development. <br /> <br />GONZALES: Mr. Luebben, I’ve got to ask you to wrap it up, please. <br /> <br />LUEBBEN: Okay, I will. I would just urge the Commission to make sure that the comprehensive <br />community health study is the priority here, and to make money available from the Geothermal <br />Asset Fund for the comprehensive study, and not get distracted by any other kinds of diversions. <br />Thank you very much. <br /> <br />GONZALES: Thank you. Commissioner Henkel. <br /> <br />HENKEL: May I ask a question? <br /> <br />GONZALES: Absolutely. <br /> <br />HENKEL: Would the inclusion of Dr. Legator’s earlier study help establish a baseline, since it was <br />done so many years ago? <br /> <br />TRAVIS: I will offer an opinion. It was included in our review when we did the Geothermal <br />Public Health Assessment review. We as a group did review it. It’s included in our reference list. <br />And it should be included in any meta-study that should be done, setting up a comprehensive health <br />study. Just as a reminder, the Legator study’s conclusion was that we needed to do a <br />comprehensive health study. <br /> <br />GONZALES: Any other questions? All right. Ms. René. <br /> <br />SIRACUSA: Good morning, and a Happy New Year. My name is René Siracusa. I’m an <br />ex-member of the Hawai‘i County Planning Commission, and I am, I was Vice Chair for a while, <br />and I was also a member of this Health Study Assessment Working Group. I have lived in, I’m not <br />speaking for the Working Group, none of us are; I’m speaking for myself, okay. When we were <br />first organized by the Mayor, one of the things he did was choose all the members of our Working <br />Group, who are residents of Puna. Several of us have been long-term residents and have historic <br />memory that we were able to bring to the table and to the deliberations, or those of us are more <br />recent residents but have scientific background and were able to provide a lot of the rigor to what <br />we were doing to the project at hand. We worked long and hard on this project. We reviewed tons <br />of studies from all over the world from different geothermal sites, from Iceland, from Philippines, <br />from New Zealand. And it’s all gone into the study and the recommendations. Our top <br />recommendation, as you heard already, has been that we need a comprehensive health study. What <br />some of the previous testifiers are unaware of in their testimony was that recently our Working <br />Group met with the Mayor, because he has not disbanded us, he has kept us together so that he can <br />keep pulling us in for recommendations and feedback. And we didn’t like that 6.d, which has been <br />12 <br />EXHIBIT B <br /> <br />