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removed, and part of the reason for that, you see, is that the John Burns School of Medicine in
<br />submitting that recommendation, that proposal, totally ignored what we were saying in our study, in
<br />our final report. We have, therefore, asked that that be removed, and it has been. But we want to, I
<br />want to also say what we did in addition to that, is that we have drafted our own request for
<br />proposals for a comprehensive medical study, so that is in the works. Those of you who didn’t
<br />realize that and weren’t in on the particular information, I want to share that with all of you. We do
<br />want to see these other items done, because they set a baseline, and they address issues of public
<br />health, for example, the groundwater and the brine water pond sites. Those are on-line sump ponds;
<br />anything, they took up all their garbage with the chemicals and everything and just dump them right
<br />there, and there was no way of ever telling with our poorest kind of geology how much might have
<br />been reaching down and going into the water table and affecting wells. The well at the Green Lake
<br />had to be closed by the Department of Water Supply because it was contaminated. What else has
<br />been contaminated? Recently there was a fish kill down in the tide pools; no one knows if that had
<br />anything to do with contamination from geothermal fluids. The community needs answers to these
<br />questions. And we need them to be done properly by the proper parties who have the expertise.
<br />And because the Rule 12 says that you have to provide community benefits and mitigate the
<br />negative impacts of geothermal development, these things do. But we do want you to leave, you
<br />know, the door opened for the comprehensive medical study. Thank you very much.
<br />
<br />GONZALES: Thank you. Go ahead.
<br />
<br />PETRICCI: Aloha. Good morning. And thank you for hearing us. My name is Robert Petricci,
<br />president of Puna Pono Alliance and also a member of the Adler Health Study Group. When you
<br />heard about, you know, we went to the Council and we, they approved funding, they approved for a
<br />study. And the Mayor felt that that was the inappropriate way to do it and that there was a process
<br />in place already to fund the study, which would be this body here, and he said that was in place at
<br />the time, and that was 18 months ago. When we came to this body, it turned out that there were, the
<br />rules, there were problems with the rules. And here we are 18 months later still trying to get
<br />through this and figure out how to do it. I’ve lived out in Leilani since 1981, and I’ve been trying to
<br />get a health study ever since. I don’t know if you are familiar with HGP-A, which was the original
<br />plant, but you probably are familiar with the blowout from 1991, which lasted for, I believe, 31
<br />hours. And that’s just open-venting to the atmosphere basically was what the blowout was. Well,
<br />HGP-A used to open-vent to the atmosphere, and they do it for two weeks at a time, and we are
<br />talking about 1,100 parts per million of hydrogen sulfide, which is, it’s hard to even imagine. And
<br />so they released this into the community for eight years. It was an experimental plant that was
<br />supposed to run for two years. Instead, they kept it open because it was making money or they
<br />wanted information or whatever for eight years. And basically me and the rest of the people out
<br />there were exposed to huge amounts of all kinds of toxic chemicals, and we’ve never been able to
<br />get a health study. I’ve been fighting for a health study ever since. And so here we are again. And
<br />I really appreciate that the Mayor is trying to do this and all these other things that he is trying to do.
<br />The reason I sat on the Adler committee, and I know some of the other people, was because we
<br />wanted to get a health study. And here we are now, and we have everything but we still don’t have
<br />the health study. And a meta-study is a study of studies. And the Adler group was supposed to be a
<br />study of studies. So I want to find a way to move this forward. I’m also concerned about the
<br />process; if you get a claims adjuster that takes 90 days for him to evaluate, then comes back to you,
<br />that’s another 90 days. I mean we are talking about, we just keep pushing this thing down the road
<br />31 years, 38 year, whatever it is. I mean, come on, if we are not competent enough after that much
<br />time to fund the health study right now, then you should resign, and get somebody in there that can
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