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<br />spend, and it’s a very important issue, and you know those things have been lacking in the past.
<br />Without those characteristics to the study, I don’t think it’s worth, I don’t think you should waste
<br />the money. I think we should insist on those or not bother. Public confidence in the study is
<br />very, very important. I urge you to look to Puna Pono Alliance as the de facto experts on this
<br />situ--, on this situation, and I urge you to consider their input on how the study is done. They’re
<br />not just activists, but they’ve participated in all the meetings and all the studies so far, and
<br />they’re actually the experts on this issue. And like it or not, they’re the only commu—the only
<br />group that the community trusts at this point. PGV which I used to have, which I’ve had high
<br />regard for over the years, lost a lot of credibility in this most recent issue, in this most recent
<br />incident. Particularly, in the disparity between the official summary of what happened and what
<br />the community actually saw, felt, and smelled and experienced. It’s a huge discrepancy, and like
<br />every other event, there was no evacuation plan, there was no notification officially to the
<br />community. The only thing that was different this time was they did hire a PR firm, and they did
<br />put out a much more professional press release of their version of what happened. But, all the
<br />more reason why, this study, if we do it, needs to have legitimacy and needs to have the public
<br />confidence.
<br />
<br />My concerns are primarily have to do with the, the incident that just happened. I think that while
<br />th
<br />we are, as we are currently in the process of analyzing the health effects from the August 7
<br />incident, I think you should consider temporarily postponing this study, simply to take into
<br />account the things we’re learning based on this very dramatic incident, and currently there are
<br />people really hurting as a result of it, and they need to be helped, but more importantly, if the
<br />question is are there health effects from this geothermal plant, the answer is already, is already
<br />before us. I’m sorry, I will summarize very quickly. I believe that there are, they may need
<br />revision, and it may need to be fine-tuned based on the information we gather from the, from
<br />what’s currently going on in the community. We cannot ignore the reality on the ground that
<br />serious health effects exist and must be addressed. Thank you very much for your time.
<br />
<br />LAST: Aloha, my name’s Geoffrey Last. I’ve lived at 13-1267 Malama Street for 30 years.
<br />Just for all you folks here, you know when I first moved here, I thought geothermal was
<br />wonderful, was great, was everything we’re always gonna have it, and I think this is real
<br />important to say to you to get the, so you get to understand us. And, I went for seven years, I
<br />still believed it was great. My son used to ride home on the school bus and get poisoned on the
<br />way home, and I didn’t know he was getting poisoned. The Health Department said that
<br />everything was fine. Don’t worry about a thing. So, comes the blowout. Boom. The light goes
<br />on for Geoffrey. Geoffrey goes out and gets an education and finds out that the Health
<br />Department had been lying to us. And I’ll call anyone of ‘em to their face liars. I don’t care
<br />who they are. We were not told the truth. And, this is very important to understand for you
<br />folks. You don’t live out there. You haven’t been through all of this. We’re not making this
<br />stuff up. You’re gonna hear from a lot more people that had just got poisoned here. We have the
<br />health effects now. We do need this health study, but we have the health effects. They’re right
<br />here now. This is what we need studied now. Gary Gill, our wonderful clean-air branch, said
<br />oh, there’s nothing happened down in Puna. Here’s the Health Department guy, the head of the
<br />Health Department goes on tv and in the newspapers and said nothing happened to us. This is
<br />what we’re up against. Here we have Kaye Kilburn, the guy that we wanted as a community to
<br />do this study because we know he hasn’t been bought and paid for. He’s dead. I mean, we want
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