2018-06-27 Meeting Minutes (EMC)

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are done. What do you comment on, other than the EA is to describe all of those things that are going to happen, what the anticipated impacts are, what mitigation would occur, and then come in and say we’ve determined this needs to go to another level or not. And that’s what people comment on, and that’s when the EA is due to be completed. So we have another year and a half, two years, in Nāālehu.ʻ Chair Bennett: So the public doesn’t comment on the EA? Director Kucharski: Yes, they do. Chair Bennett: They do. Then they can comment again on the EIS? Director Kucharski: Well, they’re different. The EIS is being done in Pāhala, and an EA is being done in Nāālehu. So it’s essentially the same document. Both of them will ʻ have the archeological, the 106, placed on its—the primary difference between the EIS and the EA. So that’s imposed—the federal cultural resource review is imposed on both. Chair Bennett: So in the EA, will there be a discussion about alternative sites? Director Kucharski: Yes, and alternative technologies that were reviewed for that facility. Yes. Chair Bennett: And then the decision on the site is made - ? Director Kucharski: In an EA you come up with a preferred alternative, and that preferred alternative is what all of the environmental studies and impacts are centered around. And you have to go through a justification as to how you got to that preferred site. And that is the process. Chair Bennett: And when those documents are available, they’ll be made available to the commission? Director Kucharski: They’ll be made available to everyone in the public and the commission—you get notice of every published EA that comes out on the 343 cite, yes. Chair Bennett: How’s that work? Commissioner Fritz: Sounds good. It’s just going to take some patience. Commissioner Olson: I’d like to just request that this be kept on the agenda item for review and any update information. Director Kucharski: I have no objection to that whatsoever.