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Home My WebLink AboutCOM 0372.129 2024-2026COUNTY 1yi f - COUNTY OF 11iAW ,! Sara Steiner 2025 AUG 21 141 7. 55 13-430 Pohoild Road Pahoa, Hawaii 96778 pahoatoday(@»mail com August19,2025 Hawaii County Council- Special Meeting PCPLU -Ashley Keirkiewicz, Chair RE: OPPOSING Bill 66—Do Not Adopt the Overreaching 2045 General Plan also Public Testimony concerns, Comm 326 or 372? Dear County Council, It distresses me that I have to drive 60 miles to Hilo and back to testify about this 2045 General Plan. Comm 326.2 dated June 2025 clearly stated that the first meetings for each section of review were going to be held at 5:00 pm to facilitate community involvement. A full third of the population of the Big Island lives in the Puna District (like 80,000 people) but neither the Pahoa Council office or Community Center is made available for evening testimony. Comm 362.4 states the residents can only testify in person in Hilo or Kona or by Zoom. a Many Big Island residents, including myself, do not have reliable internetto be able to participate in Zoom conferences. I could go to a friend's house and use the WiFi but] am reluctant to use the Council's Zoom option after my experience at the Waika Presentation on July 8'. 1 was put in a waiting room with one other person, Tara Rojas, and we did not get the live feed of the Council meeting while we waited. Instead, we got an hour -an -a -half looking at a still shot of the empty Kona Council Chambers and not one time did the host come check onus to advise the prior meeting was running late. I happen to know that a member of the media from Oahu (Civil Beat) was also waiting in Zoom for the Waika presentation because we emailed while we were waiting. He was placed in a Zoom room where he could seethe council meeting as he was waiting for the Waika Presentation. This type of disparate treatment for residents trying to testify is not the way to facilitate public participation, and I ask for better opportunities for the public to testify about the 2045 GP as the year progresses. I also have a question about prior communications about the General Plan and testimonies and drafts of the GP which are filed under Comm 372, yet now 1 see we have to check Comm 326 as well to see what is happening with the GP. For future reference, where does today's testimony get filed, under Comm 326 or 372 for continuity? Today we are supposed to be Addressing Climate Change for Islandwide Health. Firstthing is you need to stop forcing electric cars as we see that Matson won't ship them here anymore due to salt water fire hazards and now we have frantic alerts to evacuate and Comm. No ef. To: Ref. Date AUG 9 5 2025 I - I move your EV's to higher ground whenever there is a "king" tide or storm approaching... The Big Island does not have any Data Mining or Al development centers so we don't need to build entire power plants for that or EVs. Solar power plants can be put on the lava flows in Kona where the power is needed— individual homes and businesses can be equipped with panels and batteries and do not require connection to an antiquated fire -hazard -prone grid which the 2045 plan should recognize as a goal. You just add more solar panels to compensate for seasonal variations and clouds and rain; it is an easy thing to figure out. The entire island is surrounded bywater, yet I don't see any talk of desalination plants or wave energyinthedisausion. Look at the rich folks and hotels on the dry Kona side, they are always on water restriction because the pumps and the three wells they have are always breaking and no replacement parts or pumps are ever kept onsite. Somehow the golf courses are always green but farmers have to ration water... I see increased density in the 2045 GP is planned in existing areas in Kona and Waimea, yet no talk of drilling more water wells or desalination for the dry areas, I only see pushing of New World Order One Water policy that will micromanage how much water every man, woman and child can use. Geothermal should not be included in the "renewable" category and I am askingyou to remove it from "renewables". The only way geothermal is "renewable" is to re -drill and drill more wells and keep drilling every fewyears. You won't see those additional costs detailed in cost of energy analysis by the federal government. They are trying to say geothermal isn't much more cost than a solar plant, and they also fail to add emergency responses and Litigation expenses surrounding geothermal as a cost specific to geothermal. Geothermal is not firm "always on" power, it is easily disrupted and takes weeks, to months, even years to get back online as we sawwith the 2018 eruption. Binary geothermal plants have seasonalfluctuations just like solar— because pentane doesn't cool to liquify easily in hot weather, geothermal output is lower in summer. when Hawaii needs the most power. PGV has already drilled 22 wells in 32 years, and they still can't make their contract quota. Pushing more geothermal plants also means you need to maintain the same capacity of reliable back-up power plants always at the ready to step in, such as currently, where PGV is only generating half of its capacity since getting busted by the State Clean Water branch for using well KS-21 without an Underground Injection Control Permit and had to shut down the welt. PGV power has never been firm, they only met their 38MW contract maybe one time in decades! Not to mention the deadly toxicity of the geothermal resource which you don't have with solar, wind, wave or water.. Re Waste management —There is an entire industry of Binges Composting Toilets just google it! You hook your toilet up to a water -filled digester and it transforms your waste into 3 hours a day of cooking gas and a small stove (methane) and a sweet-smelling bucket of sludge once a week for your garden. These systems are very affordable and available in many different sizes and are self-contained on the surface of the earth, you don't need to dig septic and keep digging out or chemical poisoningyour leach fields as they fill with roots. Plus you don't need to buy propane for cooking anymore! This is a great for all the hundred thousand or so substandard subdivision lots spread over the poor districts of Puna 2 'ir5�tve— fo-1teA - a. and Kau/Southpointwho are currently on cesspools. Finally, why are you continuing to pile more heavy industry, including expanding sewage treatment next to the ocean in low-lying tsunami zone in Hawaiian Homelands in Keaukaha? That is not environmental justice. Why are you talking about urban clustering of Banyan Drive and Golf Course when it is in the tsunami zone? And more clustering of Downtown Hilo, which is in the tsunami zone AND built on a sandbar and vibrates already when big trucks drive by. The 2045 GP claims to operate on fairness and equity but it is just a plan to consolidate everyone in high -density buildings in existing census clusters so you don't have to maintain our roads or build new roads for the land -locked subdivisions. Why is there no Hilo CDP to guide the 2045 General Plan for Hilo? That needs to be done before you plan for Hilo's future. The entire General Plan for 2045 is over -reaching. Vote NO on Bill66l Keep the 2005 GP until you a fair and equitable GP for all landowners, not just enriching those in census cluster areas while removing tens of thousands of acres of AG land to unusable "Natural" designation without notification or compensation. This plan changes zoningfor thousands of TMKs and notice of the 2045 GP should be sent by mail to all affected TMKs for proper due process for the affected individuals. Is/Sara Steiner 3