HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 1048.002 2014-2016 Pk,jupicii.
COMM. 104-G
Murashige, Laura
From: Steven Businger <businger@hawaii.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2016 9:28 PM
To: Council Testimony
Subject: Testimony in support of Resolution No. 641-16
Attachments: PGVtestimony.pdf;ATT00001.txt
Aloha esteemed County Council,
Attached please find my written testimony in support of Resolution No. 641-16. Thank you for your time and
consideration.
me ke aloha,Steven
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DR. STEVEN BUSINGER, Ph.D., C.C.M.
Department of Atmospheric Sciences
University of Hawaii
Honolulu. Hawaii 96825 tE`
(808) 956-2569 ' =v
email: businger(crhawaii.edu `. SCHOOL OF OCEAN AND EARTH
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
http://weather.hawaii.edu At os Sei at UH
SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY LOG
15 September 2016
To Whom It May Concern:
This testimony is in support of Resolution No. 641-16: AUTHORIZES THE OFFICE
OF THE MAYOR TO ENTER INTO AN AGREEMENT WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF
HAW AI'I,DEPARTMENT OF ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES. The agreement in question will
make possible the execution of a comprehensive dispersion and plume-modeling program to
improve upon hazard and risk assessments regarding potential future and past releases of
Hydrogen Sulfide gas (H2S) from the Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV) facility. The dispersion
models employed will provide guidance regarding the likely impacts of H2S releases and assist
in the development of effective emergency response plans and emergency actions. We will
employ a three-phase approach to model validation. This program will be undertaken in close
collaboration with the stakeholders, which include Hawaii County, PGV, the Hawaii
Department of Health, researchers for an associated health study, and the impacted Puna
community. The unique conditions at PGV require a custom solution that takes into account the
episodic nature of the releases and particulars of the terrain and proximity to residential
neighborhoods.
The funded project will implement a series of actions that include installing, operating,
and maintaining/calibrating instruments, collecting, archiving, applying quality control, and
analyzing the incoming data, ingesting it into a dispersion model, and providing timely and
relevant user information. Ours will be a collaborative effort with staff from PGV and
oversight from DOH, State Civil Defense, and local stakeholders. A two-model approach will
be taken to study and forecast the release of H2S from the PGV site. A complex meteorology-
chemistry model will be used to study past events. To provide accurate model plume-track and
dispersion guidance, we will employ a two prong approach. i) we will leverage our experience
in developing and running the UHM Vog model (Businger et al. 2015) to develop a custom
dispersion model application,hereafter called the PGV model, that will employ a state-of-the-art
methodology to incorporate high-resolution weather and turbulence data, high resolution terrain
data surrounding plant operations, and current vegetation distribution from satellite. ii) The
second approach will be to choose an EPA certified dispersion model. Based on the findings, a
recommendation will be made regarding the placement of monitoring instrumentation, and
validated PGV dispersion models will provide real-time forecasts in the event of an H2S release.
These shorter-term dispersion forecasts will be made available to the stakeholders via a secure
web page to inform the surrounding communities of potential impacts from the release of H2S.
For the above reasons,I strongly support Resolution No. 641-16.
Businger, S., R. Huff, K. Horton, A. J. Sutton and T. Elias, 2015: Observing and
Forecasting Vog Dispersion from Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii. Bull. Amer. Met.
Soc.,96, 1667-1686. doi:10.1175BAMS-D-14-00150.1
Sincerely yours,
Professor and Chair of the Atmospheric Sciences Department