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HomeMy WebLinkAboutLEPC Meeting Minutes 050224Local Emergency Planning Committee May 2, 2024 Page 1 Hawaii County LEPC Meeting Minutes Civil Defense EOC and via ZOOM May 2, 2024 Members Present: Gerald Kosaki/LEPC Chair, Darwin Okinaka/HFD, Thomas Shopay/HPD, Ha Chi/HMC, Orasa Fernandez/DOE, Bill Hansen/Civil Defense, Members Present via Zoom: Dave Cummings/Hamakua Energy, Eric Honda/DOH, Matthew Ho/HAZMAT, Kilipaki Kanae/HFD EMS, Jordan Hara/PGV Non-Members Present: Jordyn Mantz/Fire Admin., Dwayne Osaka/Civil Defense Non-Members Present via Zoom: Mark Gordon/Environmental Health & Safety, Sharon Leonida/DOE HEER, Kazuo Todd/HFD, Andrew Kendrick/PHMSA-Pipeline Safety Liaison, Cody Frenz/Corp Council Members Absent: Chris Leonard/Media, Alfred Leung/Pacific Biodiesel, Terri Napeahi/Keaukaha Action Network (zoom issues), Neal O’Heron/BEI Hawaii, Casey Kishimori/HELCO, Makalani Pina/Dept. of Agriculture I. CALL TO ORDER: 09:08AM Called to order. II. STATEMENTS FROM PUBLIC: None III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Thomas Shopay moved to approve, Darwin Okinaka Seconded. Minutes passed. IV. COUNTY REPORTS: a. CIVIL DEFENSE Bill Hansen: Back in April, Civil Defense went door to door in Keaukaha area off of Kalaniana’ole street to different commercial business in the area. On April 25th, Civil Defense executed a tsunami evacuation drill in Keaukaha for both commercial and residential to monitor traffic patterns that were different. Worked along with Police and Dept. of Public Works. Let commercial businesses know about conversing on evacuation plans, conversation on chemicals in the area, transportation, etc. June 7th, Civil Defense will be having their Disaster Preparedness Fair at the Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium. Will have presentations from HVO, National Weather Service, Civil Defense, Pacific Tsunami Museum, and Dennis Wang. Civil Defense set up amateur radio repeater on Mauna Kea. Did testing on May 1st along with testing the sirens. Amateur radio is a HAM radio repeater Civil Defense can turn on for emergency communications. CERT is helping to support team Rubicon with shortening up the fire lane, helping to decrease the fire fuel such as Keawe trees, etc. i. Gerald Kosaki to Mark Gordon: Question for Firewise and their involvement with firewalls, was there any discussion of using mulch? In Local Emergency Planning Committee May 2, 2024 Page 2 Waikoloa do they use mulch processed from green waste to help create fire breaks? 1. Gordon: Yes, this was brought up to the Waikoloa Board. They can use it in certain areas of Waikoloa Village. ii. Gerald Kosaki to Bill Hansen: Any updates with the volcano activity? 1. Currently in contact with HVO for text updates. 2. South of Halemaʻumaʻu crater is showing signs of activity, as well as the back of the caldera. More activity of earthquakes, but no impending signs of an eruption. b. HFD HAZMAT Matthew Ho: No recent incidents on West side, not sure about the East side. There was CST Training a couple weeks back. There are new team members so they did familiarization of building training that was done at KMR and at Hilo Hospital. Decon was also set up at the hospital. c. HFD Darwin Okinaka Adding to the CST training that Captain Ho mentioned, the first couple of days focused on familiarization with each agency and provided capabilities. There was a tabletop exercise on Thursday at civil defense, and Friday was at the Hospital. In June, more training with CST will happen with multi-agencies at Waiakea High School. Minor updates, meeting with Radiac as it is up for calibration. Looking for Hazmat training with DOH. We had some equipment purchases along with annual replacement of things needed. Notice that DWS will execute the disposal chlorine cylinders. No significant incidents for Hilo side. d. HFD Kazuo Todd: Nothing to report. e. HFD EMS Kilipaki Kanae: No updates from EMS. The hospital is asking for an EMS representative, Captain Kanae will attend the next available one. f. HPD Thomas Shopay: HPD working with Civil Defense for the Keaukaha tsunami evacuation. Community response was very effective, the new evacuation route was successful with getting people out in an expeditious manner. HPD also coordinating with the 93rd CST. The exercises they had were very helpful for getting personnel additional hazmat certifications to keep up their training and responsibilities. Looking forward to the June 4th exercise. HFD to get the Emergency Response Guidebooks to HPD. i. Okinaka to Shopay: Emergency response guidebooks came into HFD’s warehouse, but there was a pile of extras that warehouse was not informed goes to HPD. Will work on gathering a list and help distribute to HPD, who originally wasn’t on the distribution list. V. INDUSTRY PARTNERS: a. BEI: Not Present b. PGV Jordan Hara: Finished cleanout on KS 14 production well, it was unsuccessful, currently not drilling anything right now and debating on future use of the well. Currently 7 units on the top side running and 2 running on the bottom. Working with HELCO to help provide as much power as possible to Local Emergency Planning Committee May 2, 2024 Page 3 them due to the rolling blackouts. No future plans currently for this year regarding major drillings. They are looking to build a new powerplant in the next 3 years. Looking to do 2 large units since it’s more efficient, and then shut down other small units to make room for a 3rd large unit eventually. There was a community meeting in Puna on April 30th. These are done quarterly and usually held from 4:00PM to about 6:00PM. i. Hara to Okinaka: PGV offering any new fire personnel stationed at the Pahoa Fire Station who may be interested in visiting the PGV facility to keep up to date on what PGV’s fundamentals and main hazards on site. ii. Okinaka to Hara: Update that the PGV funds that were provided to the county were utilized to give Pahoa Fire Station the new SCBA Compressor assigned there currently this year. 1. Another question, where is the new plant looking to be located? 2. Hara: Looking to put it right on the lava field west of the existing plant. The fissure line is still active with gases etc. that would like to sample the H2S (Hydrogen Sulfide) but never got the chance to. PGV has bulldozed up to the private properties. Working with the county to see if some of those properties were purchased so that access could be granted to go onto these properties to take samples. c. HAMAKUA ENERGY PARTNERS Dave Cummings: Update on plant, have been down for couple of months. The new engine is now on site, GE is here to install it. Sometime this month it should be back up and running. d. PACIFIC BIODIESEL: Not Present e. HELCO: Not Present f. MEDIA: Not Present g. PHMSA: Andrew Kendrick: DOE Inspections IES terminal in Hilo, getting inspected this year by DOT, HELCO’s pipeline just inspected couple of months ago. One is going under Kalaniana’ole. Any questions on Pipeline safety, gas, and distribution system, Andrew is the point of contact VI. STATE REPORTS: a. DOH HEER/HSERC Sharon Leonida: Reporting on behalf of Thomas Gilmore. At the last HSERC meeting, we went over the plane that landed in Kaneohe Bay. A report from the people representing the State for the Aquatics Division regarding the damage to the coral. Will have to go back and check on how the recovery for this is going. They showed the video of the 16 continuous hours it took to retrieve the plane using airbags to float the plane and pull it out. General Lance Okamura, after completing the removal of the fuel, handed this incident to the new task force for helping with cleaning and dismantling. For NASTTPO, in February, attended EPA western region states that’s only for regions 8, 9, and 10. A system was developed on how to take apart lithium-ion batteries, shred it, and then shipping it to a recycling plant. This was created after the Maui wildfires where they were able to retrieve the lithium-ion batteries from Local Emergency Planning Committee May 2, 2024 Page 4 cars and battery packs in houses to properly recycle. Bill Jones did a presentation on this system and will be patenting it so that everyone can use it. b. DOH Eric Honda: Nothing to Report c. Orasa Fernandez DOE: Every year they have funding for hazardous disposal. Funds were exhausted for this fiscal year, will hit the ground running in July. i. Kosaki to Fernandez: Question about how many pickups were there. Big Island had 15 schools, a lot of it was E-waste such as E-cigs and getting them out of schools. Disposal quantities for E-cigs has also changed and there are different classes for waste disposal, try to always pick up these disposals before they are considered a different class. d. HMC Ha Chi: No incidents for this meeting. Notice regarding the construction currently going on at Hilo Medical Center, continuing to keep it monitored. Another building is supposed to be constructed within a year. Expecting to have 3 new buildings. Participation in the CST Training recently. Also have a training in July, to medivac 6 patients. e. Dept. of Ag: Not present VII. OLD BUSINESS: a. Military Representative on LEPC: Gerald Kosaki Contacted someone from PTA on getting a military representative, they said they will send this request to National Guard in Hilo. b. Chair Kosaki: Inquired about finding a new member addition as a military representative. i. Chief Darwin Okinaka: mentioned there is a new chief at PTA so he will contact him. ii. Chair Kosaki: Stated that we should ask him as to who a good fit can be. The person chosen should have information on explosive transport and other hazmat related information. This is so that we can get information to the hazmat team for safety of the responders and community. iii. Mark Gordon: Will be attending the Waimea Community Association and Lieutenant Colonel will be there, will mention this to him and see if there is anyone willing to fill the position. VIII. NEW BUSINESS: a. LEPC Member to attend NASTTPO workshop: Gerald Kosaki stated that himself, Battalion Chief Carlton Yamada from Oahu, and Sharon Leonida attended. Main purpose of this conference is to go over update with EPCRA (Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act), which is how we gather and share information on hazardous materials to the community and to first responders. The role of the LEPC is to review the county’s Emergency Action Plan regarding things like this, specifically related to hazmat. Information such as Tier II reports help inform people of what type of chemicals are on site, and there’s a threshold as to how many chemicals need to be on there before they need to report. RMP facilities are required to have a risk management plan due to the Local Emergency Planning Committee May 2, 2024 Page 5 amount of chemicals on site. There has been a big push on reporting PFAs, reportable quantity is only one pound. New mixture rule, if any mixture has been contaminated with oil, it can just be considered oil, and you don’t have to identify each chemical that’s within it. Topics discussed regarding different regulations that qualify as substantial harm to water supply, and the harm to park and public places the public have access to. Updates on Cameo, training this year, can go to EPA.gov/cameo to sign up for updates, good to do refreshers annually. b. Update on the HMEP (Hazardous Materials Emergency Planning) grant used mainly for hazmat training. Funds are allocated over the course of every 3 years, need to expend it over the number of years. More info at HMEP.grants@epa.gov c. Update on Chemical Safety Board, investigations in the event there are any major chemical release and causes fatality in the community. Recent case of a poultry plant that had liquid nitrogen that backed up and exploded causing fatalities due to lack of monitoring and alert systems. d. EPA talked about clean air/Tier II violations. Pre-plans for Tier II, do site visits to check if companies are reporting or not. i. Leonida to Kosaki: With Chris Leonard’s help in spreading the Tier II radio ad to all counties, it was productive and caused people to call for questions about chemicals and submitting Tier II reports. e. ATF did inspections throughout the state in compliance with the executive order. Need to improve chemical facility security and safety. There were 3 on Big Island and 2 on Oahu that are high risk facilities. Those on the big island are in Pahoa, Waikoloa, and Waimea. These inspections are to identify people sabotaging chemicals on site that can be catastrophic. f. Spill that happened 4/29/24 at 4:45PM, Highway 270 by Kohala Ranch. Cold plane machine being loaded onto low boy and tipped over, spilling 50-80 gallons of Diesel fuel. Put absorbing pads, filter socks and bio socks. Was a controlled leak. Grace Pacific notified LEPC and HEER. HFD Hazmat was not notified. IX. ANNOUNCEMENTS: Gerald Kosaki: Continuing Challenge coming up, Hazmat training classes and vendors who come in and display different types of equipment. Bringing it up now to give time to plan, usually the first week of September. Opened to the committee to allow for positions to attend the Continuing Challenge. a. Okinaka to Kosaki: Request to have 4 Hazmat positions, 2 from each station like last year, and 2 members from LEPC. Cost-wise travel expenses were about $2,500 per person last year, up to $18,000 for expenses of 6 people. b. Jordan Hara: Motion made to support 4 Hazmat personnel and 2 LEPC members attend, up to $3,000 apiece. Okinaka seconded. i. Hara: Could also consider 5 Hazmat personnel, and 1 LEPC member as well. c. Hara: Amended motion for up to 6 people to attend with any combination of Hazmat personnel and LEPC members. Okinaka Seconded as long as minimum of 4 Fire personnel. Motion passed. Input into minutes and submit to Nikol for approval. Local Emergency Planning Committee May 2, 2024 Page 6 d. Jordan Hara: Any confined space training this year? i. Okinaka to Hara: Possibly coordinating 5-day training for new personnel Hazmat and Safety teams. They utilize the IAFF fire-based training program since it is done for free. ii. Hara: Also do onsite confined space drills annually. Fire rescue and/or Pahoa station personnel are always invited to utilize their facility to conduct drills. X. NEXT MEETING: August 8, 2024, 9:00AM. Check if EOC is available. XI. ADJOURNMENT: Meeting Adjourned at 10:21AM.