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HomeMy WebLinkAbout03 LEPC Meeting Minutes 070226Local Emergency Planning Committee July 2, 2026 Page 1 Hawaii County LEPC Meeting Minutes Civil Defense EOC and via ZOOM July 2, 2026 Members Present: Gerald Kosaki/Local Emergency Planning Committee Chair, Sandor Finkey/Hawaiʻi Police Department, George Manuel/Civil Defense, Ha Chi/Hilo Benioff Medical Center, Cyanne Becker/Department of Health, Logan Rogers/Military Representative, Daniel Volpe/Hawaiʻi Fire Department Operations, Vern Hara/HFD Emergency Medical Services, Lono Lindsey/HFD Special Operations, David Cummings/Hamakua Energy, Cyanne Becker/DOH Public Health Preparedness Members Present via Zoom: Jordan Hara/Puna Geothermal Venture, Casey Kishimori/Hawaiian Electric Light Company Non-Members Present: Jordyn Mantz/HFD Administration, Sinclair Salas-Ferguson/Corp. Counsel, Jason Geneau/Preparedness Services and Training Non-Members Present via Zoom: Sharon Leonida/DOH Hawaiʻi State Emergency Response Commission, Thu Perry/DOH Hazard Evaluation and Emergency Response, Andrew Kendrick/Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration- Pipeline Safety Liaison, John Burnett/Hawaiʻi Tribune-Herald, Haley Miranda/Pōhakulaoa Training Area- Environmental, Samantha Green/PTA Deputy Fire Chief Members Absent: Neal O’Heron/BEI Hawaiʻi, Logan Balingit/Dept. of Agriculture Members Excused: Eric Honda/DOH- Hawaiʻi District Health Office, Chris Leonard/Media, Clifford Victorine/Mayor’s Office I. CALL TO ORDER: 09:00AM Meeting called to order. II. STATEMENTS FROM PUBLIC: No statements from the public. III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: a. Sandor Finkey moved to approve 4/23/26 Meeting Minutes. Lono Lindsey seconded. The minutes were approved and passed. IV. COUNTY REPORTS: a. CIVIL DEFENSE George Manuel: Continuing to keep monitoring Volcano Activity. b. HFD Special Ops. Lono Lindsey: Nothing to report, only a couple minor calls. We had Civil Support Team Training which was excellent. c. HFD/EMS Vern Hara: Nothing to report. d. HFD Operations Daniel Volpe: Nothing to report. e. HPD Sandor Finkey: Nothing to Report. No big incidents that required shutting down the highway since our last meeting. Local Emergency Planning Committee July 2, 2026 Page 2 V. INDUSTRY PARTNERS: a. BEI Hawai’i Neil O’Heron: Not present. b. PGV Jordan Hara: Business as per usual. We did have a flow test on Tuesday which we notified the agencies we normally report to and Civil Defense. No issues and everything went well. i. Kosaki to Hara: Were there any other gas releases like hydrogen sulfide (H2S) or sulfur dioxide (SO2)? ii. Hara: Nothing out of the usual, aside from what already naturally comes out of the vents. c. HAMAKUA ENERGY PARTNERS Dave Cummings: We’re making a few edits to our emergency action plan. Will be forwarding to Civil Defense, LEPC, and HFD when done. i. Kosaki to Cummings: Do you have any confined spaces you guys do work in? ii. Cummings: Not any that we go into. Only the water oil separator area that is a confined space. We have an MOA with environmental to enter the water oil separator area because they’re trained so they have the right. d. PACIFIC BIODIESEL Alfred Leung: Not present. e. HELCO Casey Kishimori: One announcement. On Wednesday 8/5, we will have our annual oil spill drill. Invitation was sent out to Civil Defense and the County. We will be following up on that. i. Kosaki to Kishimori: I actually have something from HELCO for an incident that happened on 6/7. There was non-PCB mineral oil released from a pole-mounted Hawaiian Electric transformer right on Kea’a Street in Keaukaha area? Were you a part of that incident? ii. Kishimori: I wasn’t apart of that incident, but I am aware of it. iii. Kosaki: Micah Muramoto I believe called and notified me about this. Happened around 7:55pm. They discovered the release of 87 gallons of non-PCB mineral oil. They used absorbent materials and some other ways to clean it up. No waterways were impacted, and it was all contained in a dry well so all good. I don’t even think the fire department responded to that. Because if it’s all contained, they won’t call the fire department. It’s only if it goes out of its container and it’s impacting the environment. f. MEDIA Chris Leonard: Not present. VI. STATE REPORTS: a. DOH HEER/HSERC Sharon Leonida: At the last Hawaiʻi State Emergency Response Commission (HSERC), Jennifer Barre who is the new designated contact for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Emergency Planning Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA). She is the subject matter expert. The prior person, Sicy Jacobs, retired. Jennifer did a presentation listing all the offices, so if you’re looking for a specific office for environmental, there’s 37 slides, and you would probably be able to find the office that you need on one of Local Emergency Planning Committee July 2, 2026 Page 3 those slides, so it’s very informative. It’s available online and if anyone is interested, I can send you a link. b. Sharon Leonida: Also, LEPC’s check should be coming to Fire Administration. It is coming certified mail. i. Kosaki to Volpe: Nikol is the designated person to receive the check. Please have her process and notify me. c. DOH Cyanne Becker: Currently we are a part of a project called Sprouta. It was a grant released to us from the Department of Homeland Security and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) after being dodged and frozen three times. It’s finally been released and we’re planning to build up the capacity for its communication and response network to get more volunteers involved. Especially to help provide support to Police and Fire in hospitals. So, there is a functional exercise opponent that has to be done. We’re looking at a scenario 7.9-8.0 earthquake that could possibly happen in that scenario. I would love to have feedback on what kind of hazards we are thinking about that will have to be dealt with simultaneously while still having to help the public. i. Kosaki to Becker: Working with Police, Fire, and Civil Defense on that would be good. d. Cyanne Becker: Yes, anyone who is here that has input on how their department would respond to certain emergency scenarios. “This is what we’d be doing and understand where people would go.” So, from this grant, developing a network where we can communicate that doesn’t require self-service is what’s really our main goal. We’re also helping and partnering healthcare and medical, which Ha Chi will explain to try and develop the response for hazmat. Continuing to try and build up our resources for our department that we are lacking on still for this island. e. DOE Orasa Fernandez: Not present. f. HBMC Ha Chi: We did hazmat training at the beginning of June. It was a mix of HBMC and North Hawaii, DOH, MRC, and certain personnel in the class. Lots of involvement and we had 22 graduates from that class. Just increasing our decon capability for patients coming to the hospital for mass casualties, so we’re going to continue trying to spread. This is the first time I did the class with people outside of the shortfall that Cyanne was talking about as far as equipment and time capability. The tents that we have to do the decon, I only have one, and by using FEMA standards of washing patients for five minutes each, we can only do 12 patients an hour. This shows that we have a limitation during a disaster and we’re looking to be able to have more tents, more people, and more personnel to process a large disaster. g. Ha Chi: Also coming up next week, all the hospitals on island are participating in Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), so we are flying out simulated casualties to Oahu. There’ three Blackhawks coming, one to Kona, one to North Hawaiʻi, and one ti Hilo. I got five flying out from Hilo. They’re all going to go Oahu, and then Local Emergency Planning Committee July 2, 2026 Page 4 there’s ones going throughout to all the state hospitals. It’s a whole day exercise taking apart in it. h. Coming up next week, all hospitals are participating in RIMPAC. Black hawks will be flying from Hilo, North Kohala, and Kona. Full day exercise on 7/9. i. Kosaki to Lindsey: Lono are you participating with HFD? ii. Lindsey: Haven’t gotten any notification yet, usually we participate on the Kona side. iii. Becker: We had traffic care and one of the groups for National Guard ask if we wanted to do the Seabury exercise, sharing with LEPC to see if anyone was interested in participating? iv. Ha Chi: I know Fire usually does some training with them. v. Rogers: As far as I’ve got access, we just fielded $300,000 in detection equipment. They’re starting to treat PTA like we’re big Fort Hord, which is good because they gave us access to Three Line now. I can’t necessarily give it to Hilo Medical Center, but possibly we could do something where it can be deployable to each side of the island. I get these tools for free. vi. Kosaki to Rogers: Do we have MOAs or MOUs with DOH? vii. Rogers: We only have one with HFD right now. We really need to talk about speaking in break communications. We had our first communications working group, and it was all responders across the island, mainly fire, law enforcement from the national park, and we came together for the initial meeting. I’d love for Cyanne to join us at our next meeting, so all of us can discuss communications and each department’s limitations and capabilities. We could all understand each other a little better. viii. Becker: I would like to! People have been expressing that there’s fault in our system, and it’s because our system is just taxed and there’s nothing we can do when it takes about 30-40 minutes to get to certain areas over in Puna because of how the landscape and community is. So, the idea is how can we get there a whole lot quicker and just support until first responders arrive, or where can we get them evacuated to where it’s easier for first responders. Trying to find supporting areas like this. i. Dept. of Ag Logan Balingit: Not Present. j. Military Logan Rogers: Nothing to Report. VII. OLD BUSINESS: a. National Association of Superfund Amendments Reauthorization Act (SARA) Title III Program Officials (NASTTPO) Conference 4/27-4/30 2026 Report. Overview of Conference Information i. Kosaki: The LEPC chairs from Oahu, Maui, and myself attended alongside Sharon Leonida for DOH HEER. Maui also sponsored Greg Jenkins who is subject matter expert with lithium-ion batteries and is based in Maui. Sharon mentioned that the FIMSTA Report, Hazardous Local Emergency Planning Committee July 2, 2026 Page 5 Materials Emergency Planning Grant (HMAP) pays for our attendance to NASTTPO every year. Jennifer Bar reported on OSHA 40 CFR 68 130 regarding required quantity of water spills into waterways and the regulations with that. ii. Kosaki: We had Tim Gablehouse who is the attorney for NASTTPO, talked about Chemical Safety Board (CSB) and how the current U.S. administration is always trying to defund CSB. CSB is a federal agency that investigates huge chemical and radioactive release incidents for example. They do a full investigation, and they come out with reasons why it happened and how they can prevent it in the future. So, it’s really good and informative, and I think it’s a good resource for first responders, but you know, the current administration continues to try and defund it again every year. Tim Gablehouse also mentioned that LEPC members are not held reliable when performing EPCRA duties. As a committee, we help to update emergency response plans which Jason Geneau will be going over. If something happens, they can’t go to LEPC members and hold us liable as part of the government or agency. iii. Kosaki: Another topic that was covered was how large spills tend to overwhelm county and state resources and how it differs from other incident types. A good thing to know about large spills is that the Stafford Act would pertain to that. It’s when federal assistance kicks in 75% of all the costs and support while jurisdiction like the county only kicks in 25%.. iv. Kosaki: Lastly, we had Greg Jenkins who talked about lithium-ion batteries, and we always hear how the main concern is that these batteries catch fire. However, Greg Jenkins brought up a good point that when a lithium battery starts to ignite or gets breached, chemicals are released from them, which are hydrogen cyanide. I mean, of course you’ve heard cyanide is bad. It’s a chemical asphyxiant, and it binds to your hemoglobin in your blood, and can cause you to not breathe and lose oxygen. There’s also carbon monoxide that affects us the same way. It also emits hydrogen fluoride, which is like hydrofluoric acid and is very toxic. It can get into your body without any pain. So it can get into your skin without burning even though it’s an acid and affects your body internally. That’s why it’s good to know these chemicals are released by these batteries igniting or being breached, because you don’t want to stand uphill in the wind when tat smoke is coming, it can be affected. He finally talked about the incident with the Lahaina fires in Maui, and how the lithium-ion batteries needed to be disposed of, and how they executed it. It was very pricey, and Sharon can vouch for that, but they discussed the process and the tens and thousands of dollars for disposing a small amount. So that was the report. Any questions? 1. Lindsey to Kosaki: What would they suggest to do in terms of disposal of batteries? What did they do in Lahaina? Local Emergency Planning Committee July 2, 2026 Page 6 2. Kosaki: I can put you in touch with Greg and Ethan for more information. Oh- Chief Volpe go ahead. 3. Volpe: There’s a thing called the “Maui Method” that if anybody who looked at the last Wildfire Symposium in Hawaii recently, it kind of highlighted some of Maui Emergency Management Agency’s (MEMA) efforts to remove those batteries post fire. They had tow trucks picking up cars and taking them to this camp and dropping off the batteries. Then they take the batteries an put them in a saltwater brine that discharges the battery’s energy. Then they smash and crush the lithium-ion battery once they are de- energized and they are safe to dispose as normal through landfill solutions. Very expensive and very time labor and intensive. So ideally, you would look at immersion and then deconstruction and break them down. 4. Kosaki: Thank you Chief! VIII. NEW BUSINESS: a. Review of LEPC By-Laws i. Gerald Kosaki: A couple things that I wanted to make sure that we updated because there was an old address on there that was the Department of Health that all our mail was going to. So, I updated the address so that it goes to the fire department since that is indeed the current address that should be receiving these, and majority of them should be Tier II reports. The next change is on the second to last page which is subcommittees. We have never had subcommittees since we have had LEPC, but in the event that we will, that’s why they put that section in. So, they initially had that the committee shall be four standing committees as needed, but I wanted to rephrase it to the committee may identify for standing committees as needed, because it is not mandatory. 1. Sandor Finkey made motion to approve, Lono seconded. No discussion, motion approved and passed. b. Andrew Kendrick Hawaii Department of Transportation Pipeline Safety Association Presentation i. Andrew Kendrick did a 5-minute PowerPoint presentation on the Pipelines and type of gasses that are running in Hilo and used by Hawaiian Electric Light Company, Hawaiʻi Gas, and Island Energy Services. Andrew also included the contact information to each of the companies and maps of the gaslines running throughout Hilo that can be valuable to Police and Fire. Lono Lindsey requested Andrew to share the presentation with him, and Gerald Kosaki requested that Andrew share the presentation with him so he can send it to the whole committee. c. HazMat Annex Project i. Gerald Kosaki: Jason Geneau from Preparedness Services and Training (PST) will be doing a presentation on the Hazmat Annex updates. Local Emergency Planning Committee July 2, 2026 Page 7 ii. PST Jason Geneau: Lead discussion on what should be covered under the Hazmat Annex for all four counties. Discussion with LEPC members for their input on what should be in there. Not operational, but a coordinating document. Recommended HFD, HPD, and Civil Defense input. Discussion was had between Chief Volpe, Sandor Finkey, and George Manuel on updating the ESF 10 oil and hazardous materials annex, while LEPC plans to push out information on facilities for information for the public. Looking forward to doing tabletop exercises and scenario-based workshops for incidents that the annex is expected to cover. Discussion on the breakdown of the emergency mass disaster tiers currently that no longer makes sense and HFD and HPD had discussion on reorganizing and redoing the tiers that make more sense for our 4 counties. Figuring out funding support, and working with HI-EMA for it. Conversations with PTA, HPD, HFD, and CD on emergency response. Logan Rogers brought up conversation about Coast Guard and Marine Firefighting capabilities, Chief Volpe brought up mutual aid with Airport Fire and working together with EMS triage and water support for them. Discussion on previous related incidents that required multi-agency response. IX. ANNOUNCEMENTS a. No announcements. X. AGENDA ITEMS FOR NEXT MEETING a. Gerald Kosaki: Request to add discussion on the financial report for LEPC. XI. NEXT MEETING: Thursday, September 3, 09:00-11:00. EOC confirmed for location. XII. ADJOURNMENT: Meeting Adjourned at 09:53 AM