Geothermal Wells to be Plugged: It’s been two decades since they were drilled, but at long last, two geothermal wells in the Big Island district of Puna are going to be plugged. One of them, the 6500-foot-deep SOH-4 well, is an observation well drilled by the state on privately owned land outside Pahoa. The other, KA1-1, 7850 feet deep, was intended to be one of a series of wells that, in the heyday of geothermal dreaming, would supply electricity to O`ahu via an undersea cable.
The large geothermal scheme foundered in the early 1990s, and since then, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs has taken ownership of the Wao Kele o Puna land where former owner Campbell Estate had planned to build the grid of geothermal wells, while the state took over ownership of KA1-1.
Geothermal energy plans have been scaled back substantially. Nowadays, Puna Geothermal Venture operates the only producing geothermal plant on the Big Island several miles away from the Wao Kele o Puna field. The abandoned wells (including SOH-4 and KA1-1) could eventually pose a hazard. With that in mind, the state Legislature appropriated funds in 2007 to close the oldest of the wells.
Work on the project is to begin by the end of summer, at a cost of nearly $2 million.
GAO Raps Wespac: The U.S. Government Accountability Organization has released its report detailing its investigation of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council. Critics of the council had managed to get U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman to request the study, alleging financial mismanagement, lack of transparency in council affairs, and other irregularities.
The report, published last May, did not find any smoking guns that would have bolstered the claims of critics. In fact, the GAO claimed that some of the allegations were “factually inaccurate.”
Still, the GAO stopped far short of giving the council and its director, Kitty Simonds, a clear bill. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (the agency charged with council oversight) was given nine specific recommendations for tightening the reins on the council. They include:
• Advising the council to document every request for information from federal or state legislators. (By law, the council cannot lobby, but it may provide technical information when asked to do so. The council has appeared on many occasions before legislators, stating that it was doing so by request. However, the GAO could find no supporting documentation.) NOAA was also urged to ask the council to notify its regional counsel in advance of such meetings and to provide annual briefings on rules governing council member conduct, including contacts with legislators.
• Discouraging the council from giving meeting participants payments in cash. (For the puwalu series of meetings, participants were given envelopes with cash payments.)
• To make council operations more transparent, urging the council to have meeting minutes reflect not only the occasions when council members recuse themselves, but also the reasons for recusal.
• Working with the council chair to publish council records, including meeting minutes and briefing book materials, on the council’s website (www.wpcouncil.org).
• Working with the council chair to develop and publish the council’s policy on what types of information are to be made available to the public at the council office and what is available only through the filing of a Freedom of Information Act request.
Behind the Curtain…: As reported in the June edition of Environment Hawai`i, the `aha kiole committee established by the Legislature has an impressive web presence: www.ahakiole.org Since then, we have learned that the domain name was registered in November 2007 by “K. Simonds” of the “Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council.” (The council continues to insert “regional” into its name, although no one else does.)
The phone number of the registrant is that of the council’s central switchboard. But the email address given by K. Simonds does not have the “noaa.gov” suffix that attaches to the official email addresses of council staff. Instead, it is wprfmc@gmail.com
Kudos: To Teresa Dawson, who walked away with top honors in the open-print news-column category of the Hawai`i chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2008 Excellence in Journalism awards. Dawson won for her regular “Board Talk” column, covering the actions of the state Board of Land and Natural Resources. She was competing against columnists from daily newspapers and other media.
Patricia Tummons was named a finalist in the open-print editorial-writing category for her editorial on the Navy’s use of mid-range sonar.
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