{"id":13888,"date":"2021-10-03T06:53:03","date_gmt":"2021-10-03T06:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.environment-hawaii.org\/?p=13888"},"modified":"2021-12-10T03:27:03","modified_gmt":"2021-12-10T03:27:03","slug":"new-noteworthy-hu-honua-red-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=13888","title":{"rendered":"New & Noteworthy: Hu Honua, Red Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hu Honua Update: <\/strong>Proceedings before the Public Utilities Commission in the case involving the Hu Honua power plant, being built just north of Hilo, are gaining steam. In September, parties in the case filed prehearing testimonies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state Consumer Advocate, Tawhiri Power (owner of a wind farm), and Life of the Land all filed statements opposed to the PUC\u2019s approval of the power purchase agreement between Hu Honua and Hawaiian Electric (HELCO). One objection all three statements have in common is to the high price of power that HELCO has agreed to pay. As Tawhiri Power stated, in the first year, HELCO is to pay about 22 cents per kilowatt hour, with the rate increasing to 44 cents in the 30th (final) year of the agreement. \u201cBoth of these rates are drastically higher than the rates that HELCO obtained\u201d in more recent agreements, Tawhiri Power\u2019s testimony states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tawhiri also raised concerns about the claimed sustainability of the fuel supply: \u201cIn order for biomass to be sustainable the rate of harvest must not exceed the rate of forest growth. This rarely happens. Further complicating this issue is a recent five-year review from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service noting that harvesting of trees greater than 4.6 meters (15 feet) tall when Hawaiian hoary bats are present \u2018continues to be a threat\u2019 to the species. The U.S. FWS and Hawai\u2018i Department of Fish and Wildlife [sic] recommend not cutting trees above 4.6 meters tall between June 1 and September 15 of each year, the typical pupping season for the bat. Given this 31\u20442 month window, it is unclear how a 37-day supply [of fuel] would be sufficient to bridge this time period of curtailed timber harvesting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parties to the proceeding now have the opportunity to submit their responses to the testimony and supporting exhibits. By December 9, all parties should have filed their final prehearing statements of position. The actual hearing itself won\u2019t start until sometime next January. In the meantime, public comments have been pouring in, many of them from the workers at the plant and officials in the union representing them, the ILWU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pacific Tsunami Museum also commented in favor of Hu Honua; its president, Marlene Murray, noted that Hu Honua \u201chas been a great corporate partner and has financially supported many organizations on Hawai\u2018i Island, including the Pacific Tsunami Museum.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Red Hill Update: <\/strong>Under an Administrative Order on Consent with the EPA and Hawai\u2018i Department of Health, the Navy and the Defense Logistics Agency must complete a variety of tasks to address a large release of fuel that occurred in 2014 at the Navy\u2019s Red Hill fuel tank facility and to prevent future releases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attached to the order is a statement of work covering eight subject areas, i.e., tank upgrade alternatives (TUA), corrosion and metal fatigue practices, and a risk\/vulnerability assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August, the Navy submitted a 500-page supplement to its TUA document. The EPA and DOH had found the original document, submitted in 2019, deficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the supplement, the Navy proposes to line the Red Hill fuel tanks with the same kind of system used in natural gas tanker ships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of information in it. It\u2019s taking us a while to go through it and make sure we have the information that we need,\u201d the DOH\u2019s Joanna Seto told the state Commission on Water Resource Management last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DOH and EPA are also reviewing the Navy\u2019s recently submitted plan regarding the need for and scope of modified corrosion and metal fatigue practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two agencies recently completed their review of Phase 2 of the Navy\u2019s Risk\/Vulnerability Assessment scope of work, submitted last December. Phase 1 addressed internal risk events. Phase 2 will address fire and flood initiating events, seismic initiating events, and other external initiating events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On September 2, the DOH and EPA informed the Navy and DLA that they found the document to be deficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With regard to a fuel spill at Red Hill on May 6, Seto said the Navy is still conducting an investigation and \u201ccausative research studies.\u201d The DOH is waiting for the Navy report, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These issues and more will likely be discussed at the DOH\u2019s Fuel Tank Advisory Committee Zoom meeting on October 28, from 9-12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hu Honua Update: Proceedings before the Public Utilities Commission in the case involving the Hu Honua power plant, being built just north of Hilo, are gaining steam. In September, parties in the case filed prehearing testimonies. The state Consumer Advocate, Tawhiri … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,18,488,341,28],"tags":[7,3],"class_list":["post-13888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","category-new-noteworthy","category-october-2021","category-pollution","category-water","tag-patricia-tummons","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}