{"id":9338,"date":"2016-11-01T19:16:17","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T19:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.environment-hawaii.org\/?p=9338"},"modified":"2018-06-14T22:56:40","modified_gmt":"2018-06-14T22:56:40","slug":"new-noteworthy-hu-honua-pepeekeo-permit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=9338","title":{"rendered":"New & Noteworthy: Hu Honua, Pepe`ekeo Permit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hu Honua Update: <\/b>Talks between Hawaiian Electric Light Company, the Big Island electric utility, and principals of Hu Honua, owner of the power plant undergoing construction at Pepe`ekeo, north of Hilo, are ongoing.<\/p>\n

As Environment Hawai`i <\/i>reported last month, the Public Utilities Commission refused to become involved in a dispute between Hu Honua and HELCO, which had terminated its power purchase agreement with the company effective March 1.<\/p>\n

According to <\/b>Harold \u201cRob\u201d Robinson, the president of Island Bioenergy, majority owner of Hu Honua, \u201cwe do have ongoing negotiations\u201d over renewing the PPA. In a phone interview last month, Robinson said, \u201cWe\u2019re exploring ways to get a deal done with the utility. It\u2019s been a long process, but we have discussions going on with the utility.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that there\u2019s no timetable as to when talks might wrap up. Ashley Kierkiewicz, a spokeswoman for the company, later told Environment Hawai`i<\/i> that Hu Honua had submitted a proposal in which Hu Honua would deliver electricity to the utility at 8 cents per kilowatt hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cHu Honua,\u201d she continued, \u201cis not aware of any other renewable energy project that sells, or has offered to sell, electricity priced this low to the utility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is work ongoing at the plant? Robinson was asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some work going on,\u201d he answered. \u201cA number of union people are still working,\u201d mostly doing maintenance. \u201cOne important thing is to keep all the equipment that we have and own \u2013 millions of dollars worth of equipment at this site\u201d in good condition, he added. \u201cWe have a full maintenance program that they\u2019re performing. Also they\u2019re doing work on the plant itself that would be difficult to do if we were under full construction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I\u2019d like to report,\u201d he said, \u201cis, we\u2019d like to get the plant built. If the issues can get resolved with the utility, our plan is to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Financing the construction has been a problem in the past, as Environment Hawai`i <\/i>has reported over the years. Now, however, Robinson said, \u201ca new investment group has become involved. And that\u2019s why we made announcements earlier this year that said we were fully financed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"dsc04806\"<\/a>Pepe`ekeo Permit Revision: <\/b>Construction of a house being built by Scott Watson and his partner, Gary Olimpia, just a short distance north of the Hu Honua site has been on hold for most of the last three years after controversy arose over the appropriate shoreline setback boundary and placement of a public shoreline access easement.<\/p>\n

Last month, however, the Hawai`i County Planning Department and the owners of the site reached an agreement that would, if approved by the county\u2019s Windward Planning Commission, allow work to resume on the house.<\/p>\n

Central to the deal is the relocation of the public shoreline path. Instead of running right in front of the area where Watson and Olimpia have placed the foundation for the lanai of the house, along the top of a steep drop-off, the public easement would run along the northern boundary of their lot.<\/p>\n

The plan requires that the Planning Commission approve revisions to the original Special Management Area permit issued for the larger subdivision, which states that the setback for all structures in the subdivision will be at least 40 feet from the edge of the pali.<\/p>\n

In 2012, Watson and Olimpia obtained a shoreline survey that puts the shoreline some distance further out (seaward) of the pali. The agreement, if approved, would allow them \u2013 and them alone \u2013 an exemption from the original SMA setback conditions.<\/p>\n

In addition, the redrawn public easement would require that a parcel consolidation-and-resubdivision map, shifting the boundaries of their parcel, the roadway belonging to the homeowners\u2019 association, and the parcel immediately to the north, would have to be approved.<\/p>\n

Watson and Olimpia had hoped for the agreement to be presented to the commission at its meeting on November 3, but the agenda for that meeting does not mention the matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hu Honua Update: Talks between Hawaiian Electric Light Company, the Big Island electric utility, and principals of Hu Honua, owner of the power plant undergoing construction at Pepe`ekeo, north of Hilo, are ongoing. As Environment Hawai`i reported last month, the … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-9338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-november-2016","tag-patricia-tummons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9338","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=9338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}