Puna Geothermal Venture to Pay EPA $79,625 For 1991, 1993 Blowouts, Other Violations

On September 14, 1994, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it had reached a settlement with Puna Geothermal Venture regarding violations of the federal Superfund Act and Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act. The penalties are provided for in a consent agreement signed by Lynn C. White, PGV’s general manager. Under that agreement, PGV “neither admits nor denies” the violations, but does waive its right to any administrative or judicial hearing on the matter.

The agreement settles the complaint that the EPA filed against the Hawai’i geothermal energy producer last May. At the heart of the complaint were releases of hydrogen sulfide from the Puna plant in 1991 and 1993, as well as the EPA’s determination that PGV had failed to submit a complete inventory of substances for which disclosure is required under the Community Right-To-Know Act.

Fines relating to the hydrogen sulfide releases came to $32,475. The penalty for failing to comply with the Right-To-Know Act amounts to $47,200. In addition to payment of the penalties, the consent order requires PGV to certify that it is in full compliance with federal emergency notification and chemical inventory laws.

In its 1991 blowout, PGV released some 2,200 pounds of hydrogen sulfide into the air. In the 1993 incident, 160 pounds were released. Both releases were well over the 100 pound threshold that triggers federal emergency notification requirements.

According to the EPA, “After these two releases, PGV failed to immediately notify the National Response Center and failed to provide timely written follow-up reports to state and local authorities. The facility also failed to provide state and local authorities with complete inventories of chemicals stored on the site in 1991 and 1992.”

Potential Water Impacts

The U.S. Geological Survey has just released a report on the impacts that geothermal development could have on ground-water resources. The report has been prepared in conjunction with the federal Department of Energy’s development of an environmental impact statement on the “Hawai’i Geothermal Project” – the state’s grand plan to develop, with federal assistance, 500 megawatts of power from the geothermal fields of Kilauea volcano.

The full title of the report is “Potential Effects of the Hawai’i Geothermal Project on Ground-Water Resources on the Island of Hawai’i” (Water Resources Investigations Report No. 94-4028). Its authors are Michael L. Sorey and Elizabeth M. Colvard. To purchase a copy, write:

U.S.G.S. Earth Science Information Center
Open-File Reports Services
Box 25286, MSS 517 Federal Center
Denver CO 80225-0046.

Marine Projects Designed To Help Stilts, Boobies

The Marine Corps Base Hawai’i is planning to embark on two projects intended to restore and improve habitat for water birds and sea birds inhabiting areas around O’ahu’s Mokapu Peninsula.

The first project involves relocating roosting and nesting habitat for a colony of red footed boobies (Sula sula rubripes), one of just two red-footed booby colonies in the Main Hawaiian Islands. (The other is at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on Kaua’i.) The boobies’ habitat at Ulupa’u Head Wildlife Management Area on Mokapu Peninsula is subject to fires started by activities ‘on the Marines’ Range Training Facility in Ulupa’u Crater. In May 1988, for example, a brush fire killed 35 boobies. As explained in the Environmental Assessment, “this fire occurred during a vulnerable time of year, as young boobies had just hatched. As the chicks could not fly away, parent birds remained at the nests, and both chicks and parents were destroyed.” The scenario was repeated in August 1990, when a fire “resulted in the deaths of 116 birds and the destruction of a large area of roosting habitat.”

After these events, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service required the Marines to formulate and implement a fire-management plan. This project is the outcome.

The actions proposed by the Marines include relocating some of the roosting and nesting habitat, reducing some of the grass in the Wildlife Management Area that fuels the fires, and enhancing fire-fighting capability by a variety of means, including, notably, efforts to re-establish a dryland vegetation community.

The second project is removal of mangroves from the Nu’upia Ponds Wildlife Management Area. Mangroves are not native to Hawai’i and their establishment in coastal areas often is accompanied by destruction of environmental and cultural resources. In the case of Nu’upia, ancient fishpond walls are being destroyed or degraded by the mangroves. In addition, removal of the mangroves will enlarge mudflat habitat used by the endangered Hawaiian stilt (Himantopus mexicanus knudseni) for feeding and nesting.

Ten acres of mangroves are to be cleared by heavy equipment. In archaeologically sensitive areas, the mangroves are to be cleared by hand.

City Tailors Wall To Designer’s Taste

As surfers and other users of Diamond Head Beach Park know, within the last year, signs have been posted at the entrance to Diamond Head Beach Road, which leads to the park, indicating that the road is closed to all but local traffic. The reason for the closure is severe erosion of the bank and retaining wall below the road’s surface.

A blockade a hundred yards or so from the road’s end keeps cars from descending to the park, although the road continues to provide safe pedestrian access to the shore.

Now, though, the city is proposing to repair the road, at the cost of more than a quarter million dollars, “in order to reopen the road for public use.”

But the public use of the road has never been interrupted. What’s going on here?

A Public Thoroughfare

The undermining of the road occurs about 100 feet beyond the eastern wall of a house owned by New York fashion designer Geoffrey Beene – the last house on the road. Much like the road, Beene’s house has been built on a steeply sloped slice of land fortified against the sea by a terraced series of revetments going down to the water’s edge.

In November 1993, the city Department of Public Works’ Division of Land Survey and Acquisition notified Beene of its intent to close the road, although Beene’s use of it to gain access to his house would not be affected. In response, Beene had his New York lawyers notify the city that he “strongly objected” to the closure. The road is a “public thorough-fare,” wrote attorney Jeanne F. Pucci, and as such, should be “maintained by the city, regardless of the cause for the ‘undermining’ thereof.”

Police Calls

In her letter, dated December 16, 1993, Pucci continued: “Mr. Beene’s home could be affected by the same erosion which has already affected the road and it is his view and request that the city perform the maintenance and repair work required … to prevent further ‘undermining.”‘ She went on to note that Beene “is quite concerned and troubled by the flow of traffic in the area of his house.” Cars making U-turns had “already caused damage to the house in the area of the garage door… Mr. Beene expects that the city will reimburse him for the damage caused.” Also, Pucci wrote, “the local police are called to the house several times a week in order to ‘ticket’ the cars which are parked in front of the house, in an effort to cut down the parking and the ‘congregating’ which naturally takes place at this new found ‘parking lot’.”

These “nuisances and potential destruction to Mr. Beene’s home,” Pucci concluded, “clearly have resulted in a diminution of the value and marketability of the property. Thus, it is important that alternative options” to closure be considered.

Six months later, the city released a draft environmental assessment for the repair of the road.

‘Unacceptable’ Alternative

The draft Environmental Assessment prepared by the city describes two alternatives: no action or the proposed repairs. The no-action alternative would result in keeping the road closed, an option that, the EA states, is unacceptable to the Department of Land and Natural Resources because it would “inconvenience the general public.” In addition, the document says, “Mr. Geoffrey Beene, whose property is along Beach Road, has also indicated that this alternative would be unacceptable.”

In a letter attached to the EA, Keith Ahue, chairman of the Board of Land and Natural Resources, forwards the comments of the DLNR’s Division of Aquatic Resources on the project. Closure of the road “is a great inconvenience to the public,” the division commented, “and to the DAR personnel who regularly monitor the adjacent Waikiki-Diamond Head Shoreline Fisheries Management Area. The damaged roadway also poses a threat to public safety, and represents a potential source of erosion if not repaired.” As noted earlier, though, safety is only an issue if the road is reopened, without being repaired, to vehicles. Pedestrian safety seems well assured for years to come.

The concerns of Geoffrey Beene were set forth in yet another letter from his lawyer dated June 16, 1994. “As, the only property owner (and tax payer) affected by the damaged road and temporary road closure,” Pucci wrote, “Mr. Beene has a special interest in the affect [sic] of the temporary road closure and proposed repairs…

“The repairs are absolutely essential as a matter of public safety and to preserve the structural integrity of Mr. Beene’s home on the road. The damaged section of the road is approximately 100 feet from the house… [T]he rapid erosion resulting from a failure to repair and reinforce the road would eventually cause serious damage to the foundation of the house.”

Were Beene’s house above the undermined portion of the road, the link between the road’s structural integrity and that of his house would be clear. But with Beene’s house sandwiched between an undamaged section of the road and the sea – which, after all, is the source of the wave action that has undermined the road – the structural integrity of his house would seem to be a matter completely independent from that of the road.

‘Negative Social Impact’

In that same June 16 letter, Pucci once more set forth other reasons for Beene’s wanting to get the road repaired quickly. “As previously described… the existing temporary road closure has had a significant negative social and environmental impact on Mr. Beene’s property and the surrounding area. The blockaded beach road, which directly fronts Mr. Beene’s house, has become a gathering spot for people and their vehicles… The result of the road closure consists of late night loitering, noise, graffiti (on the house itself and the blockade…) and pollution (i.e., trash left behind in front of the house and the blockade). Local police are called on a regular basis to patrol the area and disperse loiterers.”

According to the draft EA, the cost of eliminating the “negative social and environmental impact” caused by the closure to Beene’s house will be $263,000, drawn from the operating budget of the city’s Division of Road Maintenance. Work is tentatively set to begin in December 1994 and will probably last two months.

Repair of the road will entail tearing down the existing road, excavation of 850 cubic yards of earth, and construction of a new retaining wall 78 feet long and from 18 to 22 feet high. Although the project lies within the state Conservation District, the DLNR has said that the road repair constitutes maintenance of an established use and, as such, no Conservation District Use Permit will be required before the work can occur.

DLNR Proposes Changes To Rules on Molokini

The overuse of Molokini island’s underwater resources may have been highlighted recently when a Navy vessel shoaled there. Sailors had been diving and snorkeling in the popular underwater playground. When time came to leave, they snagged their ship on the reef.

Most boats that take snorkelers, divers, and fishermen to Molokini are not as large, but their cumulative impact has been just as great. In recent months, the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation installed day-use moorings in the Molokini Shoal Marine Life Conservation District. Now DOBOR and the DLNR’s Division of Aquatic Resources are jointly proposing new rules governing the use of the moorings and imposing further restrictions on those who would enjoy the waters off Molokini island. As far as DOBOR’s proposed rule goes, Molokini is just one area of many statewide where regulations are proposed for the use of new day-use moorings.

A description of the proposed rules was given to the Board of Land and Natural Resources at its meeting of August 26, 1994. The Division of Aquatic Resources is proposing a change to its rules that would eliminate troll fishing in the area of the sunken crater, ban fish feeding, expand the MLCD boundary, establish a commercial use permit to limit commercial use, and ban anchoring in the area when all the moorings DOBOR is proposing to install are in place.

The proposed new DOBOR rule limits the use of a mooring buoy to two and a half hours; prohibits anchoring within 100 yards of a day use mooring; and limits the use of the moorings by commercial vessels only to those operators in possession of marine life conservation district use permits or other department permit allowing such use. The rule also delineates areas where vessels with 12 or more passengers can moor, in an effort to separate the larger operators from smaller ones.

— Patricia Tummons

Volume 5 Number 4 October 1994