Malu 'Aina

The Hawaii Department of Health (DOH) is taking email testimony till 5 pm tomorrow Wednesday the 21st of November.  Please send in testimony and pass the word.  Send testimony here cleanwaterbranch@doh.hawaii.gov

My written testimony is below.  I gave verbal testimony last week at the public hearing.

Dear DOH and Hu Honua officials,

Our organization is in total opposition to this dinosaur energy project Hu Honua — burning wood for energy in a place that has the best possible solar in the world.  In addition, it’s not simply burning wood, but involves a wide range of chemicals and massive amounts of wasting water that has enormous  implications for polluting our ocean and its sea life, and fresh water sources.  End this ridiculous project now, or at a minimum require a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to study the wide range of environmental impacts that have yet to be seriously studied — impacts to air, land, water (fresh & ocean) and roadways from all the wood hauling.  It should also be noted that the project site is an old sugar mill likely contaminated with a wide range of toxins from sugar company days, including the heavy metal arsenic, which was used in herbicides by the plantations and widely contaminated the lands.

The DOH does not have a good record of standing for the community public health.  I recall years back on Oahu the DOH covered up the chemical heptachlor in milk to protect the dairy industry rather than protecting public health.  Heptachlor was a chemical used in the pineapple plantations and when the pineapple tops  cows, it started showing up in our milk.  In another case, the DOH did a poor job in policing Puna Geothermal Venture from harming the community.  I specifically remember a meeting back in the 1990s when then DOH director, Jack Lewin and his deputy (now DOH head) Bruce Anderson  had to leave a public meeting at Pahoa High School cafeteria under police escort, because the community was so outraged  about being poisoned by geothermal well leaks and blowouts and not protected by the DOH.  The history of geothermal in Hawaii has been a community disaster, forcing families to sell their homes and move away because out of fear of serious health impacts.  And of course there are a wide range of issues related to the DOH turning a blind eye to military environmental impacts — the nuclear pollution in Pearl harbor, the dumping of more than 2000 barrels of nuclear waste off Oahu’s southern shores from nuclear refueling operations at Peal Harbor, the extensive Depleted uranium (DU)  contamination on several islands from military training, and I could go on and on.

DON’T REPEAT MISTAKES OF THE PAST.   Stand up for public health. Put this dinosaur Hu Honua project out of business before it too causes irreversible harm to the communities of Hawaii.

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