Group News: Hawaiʻi Island, Kauaʻi
Hawaiʻi Island Group
Hu Honua: On the Ropes at the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court
By Steve Holmes | Reading time: 2 minutes
Hu Honua Bioenergy Plant
On Earth Day, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court again took up the issue of Hu Honua, with a focus this time on the competitive waiver, which the Hawaiʻi Public Utilities Commission has denied. Without the waiver, Hu Honua must compete for contracts against other producers who supply energy at lower cost.
Attorney Bruce Voss, representing Hu Honua, acknowledged that without the waiver, the project cannot proceed because Hawaiian Electric has already moved forward on Phase 1 and 2 procurements for renewable energy, and is not actively seeking additional power generation at this time. The bigger issue, however, for Hu Honua is that the rates they want are way overpriced for the current energy marketplace. It just is not in the public interest to approve rates that high.
When the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court earlier struck down their Power Purchase Agreement, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) interpreted this as including the earlier waiver, as the Power Purchase Agreement and waiver they are inextricably intertwined.
It is unlikely that the Supreme Court will reinstate the waiver at this point, as the PUC has found it to not be in the public interest. The legislature has also passed the Ratepayers Protection Act which makes waiver no longer relevant. The Supreme Court might grant a hearing, however, on process grounds but the results would be the same, as the PUC has amended their own administrative rules in keeping with the new state law. Grandfathering Hu Honua really isn’t possible.
Even if the court somehow granted them a waiver, the PUC would be in a catch-22 on a new PPA, as it would have to be reviewed under their current framework. Hu Honua is simply unable to negotiate a price that is remotely competitive. To approve a contract that was not in the public interest is not only unlikely, but would simply end back in court.
The only way that any of this legal wrangling makes sense is within the context of tax credits that Hu Honua would like to get to their investors to offset their huge losses. Or they may need to exhaust all legal avenues before they can file an insurance claim.
Stay tuned on the actual court ruling, but it is highly unlikely to end well for Hu Honua.
Chop-chop-chop: Helicopter Noise
By Cory Harden | Reading time: 1 minute
Photo: Victor B.
After several rounds of citizen complaints about helicopter noise at State Board of Land and Natural Resources meetings, there’s a bit of progress.
The Land Board will ask the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) whether the state has any responsibility for noise from airport operations. In the past, the Land Board has said noise is the FAA’s responsibility. But anyone living under a helicopter flight path knows how well that’s working!
Unfortunately, the Land Board continues to approve permits for helicopter offices and ticket counters with no evaluation of impacts from the resulting flights. In April, the Land Board even approved a permit that used an Environmental Impact Statement that was almost 50 years old, and did not even contain the word “helicopter”.
Congressional Representative Ed Case has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives called the "Safe and Quiet Skies Act" in 2019, 2020, and now 2021, currently HR 389. You can read the bill here.
You can support it by calling Ed Case at (808) 650-6688, Representative Kai Kahele at 746-6220 (Hilo), and Senator Mazie Hirono at (808) 522-8970.
Mauna Kea
We thought this article might be of interest: “UC should divest from Thirty Meter Telescope project on Maunakea”
Kauaʻi Group
Negative Impacts on Kauaʻi of a Proposed Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaiʻi
By Kip Goodwin | Reading time: 2 minutes
Artist concept of the proposed Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaiʻi. Photo: Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency.
The Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency is proposing a $1.9 billion, eight-story tall radar with a complex of support structures sited at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauaʻi or the Kahuku Training Area on north shore Oʻahu. If at the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF), 150 acres will be grubbed and the complex will be built on a 24-foot high, approximate 27-acre platform. This would be like nothing PMRF or Kauaʻi has seen before. On April 10, the Kauaʻi Group submitted testimony in opposition to the proposal.
Called the Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaiʻi (HDR-H), the radar was funded in the 2019 Defense Authorization Bill, then defunded the following year because in the fast paced nuclear arms race, China, Russia and the U.S. were building new technology, mach 5 and maneuverable nuclear capable missiles that can evade detection by the older technology HDR-H radar, rendering it obsolete. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has moved on to a space based missile detection system.
Hawaiʻi's congressional delegation secured enough funds to keep the program alive in the 2021 budget.
The PMRF site is near the ocean at a few feet elevation. The platform is minimal protection against a tsunami. The tsunami recorded at Makauwahi Cave at Māhāʻulepū reached 50 to 60 feet high or higher. Oils, solvents, heavy metals, paints, pesticides and solid waste could be released into the ocean, either in a tsunami, hurricane disaster or just in "normal" operation. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts a 3.2 foot rise in sea level by 2100 for Hawaiʻi. That could put the complex, and PMRF, in the ocean.
The MDA will also impose a nine-mile no fly zone in front of the radar. How birds, sea life, beach goers, boaters and helicopter tourists might be affected by electromagnetic exposure is not settled science.
MDA has not said how much electricity the radar requires. A back-up diesel powered generator is capable of 18 megawatts production. Unless MDA can show otherwise, it may be assumed fossil fuel generation will be required especially at night.
Kauaʻi's infrastructure of housing for hundreds of off-island workers, roads and bridges, and delicate small island ecology are ill prepared for this immense project of very questionable purpose. The MDA is preparing a draft Environmental Impact Statement and at its conclusion the public, and Sierra Club, will be given an opportunity to comment.
Sea Level Rise Studies Collide with Proposed Routing of the Kapaʻa Multiuse Path
By Julio Magalhães | Reading time: 1.5 min
Kapaʻa coastal erosion. Photo: Ruby Pap.
Sea level rise and increased coastal erosion due to climate change present significant risk to all of the islands as presented in the Hawaiʻi Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Adaptation Report issued by the Hawaiʻi Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission in December 2017. The Kauaʻi Group recently brought the results of this report to the attention of the Kauaʻi County Council as it considered a resolution which would authorize acquisition of easement interests for a coastal routing of a new section of the Ke Ala Hele Makalae/Kapaʻa Multiuse Path in Waipouli.
The Kapaʻa Multiuse Path offers a safe path for bikers, walkers, and others along a portion of the eastside of Kauaʻi close to the coast for much of its route from north of Kapaʻa down to Wailua and eventually possibly to destinations further south. However, the proposed new section covered by the Council resolution is in a highly vulnerable Sea Level Rise Exposure Area identified in the above-mentioned vulnerability and adaptation report, impacted even for the minimum sea level rise scenario of 1.1 feet. Moreover, the original studies justifying the proposed coastal routing of the Path used outdated data on sea level rise and coastal erosion.
The Kauaʻi Group opposed the resolution and argued it would be irresponsible to build the Path and other structures in a Sea Level Rise Exposure Area. Although the County Council ultimately supported the resolution with the coastal route, the Kauaʻi Group's testimony as well as very good local press coverage raised the Council's and public's awareness of the vulnerability and adaptation report results, the need to use the latest climate science in such decisions, and the need for our leaders to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis.