Commission Revises Archaeological Conditions for Hu Honua Bioenergy

Com­mis­sion Revis­es Archae­o­log­i­cal Con­di­tions for Hu Honua Bioenergy

- by Tom Cal­lis, Octo­ber 4, 2013. Source: Hawaii Tri­bune-Her­ald

The Hu Honua Bioen­er­gy project was back before the Wind­ward Plan­ning Com­mis­sion briefly Thursday.

Third Cir­cuit Court Judge Greg Naka­mu­ra, who is han­dling the appeal of a con­test­ed case hear­ing regard­ing the 21.5‑megawatt bio­mass pow­er plant under con­struc­tion near Pepeekeo, had remand­ed the case back to the com­mis­sion to clar­i­fy per­mit con­di­tions regard­ing archae­o­log­i­cal issues.

The com­mis­sion vot­ed 5–0 to adopt sup­ple­men­tal con­di­tions sub­mit­ted by Hu Honua Bioen­er­gy LLC requir­ing the com­pa­ny to fol­low a final archae­o­log­i­cal inven­to­ry sur­vey com­plet­ed in May rather than a three-year-old pre­lim­i­nary document.

The appeal will be sent back to court for oral argu­ments Oct. 31.

Gary Grim­mer, the project’s attor­ney, said the change will not affect con­struc­tion, most recent­ly antic­i­pat­ed for com­ple­tion in December.

“The sur­vey found very lit­tle of his­tor­i­cal val­ue,” he said.

The meet­ing nonethe­less offered the attor­ney for the appel­lants, most­ly neigh­bors con­cerned about pol­lu­tion and oth­er impacts, from crit­i­ciz­ing the Plan­ning Department’s review process and the project, which he said would “poi­son neighbors.”

“The entire project should be re-exam­ined,” said Steve Strauss, adding that the com­mis­sion should look at revok­ing its permit.

In addi­tion to oppo­si­tion from neigh­bors, the $70 mil­lion project has faced oth­er prob­lems, includ­ing a labor dis­pute and a civ­il suit filed in Delaware.

The Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency has also raised con­cerns about whether the project falls under the 250-ton cap for minor sources of car­bon monox­ide and nitro­gen oxide.

The labor dis­pute involved juris­dic­tion­al issues between labor unions work­ing on the project.

The suit filed in Sep­tem­ber alleges that the own­ers attempt­ed to defraud the for­mer major­i­ty own­er by attempt­ing to back­out of an agree­ment to pay $5.5 mil­lion fol­low­ing state approval of a pow­er pur­chase agree­ment with Hawaii Elec­tric Light Co.

HELCO approved the 20-year pow­er pur­chase agree­ment in May 2012.

The 21.5 mgw, pro­duced by burn­ing chipped euca­lyp­tus trees or oth­er bio­mass, would be enough to pro­vide 10 per­cent of the Big Isle’s ener­gy or 14,000 homes.

The plant is expect­ed to process 260,000 tons of bio­mass and dis­place 250,000 bar­rels of oil each year.