Aloha neighbors and friends,
Today about 5:30 p.m. we started smelling Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) at my house in Kehena Beach. Unfortunately this coincides with an accident at the Geothermal Power Plant that happened at the same time. I’m writing to you to see if you smelled it. I’d like to get an idea of what areas the gas traveled to. We’re so far from the plant that officials probably don’t even think that our area is effected.
If you’re not familiar with the “scent” of Hydrogen Sulfide, it smells like sewer gas,a decaying smell. If you smelled it today you MUST call and get this documented.
Please call to file a report with PGV response line:
Mahalo,
Yvette Taylor
P.S. It probably would not hurt to contact other government agencies as well.
Please see PGV monitor report below that shows the spike in H2S
H2S Latest
|
Noise
|
Rainfall
| Site | Time | Value |
| A | 3/13/2013 16:55 | 0.0 MM |
| B | 3/13/2013 18:00 | 0.0 MM |
| C | 3/13/2013 17:50 | 0.0 MM |
March 13th, 2013 at 8:28 pm
Lower Hawaiian Beaches …… no smell.
March 13th, 2013 at 9:14 pm
BULLSHIT !!!!
March 13th, 2013 at 9:15 pm
Are you sure you didn’t fart???
March 13th, 2013 at 9:48 pm
Leilani Estates had no smell.
March 13th, 2013 at 9:50 pm
Do people buy a house near a geothermal plant and NOT know it’s there? Do people buy lots with active steam vents on them and NOT know what that means? Or buy on a dirt road and NOT expect dust? Or buy a lot say near 39th and Pohaku where you know water is stronger than whatever you think you’re going to build.
Seriously I wonder why people complain about their location choice when they had/made a CHOICE.
Some, Humans are funny,
March 13th, 2013 at 11:18 pm
Didn’t notice anything in Upper Seaview and i have a sensitive nose.
March 14th, 2013 at 8:12 am
Aloha Yvette,
Mahalo for having the courage to post this on Tiffany’s blog. This information needs to be vetted out.
According to Bob Petricci there is something going on and we are always the last to know in terms of verification. Below find Bob’s experience of yesterday. This is only a part of the email I was sent. He went to the PGV to find out for himself what was going on.
“The PGV geothermal power plant had another accident today. PGV and Hawaii County Civil Defense have tried to down play the event IMO. Yet we are still seeing readings tonight on the monitors. Both PGV and HCCD lied to me about the emission levels today saying the levels were zero. Look at the attached pictures to see what really happened, that is not just steam no matter what PGV or HCCD say. The monitoring at PGV does not work, I was standing next to the PGV environmental officer and his hand held monitor was reading zero. He was showing it to me like I should believe that instead of my nose, but there was a strong rotten egg smell and my nose burned for several hours afterward. People all over the community reported the smell, only then did they admit there was H2S. What were the levels of lead, mercury, Arsenic, and the other toxins in the resource that were not abated, and what level of caustic soda was released? My nose is still burning. When I ask the PGV officials why the monitor read zero but we could smell it, they had no explanation.
This is the same PGV official that lied to me and civil defense about the last accident. Last time he denied there was an accident or release at all. He was caught lying to me and HCCD last time as well when the plant manager confirmed there was an accident and a leak. Yet HCCD gave him a pass, I really at this point have to assume his job is to lie about accidents to protect PGV at the expense of the community.”
March 14th, 2013 at 8:41 am
If you are looking at this you have easy access to the facts so Google, or Bing, Hydrogen Sulfide. You should see a MSDS or Right to Know sheet among others that can tell you researched facts about Hydrogen Sulfide. Review the differences between odor thresholds and health concern thresholds and consider the difference between parts per million and parts per billion. I would not expect to have detected an odor from this release.
March 14th, 2013 at 9:05 am
Yes Jay there are many gases and compounds that can affect us before we can even smell them. Yesterday I didn’t know anything about this. What time did this happen?
March 14th, 2013 at 10:10 am
Waste to Energy sure was the way to go!
But now we got GEO and still have an illegal landfill!
Let’s just all bury our collective heads in the sand!
March 14th, 2013 at 11:13 am
A friend of mine was helping someone move in the subdivision next to Leilani, right next to geothermal, on Monday night. She and her friend who lived there saw a bright orange glow above the plant and smelled, not rotten eggs, but a acrid chemical smell. Her friend said that was not normal. Tuesday, late afternoon, I was coming back from Hilo and a friend who was riding with me commented, when we were in the low spot on the Highway near Paradise Park, that she smelled sulfur. She commented several times on the way to Lower Puna that she kept smelling sulfur. I got home (3 miles as the crow flies from geothermal) and tried to take my shoes off. I was so dizzy and light headed and sick that I almost fell over 3 times trying to do this simple task. I could barely walk. This is not normal. Wednesday, my husband and I were so ill, dizzy, not being able to feel our feet or really function right, burning nasal passages, headache, etc, we could hardly do a thing we had to do. This is not normal. I am sure there is more going on than geothermal is letting on, beginning on Monday, not Wednesday. They were probably forced to say something because so many people noticed. Their monitors don’t work, the ones that the public can see on their website often register a minus number for H2S. How can that be?
Yeah, we should really have more of this. I really like feeling sick. We probably not only got dosed with H2S, but all the toxic, cancer causing chemicals they use in their operation.
March 14th, 2013 at 11:26 am
@Sherry, it appears you have been introduced to vog, not H2S. Tuesday was an exceptionally voggy day in Puna and Hilo, and vog causes all those symptoms you describe.
March 14th, 2013 at 3:17 pm
The fact that you can smell it is a good sign. If it is in a serious concentration your ability to smell disappears. A Ranger or similar sniffer is the accurate way to tell if the concentration is dagerous. Six years ago this was suggested to the Council. THe monitors should be at approximately three feet since HS20 is a heavy gas. THe gas is lethal if it gathers densely in a low spot. Has anyone asked Uncle Billy or Barbara Hale what the concentrations are at their house.
March 14th, 2013 at 6:53 pm
Vog doesn’t cause symptoms at that level without triggering an “unhealthy” level air quality alert. I am vog sensitive, and it’s been making my eyes itch, my nose run, my asthma flare up and some headache.
Dizzy and ready to fall over doing a simple task? No.
I have read that about hydrogen sulfide smell disappearing quickly as the levels rise and deaden our smelling capacity.
Vog does not have a lot of hydrogen sulfide in it. It has high levels of SO2 (sulfur dioxide). The H2S is heavy and drops out of the gas plume as it travels, IIRC. S02 doesn’t smell like rotten eggs, although I guess it is acrid. I’ve been in some bad vog on this island without ever really smelling it.
Sherry, my sympathies! That’s scary. I hope you report how you felt.
March 14th, 2013 at 9:36 pm
kamaaina35,
I am not a stranger to vog. I have lived here many years. When the trade winds dropped off where we live and Halema‘uma‘u went off, about 5 or so years ago, I started getting mucus attacks, barfing mucus, sinus headaches, eyes tearing, feeling tired, basically respiratory effects. The scientific studies on the poisonous effects of SO2 and H2S show different impacts. H2S causes largely nervous system effects and SO2 causes mostly respiratory effects. I was having nervous system problems at approximately the same time as geothermal was having a blow out. Like I said, truth about when that event started, don’t think it was Wednesday.
I urge you to look at the comprehensive study that was done after the last big blowout, about 20 years ago. The consulting company interviewed people all over Puna and got a similar list of symptoms from their interviews. They recommended that geothermal put monitors in every community. See that yet? Even if they did, would they work?
March 14th, 2013 at 9:53 pm
There is a lesson in the Aesop’s Fable about the “Boy Who Cried Wolf”.
Let’s get real people!
March 14th, 2013 at 9:54 pm
Folks who are Vog sensitive… should leave Hawaii instead of bitching about things they can’t control!
March 14th, 2013 at 11:37 pm
From Damon:
“Folks who are Vog sensitive… should leave Hawaii instead of bitching about things they can’t control!”
So let’s get this right. A guy who works for the government, a census worker, is now telling everyone who is sensitive to vog to go away and live somewhere else. No matter if they were born here, grew up here or moved here. Just sod off. You have asthma, a lung disease or an allergy, you’ve heard it from your local census worker – get out of here.
Nice.
As one or two friends of mine would say – what a pillock.
March 15th, 2013 at 9:25 am
This is spinning like a bad tumbleweed going no where. What happened? Anything? Or the folks annoyed about geothermal rising up over nuthin’?
As for vog, live with it or leave it. The choice is yours, Pele does not care.?
March 15th, 2013 at 2:57 pm
Hugh, it is an uprising of the NIMBYs who take every opportunity to raise the drama. People in Puna are exposed to H2S all the time from cracks in the earth. And they love to sit in the steam vents, saying it’s good for their health. It’s just when it comes to PGV, they have an opportunity to spout off about how they don’t like industry in their neighborhood.
March 15th, 2013 at 5:05 pm
yea well you can’t smell radiation and no one is bitching about Fukushima continuing to contaminate us.
Don;t worry about local gases.
seriously
March 15th, 2013 at 10:06 pm
@Tom…
Yes, I am saying that if the environment you live in is giving someone problems… they should move to a new environment.
Yes, I have family members that are born here… but the doctors tell em their respiratory systems would be better on the mainland.
I myself wondered w/ my son’s asthma whether or not I may have to relocate to the mainland.
Thankfully his asthma has gotten better over times.
After living on Oahu for a decade…. I can honestly say I had more vog headaches on Oahu…. then I ever have had living nearly 1-2 miles from PGV.
March 15th, 2013 at 11:06 pm
Think of things as a “Communicable Disease”.
He said…. she said… they said… and therefor it must be true.
http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/8977
March 16th, 2013 at 3:43 pm
Speaking as the child of a lifelong asthmatic, who got moved frequently as part of the search for a better environment, there is no guarantee of a fix by moving. Before long, the asthmatic’s immune system develops a sensitivity to another trigger. After I left home, my parents continued to move in search of an asthma kind environment until they turned 80 and were too tired to move any more. The search interfered with them having any kind of permanent home.
For children and adults with asthma: controlling secondhand smoke inhalation is key. Control Mold. Dust mite barriers. There are parts of this island better than others by far.
I wasn’t complaining about the vog. I was saying that even though I do react to vog, I have never had any vog symptoms like what Sherry described, and it doesn’t sound like vog (responding to kamaaina35).
H2S is an extremely toxic gas if there were ever a major release, and a residents’ response to any release of note seems reasonable to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_sulfide
March 16th, 2013 at 3:52 pm
Re the comment about how very few Leilani residents have concerns, we might consider that people with grave concerns about geothermal don’t move to Leilani.
I almost moved there, but canceled my escrow after talking to a neighbor who’d been living close to the plant for a long time. I wouldn’t say I was freaked out, but I decided I was concerned enough, between that and Lava Zone 1, to move to another subdivision.
I guess I don’t read the lack of concern as evidence there is no reason for concern. More that you are more likely to move to Leilani if you are not the worrying type.
I personally have little trust for operations that have a stake in minimizing risks and maximizing public confidence. I could attribute that to watching “Silkwood” a few times, but maybe “Silkwood” spoke to me because I’m predisposed to believe that cover-ups happen.
March 16th, 2013 at 4:47 pm
In response to Kathy H, please don’t assume that the residents of Leilani are naïve. Many of us are smart enough to separate fact from fiction when it comes to the geothermal operations. We have lived and worked in the proximity of the plant for more than 20 years and have experienced no illnesses or medical issues that can be attributed to PGV. However, we have experienced health concerns related to the vog, as have our plants, and it is specific to periods of Kona winds like this past week when the vog is quite prevalent. And yes, we would agree that people with grave concerns or paranoia about any of these issues don’t move to this area. Is there any place in the world that is perfect?
March 16th, 2013 at 5:19 pm
I never said anything to imply the residents are naive, so I’m not clear why you’re telling me not to assume it. It’s annoying to have you respond to a statement I didn’t make.
I’m not putting down Leilani. I was responding to a statement about Leilani residents’ lack of concern (a remark I can’t find now).
Perfect has nothing to do with anything. We all have our own criteria for what we choose, and I think we all have to make some form of compromise. You don’t need to get defensive at me, because I’m not attacking Leilani. I merely said that I changed my mind about living there. That was my individual decision, nothing more, and there were other factors like distance from family that came into play too.
Sherry already told you that she is totally familiar with how vog affects her, and this wasn’t the same. I got a lot of vog this week too because of the Kona winds, and I’m certainly not saying there wasn’t vog. There was!
March 16th, 2013 at 11:18 pm
Something to note: much of Leilani is upslope of geothermal which is located at about 700 or so feet. H2S would not effect higher elevations unless there was a very strong wind in the right direction in the area at the time of releases. H2S sinks to a lower elevation, being heavier than air. We are at about 250 feet.
Kamaaina35, Just wanted to make sure that you are speaking for all of Leilani when you say no one has been made sick from geothermal?
We went from strong trade winds 5 years ago to no wind where we live, or weak trade winds that make it upslope about a half a mile before punking out and the west or southwest winds take over, or we get swirling winds. I think there are very local situations depending on elevation, geography, distance from the ocean and what ocean coast you are getting winds from. NE of Kumukahi, SW of Kumukahi? Pahoa generally has more trade wind flow lately than where we live much closer to the coast. Just saying this because the direction of the wind, or lack thereof, would be the factor in why some people are effected by geothermal releases and some are not. You said that you were getting Kona winds in Leilani last week and yes people, including me, are effected by vog, but if you were getting Kona winds at the same time as the geothermal releases, you would not be effected by geothermal releases. Not the right direction. We however, unfortunately, were.
March 17th, 2013 at 1:44 am
There were about 140 people who sued PGV for damages so far that have been settled in the plaintiffs favor.
Many of them including me lived in Leilani. Why did they pay millions if they were not responsible for the claims that were health based.
Anyone that says PGV has not hurt people in Leilani is wrong and there are records of 140 lawsuits that prove it. Sorry.
Corporations like PGV do not pay millions in damages unless they are guilty.
Read the states investigation by Godard and Goddard.
http://punapono.com/docs/Goddard91.pdf
Here is some more reading for anyone who wants the truth about PGV
DOH fined them for a huge release in 2006
http://punapono.com/docs/DOHcitesPGV.pdf
List of 19 civil defense declared emergencies at PGV between 1991 and 1999
http://punapono.com/docs/PGV%20emergencies%2091-99.pdf
They blew up a generator in 2004 and burned three thousand gallons of pentane. They were lucky they whole plant didn’t blowup. They have tens of thousands of gallons of the stuff.
http://archives.starbulletin.com/2004/01/15/news/index15.html
http://www.epa.gov/eab/disk11/puna.pdf
They paid those lawsuits because they hurt people and many of them lived in Leilani. Not everyone was hurt but 140 people were given settlements for health claims.
Who do people that want to rewrite history think they are dealing with? These things are documented. I have some historical pictures of PGV open venting unabated into the community and of HGP-A. I am them sending to Tiffany. People need to see them because they never cleaned the site up. They bulldozed it and put some soil on top but that stuff is still there and leaching into the water.
This latest accident is just another in a endless list of accidents. This power pant should not be located in a residential area.
March 18th, 2013 at 2:09 pm
I find it amazing the amount of misinformation that is excepted as fact. We have read it referred to fracking which it is not. Fracking has a definition of injecting a heavy combination of chemicals and materials whichliterally pooung their way through rock to allow methane or gas to escape. Reinjecting Brine into an existing void. Since this means nothing is be fractured by a heavy injection. Heat is being converted in an already drilled hole. These are not the same techniques. We have statements which are either inaccurate or unrelated. The fact of the matter is some people would bitch if you hung them with a new rope. People want electricty.They apparently want to produce it more expensively through burning oil. Burning oil causes cancer. Nuclear is carcinogenic and can cause horrific radiation poisoning if incorrectly dangerous. The point is all progress has a certain risk. PGV if correctly monitored is safe. It is possible to find higher concentations of HS2 in a dumpster of a restaraunt than at PGV. If it was so dangerous why would Helco want to do it.
It can be done safely and PGV has proved it. Helco has endangered PGV by not allowing them to garner nor profits . In Geothermal more energy generation means better maintenance and safety.
March 18th, 2013 at 7:19 pm
Wow Brian, it’s pretty clear that you advocate for the industry. Why talk about fracking when people are talking about getting sick from H2S gasses. All of the above comments and questions could be resolved if we had independent monitoring of air and water to verify the safety that PGV claims. Do we have independent unbiased monitoring? NO. PGV monitors itself only onsite and not in the surrounding communities as has been recommended to government officials so many times. Why are they dragging their feet on monitoring? Something to hide? We won’t know until we have ongoing monitoring. Simple common sense air and water monitoring can put all debates about safety to rest. That’s what you all should be demanding from your government officials, whether you are for or against geothermal. Let’s get on with it!