Aloha ‘Āina: My Heart Breaks Watching Them Pierce Tutu Pele Again
- wearepuna
- Apr 1
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 1
By Jasmine Steiner – Born and raised in Lower Puna since 1988, watching israeli owned ormat operations in her front and backyards destroy everything she has ever known and loved, daughter of the ‘āina, granddaughter of the salt air and red dirt
Aloha kakou, my ‘ohana,
I’m sitting here in lower Puna tonight, in my cabin on my off grid homestead on Pohoiki Road, one mile directly downwind from the islands cancer factory Puna Geothermal Venture, the same community I’ve called home my whole life, and my chest feels heavy. The night air carries that familiar geothermal toxins H2S smell, and I think about how many nights my family , and hundreds of others over the span of decades, has breathed it in without complaint. This isn’t some abstract fight for me. This is my backyard. This is where I grew up running barefoot on pahoehoe, listening to stories about Madame Pele from my kupuna. This is the farm land my mother, Sara Steiner, has farmed and protected with her bare hands for decades, that I am now the grateful caretaker of.
Tutu Pele isn’t just a legend in a book. She is real to us. She is the living force of creation and destruction that shaped these islands. Born in the faraway homeland of Kahiki, she voyaged here with her family after conflict with her older sister Nāmakaokahaʻi, the sea goddess. Pele carried her little sister Hiʻiaka as an egg, guided by her brother Kamohoaliʻi, the shark god. As she searched for a home, she dug crater after crater with her pā‘oa (digging stick), each time her sister’s waves trying to drown her fire. Finally, she found her resting place in Halemaʻumaʻu at Kīlauea. Here she stays—Pele-honua-mea, the sacred earth woman; Ka wahine ‘ai honua, the earth-eating woman; the tree-eater of Puna. Her lava flows create new land, new life, but she demands respect. Her family lives in the ‘ōhi‘a lehua, the ferns, the steam vents. To drill into her, to frack her body for steam and profit, is to wound our ancestor, our tutu, our akua. It is a total desecration of everything we hold sacred as children of Tūtūs realm.
I’ve felt her presence throughout my life. She has revealed every single eruption to me in my dreams before they began, starting from my childhood. This included the 2018 eruption, which I had nightmares about for five years until PGV diverted her, and it actually occurred in reality. The exact dream I had for five years unfolded before my eyes after it opened at my childhood fort in the bushes on Mohala Street when we were inspecting the cracks opening up on our road. Civil defense was covering for Israeli PGV and had assured everyone in Leilani Estates that the cracks were insignificant and that there was "no lava under Leilani." This could have led to so much death...
When the lava flows through Puna, some people see only destruction. I see her power reshaping the world, just like she’s done for hundreds of thousands of years. But what these geothermal companies are doing Is NOT NATURAL. —pushing slim-hole bores, injecting chemicals, releasing hydrogen sulfide and who knows what else—that’s not honoring her. That’s desecration. It sucks the life force from her. Many of those who trace our roots to Pele’s family feel it in their na‘au and are trying to communicate and educate the rest of the community who has been lied too regarding it for far too long. As far as what i was taught by my own kupunas of Puna Moku O Keawe: A true Kanaka who honors Tutu Pele does not drill her for money.
Its not rocket science : Anytime you inject foreign matter into a natural body, that body is no longer natural.
This battle is ingrained in my very being. My mother has been fighting on the front lines pro se since 2015, challenging the fraudulent FEIS for the PGV Repower Project, and has been actively participating in community actions and protests against this entity since the early 90s, when we nearly lost our lives during the massive blowout. The case from 2024 is still pending in the Intermediate Court of Appeals as they attempt to expand, and her separate Hawaii Geothermal Rulemaking Petition lawsuit is finally being heard in court this april 15th at 930 am (please come, see event on website ) In 2017, my father was bought out by the geothermal's hush fund, which purchases people's homes at 130% of their value if they are ill, encouraging them to remain silent and relocate so drilling can continue. Neither I nor my child have developed normally; my child cannot even endure the daily drive to public school due to the perilous, unmonitored environment within the Puna geothermal radius. We were both born and raised in this toxic air.
We’ve taken our pain to the United Nations. We’ve stood in courtrooms and forests. The geothermal cause is the one cause that has brought the biggest mass arrests in hawaii vhistory--> yes you read that right. NOT MAUNA KEA TMT, IT WAS GEOTHERMAL Protests! And now in 2026, they’re pushing 16 geothermal bills hard—fast-tracking drilling on DHHL lands, Humu‘ula, Pu‘ukapu, Kawaihae, South Point, and more. They call it “green energy” and “revenue for Hawaiian homes,” but it ignores the real health impacts we’ve lived with for decades: the breathing problems, the neurological stuff, the way our keiki suffer more asthma and respiratory issues right here in Puna. The 2013 Public Health Assessment showed it. PGV’s own safety data sheets list the toxins. The Environment has died out here in geothermal radius and this entire fake state knows it. But sadly, Alas, they keep pushing.
"I’m tired of watching my community get sacrificed. Tired of the broken promises after blowouts and emergencies. Tired of outsiders and sell-outs claiming this honors Pele when it clearly doesn’t. " - Jasmine Steiner ( KahuPuna Aloha Activism )
But we are not giving up. We are rising. We are Puna strong 💪❤️🔥
The next big day is coming fast:
Tuesday, April 15th at 9:30 a.m. – Hilo Environmental Courthouse
This is the Kahea call for my mom Sara’s geothermal rulemaking petition. We need real protections—proper siting rules, seismic and subsidence monitoring, clean water safeguards under HAR §11-51. No more rubber-stamping.
Wear RED for Pele. Meet at 9:00 a.m. in the parking lot for Pule. Bring your ‘ohana, your prayers, your strength. Stand with us so they know Puna stands firm.
How you can help me and my family right now:
Show up on the 15th. Your presence is more powerful than you know.
Share this everywhere. Talk story with your neighbors.
Support the legal fight—court costs add up quick for grassroots warriors like my mom. Email wearepuna@gmail.com if you can help.
Testify against those 16 geothermal bills. Demand real Ka Pa‘akai analysis and protection of our cultural rights.
Join the A‘ole PGV groups, follow KahuPuna pages, sign the petitions. Amplify the voices of the Pele Defense Fund warriors who came before us.
This IS personal for me. I’m a Puna girl, born and raized, through and through. I want my future keiki to grow up breathing clean air on land that still belongs to Pele, not to corporations. I want us to mālama ‘āina the way our kupuna taught us.
Puna is awake. Hawaiʻi is watching. Tutu Pele is watching.
Let’s stand together. A‘ole Geothermal. A‘ole PGV. Protect Pele. Protect our home.
With fire in my heart and aloha for our ‘āina,
Jasmine Steiner
KahuPuna / We Are Puna
Share this. Wear red. Show up. The ‘āina is calling ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥⚖️⚖️⚖️🔥🔥🔥
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