HILO >> Opponents of the Thirty Meter Telescope proposed for Mauna Kea spent much of Monday quizzing a planner on the project about his understanding of Native Hawaiian religion and the nature of “sacred lands” during the second day of a contested case hearing for the telescope.
Cross-examination of Perry J. White has consumed almost all of the hearing so far as critics of the TMT also questioned him about the impacts of telescopes that were already built on the mountain, and how the mountain could be restored to something close to its original state as older telescopes are shut down.
White is the first witness in the hearing and is principal planner of Planning Solutions Inc. He was the primary author of the conservation district use permit application filed in 2010 for the TMT.
About two dozen people and organizations have been allowed to participate in the hearing to determine whether a conditional-use permit should be issued to allow the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope to be built on conservation land on Mauna Kea.
About 20 opponents of the project gathered in front of the hearing room for a brief prayer before the proceedings began Monday morning, and cultural practitioner B. Pualani Case told them that opponents of the TMT around the world are watching.
“We know now that every single thing that you say is on TV tonight,” she said, a reference to public-television broadcasts of the proceedings. “Let’s take it slow today, let’s not be rushed.”
At the closing of the prayer, one participant blew a conch shell, and Case told the project opponents outside the hearing room that “when we walk in there, we walk in strong.”
“Don’t get bogged down,” Case said. “Be light of heart today. We have control of the room.”
This is the second contested case hearing for the TMT project, which is currently on hold. The state Supreme Court invalidated the project’s conservation district use permit in December and ordered a new hearing.
The court said the state Board of Land and Natural Resources erred in approving the conservation district permit before it held the first contested case hearing in 2011.
Mauna Kea is the first choice for the TMT, but officials with the telescope have been studying possible alternative sites in Baja California in Mexico, the Canary Islands, Chile, India and China in case they cannot win approval to build on Mauna Kea. A spokesman for the project said TMT hopes to obtain a permit by the end of this year or early next year in order to begin construction by April 2018.
Lanny Sinkin, who joined in the contested case hearing as representative of a Hawaiian religion known as the Temple of Lono, asked White how the developers of TMT could possibly mitigate the impact of the observatory for people who believe the Mauna Kea site is sacred “just the way it is.” The TMT observatory is planned for a 5-acre site and would be 185 feet tall.
White replied, “You would have to ask the people who are affected what they would consider to be mitigation. I’ve heard some people say that you can’t mitigate. For those people there isn’t anything.”
Sinkin also asked whether the planners who prepared the application for the project ever discussed the topic of religion, and White replied, “Not with that word, no. … We talked about cultural practices.”
White said he doesn’t remember whether he came across references to Mauna Kea as a place of worship but said he was aware the summit of Mauna Kea was a place of burials.
When pressed about whether spiritual concerns of people with ties to the mountain are legitimately part of the decision-making process for the application, White replied that they are and “they were taken into account by the information that we provided in the application.”
White was also questioned about plans for decommissioning aging telescopes on Mauna Kea, including what role tearing down old telescopes would play in mitigating the impacts of the TMT.
“My understanding is the university is discussing with some of the observatories decommissioning that would occur prior to the start of operations for the Thirty Meter Telescope if it were approved,” White said, referring to the University of Hawaii. When asked how many telescopes would have to be decommissioned and removed to offset the cumulative impacts of astronomy on the mountain, White said he could not answer the question.
UH officials and the Hawaii island business community worked for years to promote development of the TMT, which had been scheduled to start construction in 2015. The university has argued the TMT project would cement Hawaii “as the world’s premier place to study astronomy.”
However, work on the TMT project was repeatedly blocked last year by protesters who contend the mountain is sacred. Opponents of the project have argued that the university failed to meet the legal requirements for issuing a new permit and that the Land Board has failed in its duty to properly manage the conservation land on the mountain.
