First Haleakala, then Mauna Kea?

The battle of the titans has begun — the giants, in this case, being Mauna Kea and Haleakala.

First, the smaller Maui mountaintop is in the news. Telescope parts were packed onto four wide-load semis and trucked up the road leading to Haleakala National Park. About 60 of 100 protesters remained when the convoy arrived at midnight. Six were arrested. The Big Island protest against the Thirty Meter Telescope is larger scale, with the legal battle between Native Hawaiian groups and the scientists even more contentious. So surely this is prologue for Hawaii County authorities.

A new, more modest plan for cemetery

Seven years ago scores of Hawaiian Memorial Park employees and others wearing green “supporter” T-shirts packed a city meeting to rally for expansion of the Kaneohe cemetery. The proposal was rejected amid neighborhood concerns ranging from traffic to flooding issues, and inconsistency with the Koolaupoko Sustainable Communities Plan.

That crowd is now resurfacing, again sporting green shirts but this time calling for a tweak to the Koolaupoko plan that clears the way for scaled-back development, 28.2 acres. Nearing capacity, the cemetery promises to leave 128 acres undeveloped as part of a conservation easement. For the sake of environmental and neighborhood harmony, if the city and the state Land Use Commission sign off, here’s hoping the promise holds.