With all the elevated rhetoric and demands surrounding the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea, some of us are in a quandary.

How do we come down, those of us who appreciate Hawaiian culture and wish to see it thrive in a modern setting, but who also support the quest for scientific knowledge fostering home-grown technical and scientific expertise? Few of the basic facts seem to be part of the public dialogue.

Some relevant points:

» Mauna Kea has the best characteristics of any location in the Northern Hemisphere for astronomical viewing; that’s why TMT is here.

» There are 11 existing observatories in the 11,288-acre Mauna Kea Science Reserve (MKSR), all of which are located within the 525-acre Astronomy Precinct, within alpine stone desert habitat zone above 12,800 feet. The reserve was established in 1968, and a comprehensive management plan adopted June 16, 2000, provides a framework for managed use of the area (including recreational use, cultural practices, education and research).

» The Office of Mauna Kea Management has a board of directors, and is informed by Kahu Ku Mauna, a community-based council of Native Hawaiians.

» The MKSR is within the state conservation district, resource subzone, in which observatories are an allowed use.

» The TMT would be sited in the northern plateau, at an elevation of 13,150 feet. There are no environmental conflicts in this location — no wekiu bug habitat, no silver swords, no archaeological or cultural features on or proximate to the affected site, which is approximately 5 acres, although portions of a new road and construction impacts will affect a larger area. The access road will extend 0.6 miles beyond existing roads. Sites of cultural importance within the MKSR have been identified, and the TMT would not be visible from the principal locations.

» There are two cinder cones within the Mauna Kea Summit Region Historic District (overlapping the Astronomy Precinct boundaries), which are historic properties and of especial importance culturally, the summits being associated with deities and alii and used for burials.

The access road will disturb about 0.2 acres of previously undisturbed land within the historic district boundaries of one of the cones (Kukahau‘ula). This will not result in the loss or destruction of archaeological or cultural resources.

» Mauna Kea observatories account for roughly 800 jobs on the Big Island, and TMT will add another 140 direct employees, plus induced employment for local contractors.

TMT will fund $1 million annually for education and community purposes, and develop a local workforce educational pipeline for employment in technical and management fields, among other community measures.

There seem to be no direct impacts of significance, and there is a potential “win-win” for the com- munity and for science.

But, beyond legal and administrative criteria, significance is in the eyes of the beholder.

Some people just object to the whole idea of observatories on Mauna Kea.

Nonetheless, fertile ground exists for working together to further beneficial cultural use of the summit area and for furthering worthwhile goals for the Hawaiian community, especially education and employment.

UH has offered to remove obsolete telescopes from the summit, which would seem an important step toward reducing the overall telescope footprint in the summit area, and which alone could be considered a “victory.”

So, why the intransigence — why can’t a solution beneficial to all sides be found?

This seems to be about more than just the TMT, and surely politics and power on a larger stage play a part.

It is unfortunate that scientific advancement, the state’s good name and tangible benefits to the Hawaiian community need to be sacrificed to such ends.