Protesters who this week interrupted work on what’s expected to be the world’s largest telescope were put on notice Tuesday that they face arrest if they continue to block crews from reaching the Mauna Kea summit construction site.
But the demonstrators vowed to continue and said they put the police on notice they are asserting their sovereign rights as Native Hawaiians to protect their culture and land.
In addition, they sent a letter to Gov. David Ige on Tuesday asking him to intervene to prevent any arrests and to halt the controversial $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope project.
"We’re not giving up," said Kealoha Pisciotta of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou. "We’re standing for what we believe in."
The University of Hawaii last year approved a sublease agreement for about nine acres on land the university leases from the state Board of Land and Natural Resources. In 2013 the Land Board approved the giant telescope with a dome 18 stories high following a lengthy environmental review.
Although legal challenges are still pending in court, the Land Board signed off on a notice to proceed with construction March 6, and tractor-trailers hauled excavators and other equipment to the project site last week. Protesters began to gather along the Mauna Kea Access Road on Thursday.
Several dozen demonstrators were seen along the access road Tuesday, a day after they formed a roadblock to prevent about 15 vehicles from carrying construction workers to the summit.
The construction crews did not return Tuesday, but the police did. On Monday officers monitored the protest to make sure no one got hurt. On Tuesday they told the demonstrators they face arrest if they try to do the same thing again.
In a phone interview Tuesday, Lanakila Mangauil, a cultural practitioner from Honokaa, said many of the protesters are willing to go to jail in defense of the sacred mountain.
He said the police were served documents in support of the protest that assert Native Hawaiian authority to protect the land. Among the documents, he said, was the 1897 protest letter by Queen Liliuokalani objecting to the U.S. annexation of Hawaii.
"We know we have the law on our side, technically," Mangauil said.
Pisciotta said UH is abusing its management authority and that the Department of Land and Natural Resources has botched its oversight of the conservation district. The summit, she said, has hundreds of sacred sites and burials that deserve and require protection under the law.
In any case, she said, no construction work should be allowed as long as the project is still on appeal. The sublease is being challenged in Circuit Court in Hilo, and the project permit is on appeal in the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals.
Pisciotta said she and the other Mauna Kea Hui litigants reached out to the governor Tuesday hoping he can intervene.
"He has the power to undo what was done under the previous administration," she said.
Contacted Tuesday afternoon, Cindy McMillan, Ige’s communications director, said, "The governor’s involved, but he respectfully declined to comment at this time."
The project, expected to create 300 construction jobs and up to 140 permanent jobs, is being designed and financed by TMT Observatory Corp., a Pasadena, Calif.-based nonprofit with California and Canadian universities as partners along with scientists from Japan, China and India. TMT selected Mauna Kea as its preferred site in 2009.
TMT Project Manager Gary Sanders released a statement Tuesday saying "our permitting and sublease process was a lengthy seven-year public process and agency review" and that "the time has come to allow TMT access to the public roadway and the TMT project site."
Sanders said "we sat in our vehicles for eight hours (Monday) awaiting a peaceful resolution from law enforcement. There was no resolution and our access continues to be denied."
"We’ve been patient, but the time has come to allow us access to the public roadway and our project site," he said.
The TMT project, when completed, would become the 14th observatory operating in the Mauna Kea Science Reserve, an 11,000-acre area spread out over most of the terrain above the 12,000-foot elevation level. UH is allowed to use the land as a scientific complex under a long-term lease with the state.
With a primary segmented mirror measuring 30 meters, or nearly 100 feet, across, the cutting-edge telescope will be three times larger than the most powerful optical telescopes in use now and allow astronomers to explore forming galaxies "at the very edge of the observable universe, near the beginning of time," according to the project’s website.
The telescope is expected to take about 10 years to build and be operational in 2024.
