Ensure TMT hearings fair and timely

Just keep it moving.

The latest twist in the saga over the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) atop Mauna Kea has the protesters’ attorney quitting unexpectedly, a week before a crucial contested case hearing starts next Tuesday.

Hearing officer Riki May Amano has rightly denied attorney Richard Wurdeman’s request to delay the proceedings — so the case is urged to move ahead without further legal ado.

All parties knew as far back as July that the hearing launch would be set for October — so for Wurdeman to ask for postponement just before it was to begin, citing scheduling conflicts, is confounding.

He failed to submit any formal evidence of the conflicts, as required, to support his delay request, raising further doubts.

His clients, the Mauna Kea Hui petitioners, say they can’t afford a backup attorney, so will represent themselves. That shouldn’t pose undue hardship, as they had done so in the first TMT contested case hearing in 2011. The protesters saw victory last December when the state Supreme Court deemed those proceedings flawed, which invalidated the TMT’s building permit and led to next week’s contested-case redo before the state Board of Land and Natural Resources.

Wurdeman’s latest attempt at delay underscores the importance of time in this TMT situation. TMT officials have said they would need a permit for construction by early next year — or be compelled, reluctantly, to site the telescope elsewhere given the loss of time and money. They are actively scouting potential sites in India, Chile, Mexico and the Canary Islands.

Earlier this year, Wurdeman, on behalf of his hui clients, had unsuccessfully challenged the hearing officer selection process, as well as sought Amano’s removal as hearing officer due to her family’s longtime membership in the Imiloa Astronomy Center on Hawaii island.

The TMT application should be allowed a full, fair, brisk hearing on its merits — not be sent packing due to legal maneuvers that stretch out the timetable. Already, TMT has invested seven years and millions of dollars in its quest to build its 18-story-tall observatory atop Mauna Kea. With about two dozen approved as participants in the upcoming contested case hearing, it behooves the state to move apace sooner rather than later.

The TMT is a valuable project on many fronts — scientifically, educationally, economically. The viewing atop Mauna Kea — which already houses 13 telescope observatories — is considered the best in the northern hemisphere. TMT would be the world’s most powerful scope, enabling humans to see farther into the universe than ever before, enriching our understanding of the cosmos.

Educationally, TMT would join an existing world-class astronomy program atop Mauna Kea, and the scope’s global consortium wants the learning spread beyond the scientific cluster and into the local community.

For the second year, The Hawaii Island New Knowledge (THINK) fund is dispersing $1 million in STEM grants and scholarships to students, most of them Native Hawaiians. That pledge of $1 million yearly to educate students in science, technology, engineering and math while the scope is under construction or in operation should be encouraged, not shut down, as a path for future generations here.

Economically, the $1.4 billion TMT would add significantly to the $91 million astronomy industry on Hawaii island — first via construction jobs, then by bolstering the existing community of researchers and operators.

But TMT, of course, faces a major battle from some Native Hawaiians and activists who view Mauna Kea as too sacred a cultural site for future scopes.

Their cause gained much publicity last year, thanks largely to social media that broadcast vigils and standoffs, spreading momentum for the indigenous protest.

Indeed, respectful upkeep of the Mauna Kea observatories complex had not been a constant until fairly recently, when the Comprehensive Management Plan was approved in 2009 to provide a management framework to protect the cultural, natural and scientific resources atop Mauna Kea.

That stewardship commitment grew last year, under an Ige administration pact that considerably tightens oversight of activities on Mauna Kea under existing leases and subleases. That’s all for the good.

As it stands, the Mauna Kea Hui petitioners say they will forge ahead without their former attorney.

Let the hearing begin, without further legal drama, as scheduled: at 9 a.m. Tuesday at the Grand Naniloa Hotel in Hilo.