TMT issue unlike Dakota pipeline

There are some parallels that connect the protests at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation over the Dakota Access Pipeline routing and at Mauna Kea over the Thirty Meter Telescope project — parallels, but no equivalency.

To begin with, both conflicts underscore an increasingly assertive activism among indigenous people — the Sioux in North Dakota, Native Hawaiians here. It’s an activism bearing the hallmark of peaceful resistance, which on Sunday proved effective for the Sioux cause: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decided against permitting the pipeline to tunnel beneath a dammed portion of the Missouri River.

The decision was celebrated by not only the Sioux but by multitudes of supporters, including Native Hawaiians and a large contingent of military veterans, Hawaii’s U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard among them.

This has been another example of native rights standoffs that, increasingly, are mutually supportive among groups. Native Americans have shown solidarity with the Mauna Kea activists as well.

It’s interesting that both movements have adopted the term “protectors” for the opponents to the projects. And in both cases, delay works to the advantage of the opposition. The search for an alternative pipeline route will require a long environmental review that will at least delay, if not derail, the pipeline project.

And at Hawaii’s Board of Land and Natural Resources’ ongoing contested case hearing on the TMT application, a long list of intervenors have the potential to stall the worthy project. That could go on for so long that TMT’s sponsors will site the telescope elsewhere, as they’ve said they could do, moving TMT to their Canary Islands alternative.

But despite various similarities, there are distinct differences — such as the more respectful approach of Hawaii’s enforcement officers and its governor to the opponents. Fortunately, they were not subjected to the shameful and excessive show of force imposed on the Dakota protesters.

Especially on the substance of the debate, the distinctions are clear.

At Standing Rock, the Native Americans assert that constructing the pipeline as proposed by Energy Transfer Partners would desecrate ancestral lands and potentially foul Sioux water with leaks. The tribe doesn’t perceive any economic benefit to be gained from allowing this risk to a critical water supply.

Energy Transfer Partners posits the promise of economic development for the area from the project — but that could result from an alternative route as well.

In the case of TMT, the construction does not pose the same kind of persistent environmental threat. The proposed telescope is by far the largest, but it is in an area long developed as a campus of scientific endeavor, with other astronomical installations.

It’s a site ideally suited to its purpose, for its accessible location that also provides atmospheric clarity that approaches the ideal.

Further, there are commitments from Gov. David Ige to reduce the combined footprint of the existing telescopes. And there already have been efforts to link Mauna Kea astronomy to educational opportunities — at the Imiloa Astronomy Center and in other venues — and a wider understanding of Native Hawaiian culture.

That is not the spirit of the debate over the Dakota pipeline.

Finally, there’s the simple fact of what constitutes desecration. To this point, the “protectors” have not made a persuasive case that a telescope — one that opens the heavens to exploration, something the Native Hawaiians did for centuries — is something from which protection is required.

It would advance human knowledge, and enhance future opportunities for Hawaii residents — most of whom still hope fervently that this future will materialize.