Hawaiians heard amid telescope hearings

Hawane Rios says she almost died during a ceremony on the northern plateau of Mauna Kea, the site of the planned $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope.

Rios, a Hawaii island musician who also describes herself as a Native Hawaiian haka, or medium, recalled that she was among a group of Hawaiian religious practitioners deep in prayer a couple of years ago, asking for forgiveness for drilling and road grading at the TMT site.

That’s when an “immense, powerful” spirit took control of her, she told the TMT contested case hearing in Hilo earlier this month.

“The spirit didn’t want to leave my body,” Rios said. “The spirit kept asking for healing because there was so much anger and so much pain and so much trauma.”

Rios, a petitioner in the hearing, told her story as one of dozens of witnesses who testified in opposition to the TMT project over the past month or so.

Native Hawaiian practitioners like Rios were joined by experts and scholars of religion and indigenous studies — both from Hawaii and the mainland — to testify about the mountain’s elevated status in the Hawaiian culture and its spiritual importance.

Sometimes with tears in their eyes, they also described the hurt and pain they and others felt while trying to defend the mountain against the construction of the largest telescope yet, an 18-story structure scheduled to be among the next generation of elite ground-based observatories designed to see farther into the universe than ever before.

The hearing, which started Oct. 20, is entering its final week following the appearance of more than 50 witnesses over 40 days of hearings.

The proceeding is the replay of the 2011 TMT contested case hearing, the results of which were nullified by the state Supreme Court in late 2015. The high court said the state Board of Land and Natural Resources committed a due-process error when it approved the project before weighing evidence from the hearing.

Once the current hearing is over, the hearings officer, former Circuit Judge Riki May Amano, will review the stacks of documents, evidence and testimony and make a recommendation to the Land Board. The parties then will be given an opportunity to agree with or take exception to Amano’s recommendation and make their own pitch to the board.

The board will then hold a hearing and make a decision on whether to approve or reject the issuance of a Conservation District Use Permit to the lessee, the University of Hawaii.

After that the project’s destination is likely Round 2 before the state Supreme Court.

The future of the project remains uncertain, however, as it apparently faces another contested case hearing related to the sublease between UH Hilo and the TMT. The state has appealed that ruling by Hawaii island Circuit Judge Greg Naka­mura.

But even if that hurdle is cleared relatively quickly, the project still faces another deadline, this one self-imposed by the TMT International Observatory Board.

TMT spokesman Scott Ishikawa issued this statement Friday: “With the contested case hearings in Hilo appearing to be coming to a close, we remain hopeful that a permit can be issued in a timely manner to begin construction of TMT on Maunakea by April 2018.”

At the same time, Ishikawa added, the board continues to work through the necessary steps to enable building at the backup site in the Canary Islands on the same timeline.

“However, Maunakea continues to be the preferred choice for the location of the Thirty Meter Telescope, and the TIO Board will continue intensive efforts to gain approval for TMT in Hawaii,” he said.

Doug Simons, director of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, also on Mauna Kea, said it’s becoming increasingly difficult to see how the contested case timeline and TMT’s decision dates align.

“Having said that, it’s clear to me that allowing such in-depth testimony (during the hearing) gives a cross section of our community an important opportunity to share their views and concerns,” he said. “Even if there is no agreement on outcome, hearing one another is an important part of the healing process for our community.”

Another Mauna Kea astronomer, Thayne Currie, added, “I’m just glad the hearings are finally wrapping up: This has been such a circus.”

Some of the project foes are clearly trying to “filibuster” the proceedings, Currie said, and he finds the grandstanding “rather offensive and shameless.”

“But the judge is bending over backwards to make sure the process seems fair, and I guess that is what the community needs,” he said in an email.

Harm is alleged

Whatever the outcome, the hearing has been a healing and empowering experience for the petitioners, many of whom have been able to describe their own spiritual connection to the mountain and tell of the personal injuries they feel, Mauna Kea Hui petitioner Kealoha Pisciotta said.

The witnesses representing TMT and UH finished their testimony in January, focusing largely on the scientific, educational and economic benefits of the telescope, as well as the effort made to try to reduce the project’s impact.

While most Native Hawaiians testifying in the hearing have opposed the telescope, Big Island farmer Richard Ha and other members of the Native Hawaiian group known as Perpetuating Unique Educational Opportunities (PUEO) offered their endorsement of the project.

“I really believe not allowing the TMT to be built will hurt our people,” Ha said last week, adding that the educational opportunities and funding for science, technology, engineering and math programs offered by the TMT simply can’t be turned away.

“Fighting against astronomy, banning astronomy from Maunakea, is as short-sighted as burning the oars of the canoe Hokule‘a because we need firewood,” Ha said in his written testimony. “The TMT is made up of the Pacific Rim nations of Canada, the U.S., Japan, India and China. What better purpose can we aspire to than cooperation among nations, rather than war? And what better place for cooperation than on Mauna Kea, in Hawaii, the land of aloha?”

But most of the witnesses in recent weeks have been solidly against the project, aiming to poke a hole in one or more of the eight criteria the project must meet by state law to win back its nullified conservation district use permit.

Most of the testifiers put a target on criterion No. 8: The proposed land use will not be materially detrimental to the public health, safety and welfare.

Maile Taualii, assistant professor and chairwoman of the Native Hawaiian and Indigenous Health program at the University of Hawaii, testified that building the TMT on sacred ground and restricting traditional and customary practices would harm Native Hawaiians mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually.

“My data shows specifically that those who are practitioners, as well as those who hold sacred the mountain, as well as all those who support Native Hawaiians having a connection to place, will feel and have reported feeling ill health effects as a result of the building of the telescope,” Taualii testified last month.

Under cross-examination, Taualii conceded that she didn’t speak to any Native Hawaiians who support TMT for her research.

Noelani Goodyear- Ka‘opua, UH-Manoa associate professor of political science specializing in Native Hawaiian and indigenous politics, testified that the Native Hawaiian cultural connection to the land should have precedence.

“When you modify a place such as the summit of the highest mountain, which Kanaka (Hawaiian) practitioners recognize as sacred, through the construction of a massive structure such as the TMT, you harm the ability of kanaka to fully be kanaka. You harm their ability to transmit knowledge about who they are in relation to this place to future generations,” she said in her written testimony.

“The TMT proposal is a perfect example of settler colonial logic: the destruction and alienation of native people to their lands in order to replace with settler regimes of knowledge, governance and sovereignty,” she testified last week.

Peter Mills, a professor of anthropology at UH Hilo, told the hearing that both federal and state regulations require the consideration of indirect effects. Those include, for example, the effect on a practitioner in Waimea who would wake up to a view of the Thirty Meter Telescope on the mountain.

“That is something that would be an adverse affect on the cultural practitioner,” he said.

Rios, the musician, activist and cultural practitioner from Waimea, said she’s learned through her gift as a medium that the northern plateau is a portal to the heavens and a place for learning about traditional and kupuna (elder) wisdom.

However, she testified, the spirit that filled her that day was angered by the desecration of the mountain and warned her that the portal would be lost permanently if the TMT is built.

“I was feeling what the spirit was feeling. There was an immense pain, a cry for help and for acknowledgment of what happened,” she said.

The spirit finally left, she said, but only after much chanting and prayer.