MAUNA KEA >> Opponents of the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope project atop Mauna Kea continued to gather support from near and far Saturday while law enforcement activity was mostly quiet.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources estimated there was a bigger weekend crowd of about 1,400 people in the area and around the intersection of the Daniel K. Inouye Highway and Mauna Kea Access Road.

Among them were Hawaii island Mayor Harry Kim and Honolulu City Councilwoman Heidi Tsuneyoshi.

Kim, who has been helping in TMT planning, praised the behavior of the self- described “protectors” who last week thwarted the first attempts to transport construction materials and equipment up the mountain.

“We all see different things, but I’ll tell you how I feel: For the first time in my 80 years of life, I see a group of people finally coming together to feel proud of being who you are, because you are the most beautiful, warmest, giving-est people on God’s Earth,” Kim said.

Tsuneyoshi visited in the morning, saying, “I have to say that since being here, I do not see a state of emergency. I actually see a state of humanity.”

Also Saturday, the state Senate Hawaiian Caucus and state Rep. Daniel Holt, chairman of the House Hawaiian Caucus, issued statements calling for Gov. David Ige to rescind the emergency proclamation he issued Wednesday to provide law enforce- ment with increased flexibility and authority to ensure public safety.

The TMT controversy is drawing attention on the mainland as well, with small-scale protest rallies held in Las Vegas on Saturday and at Union Square in New York City on Friday.

An agreement between the Department of Land and Natural Resources and TMT opponents allowed 14 unarmed National Guard officers with no arrest powers — the first ones deployed on the access road — to relieve the DLNR officers and state sheriffs who have been working on rotating shifts there for the past week. Honolulu police officers also provided relief.

In a minor incident Saturday, Hawaii island police responded to a 1:40 p.m. call of a disorderly male creating a disturbance at the Puu Huluhulu cinder cone. A 60-year-old Waimea man was arrested, police said.

Perhaps to squelch any rumors about an escalation in the law enforcement presence, state officials also announced Saturday that the 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry Regiment, a reserve Army unit, had arrived in Hawaii County for training “and is not in any way affiliated with the Hawaii National Guard or the Thirty Meter Telescope project.”

Meanwhile, a petition demanding an immediate stop to TMT construction reached its 100,000-signature goal on Thursday. Pua Case, one of the organizers of the group that started the petition, Mauna Kea Education and Awareness, said she plans to deliver it Wednesday to TMT funders and partners.

“Sometimes they really don’t get it until they see it, that it’s some Hawaiians and their supporters,” she said. “It’s actually people all the way around the world who know that Mauna Kea is connected to them.”

TMT opponents received more supplies on Saturday for their encampments and the puuhonua, or refuge, across from the access road that has become a hub of information, food and other support. At least 10 more portable toilets were brought to the area along with electronic variable- message signs as part of the deal with the DLNR to aid in managing traffic.

And there were more deliveries of drinking water — so much that truckloads had to be hauled into covered storage areas so the plastic bottles wouldn’t be left sitting in the sun.

The additional supplies came a day after Ige said there were inadequate bathroom and trash facilities for all the people at the site, that drugs and alcohol were being used and that people were running back and forth across the highway at night and in poor visibility, which he said made for unsafe conditions that justified keeping his emergency proclamation in effect.

Case said the extra kokua was not a response to that.

“With the overwhelming outpouring of support, you accommodate them,” she said. “You meet and you make adjustments to make sure your people are fed, to make sure they have the proper sanitation.”