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Actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson made a surprise visit to Mauna Kea on Wednesday afternoon to add some star power to the protests against the Thirty Meter Telescope, and a surge of people submitting comments about TMT on the governor’s website caused the site to crash.
The actor, who grew up on Oahu, visited with Kaho‘okahi Kanuha, a leader in the TMT opposition, as a crowd gathered around them.
Johnson did not announce the Wednesday visit in advance on his social media accounts, and his appearance surprised hundreds of people who were present when he arrived shortly before noon.
Native Hawaiian practitioner Pua Case and several hula dancers performed for the actor during his visit.
Johnson said he was honored to be there and told a crowd: “I stand with you.”
>> Photo Gallery: Actor Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson visits Thirty Meter Telescope opponents on Mauna Kea
“This is such a critical moment and a pivotal time. Because the world is watching,” Johnson said to loud cheers.
Johnson, who is of part-Samoan ancestry and not Hawaiian, is due to star as King Kamehameha the Great, the leader who unified the Hawaiian Islands in 1810, in an upcoming movie from his production company.
At Gov. David Ige’s office, receptionists have been swamped by calls since last week from people wanting to express their views on the $1.4 billion TMT project, which has become the focus of protests at the intersection of the Daniel K. Inouye Highway and Mauna Kea Access Road on Hawaii island.
The Mauna Kea “comment button” on the governor’s website was created to give constituents another way to submit their comments, according to a spokeswoman for Ige. She stressed it is not a poll or a survey, and people are able to submit multiple anonymous comments.
On Wednesday the volume of submissions caused the site to crash “off and on” from 8:30 a.m. to 11:26 a.m., she said. By 4:15 p.m. a total of about 14,200 comments had been submitted since the system went live Friday, with the totals running roughly 10-to-1 against the TMT project, she said.
“The information gathered will be assessed to give the administration a sense of how things are trending,” she said.
In another development, a two-person technical crew from the Gemini telescope was allowed to pass through the Mauna Kea protesters Tuesday night to reach the summit to perform critical work on some of its instruments after being denied access earlier, according to an announcement from Gemini.
The crew was granted passage through the protesters about 10:45 p.m. after the activists provided assurances through law enforcement and the Office of Maunakea Management that the technicians would be allowed to travel on Mauna Kea Access Road, according to the Gemini statement.
Opponents of the Thirty Meter Telescope have massed on the access road for more than a week in an effort to prevent construction equipment from reaching the summit and beginning work on the TMT project.
The Gemini Observatory reported Tuesday afternoon that a car carrying technicians was blocked by activists from reaching the summit.
According to Gemini, “activists told observatory personnel that without a formal, public letter from the observatories — supporting activists’ demands of the state — access for critical technical maintenance is no longer supported.”
Protest leader Kanuha said there was a discussion between the Gemini staff and the TMT opponents, and that the Gemini staff decided to retreat.
The activists have been allowing rangers, support staff at the visitors center, water trucks and telescope maintenance crews to travel to the summit, but not astronomers, according to a state spokesman.
The Gemini Observatory uses gaseous helium in a cooling circuit to maintain stable low temperatures for two delicate instruments used in astronomical observations, and that cooling system had become unstable, according to the statement from Gemini. That required specialized technicians to shut the system down to prevent damage to the instruments and the cooling circuit itself.
The two-person crew successfully executed a plan to protect the instruments and perform a standard facility inspection that is usually conducted on a daily basis. The crew completed that work just after 2 a.m. Wednesday and returned to Gemini’s Hilo base facility after 3:00 a.m., according to the statement.
“The observatories hope to return as soon as possible to long-term reliable access to our facilities so that we can resume operations and safely return to scientific observations each night,” according to the statement from Gemini.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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