The opposition to construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea is eerily similar to Native Hawaiian opposition to building the H-3 freeway in the 1980s.

During part of the construction in Halawa, concrete trucks would line up to begin a pour that required them to pour continuously to ensure the mix was strong and would not crack. Every day a group of protesters would find out where and when the trucks would be going and they would lay down in front of the heavy trucks.

The trucks would turn around and take their mix somewhere else. This cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasted concrete.

In order to stop wasting money on an approved federal project, Honolulu police started arresting the protesters who were illegally laying in front of the trucks, and put them on buses to go to jail. Without the arrests H-3 might not have been built.

It worked then. It would work now.

Earl Arakaki

Ewa Beach

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