Construction of Thirty Meter Telescope delayed at least 2 years

The developers of the planned Thirty Meter Telescope are now saying that construction of the $2.4 billion cutting-edge observatory isn’t likely to start for at least a couple of years.

“TMT needs time to heal our relationship with the community and to recover from the delays caused by the pandemic,” Kerry Slater, TMT chief of staff and vice president of communications, said in a statement provided Friday to the Hono­lulu Star-Advertiser.

The project also faces the real likelihood it will have additional regulatory hurdles placed before it when and if it scores additional funding from the U.S. government.

Slater said the project is now awaiting the results of the federal Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics, which is expected to provide guidelines and recommendations to federal agencies regarding U.S. scientific funding for the next decade.

Slater said the outcome of the survey “will shape the future of astronomy for the years to come.”

The survey’s report is expected to be released in the next few months and might well recommend funding for the TMT as many of the white papers submitted as part of the once-a-decade evaluation describe the importance of next-generation telescopes, such as the TMT, to carry astronomy to the next level.

In the meantime, the Native Hawaiian opponents of the stalled project held their first major protest in the past year and a half Friday as the University of Hawaii is preparing a master plan for Mauna Kea that welcomes construction of the controversial observatory.

An anti-TMT crowd of about 100 gathered late Friday afternoon on the UH campus, where speakers criticized the university for its role in continuing to push for the large telescope in spite of years of protest.

“The UH has shown itself to be a bad manager of these important lands for over 50 years and their master plan for the future of Mauna Kea validates the fact that UH has not been listening nor do they care about the harm further development on the summits will do to the Kanaka Maoli people and to those who love and protect this mountain,” organizers said in a news release publicizing the event.

Speakers pledged Friday to continue resisting the TMT whenever it is built, saying it will desecrate sacred land that was stolen from the Indigenous people of Hawaii.

“The moment we stay silent is the moment we lose everything,” Healani Sonoda­- Pale of Ka Lahui Hawai‘i told the crowd. “And if you have a choice at any time to stand up or to speak out for our aina, for our people, for our lahui, you have to do it, because that’s our kuleana.”

During a virtual forum Wednesday, UH officials said that while the 20-year master plan certainly does accommodate the TMT — since it is an authorized and permitted project — it also works even if the telescope isn’t built in Hawaii.

“The master plan has been crafted in a way that basically reflects reality,” said Doug Simons, director of the UH Institute for Astronomy. “We don’t know if TMT is going to get built or not. Nobody knows, right? There are funding challenges ahead for the TMT, and the master plan is resilient to either outcome for the TMT.”

Greg Chun, executive director of the Center for Maunakea Stewardship, said that if the TMT is not built, the site will be available for another telescope, although the master plan will continue to restrict the number of telescopes on the mountain to nine by the end of 2033.

“Anybody proposing to build there would have to weigh the risks pretty heavily,” Chun said.

If TMT does get the additional funding it needs, there likely are several regulatory hoops the project would have to go through.

Environmental planner Jim Hayes, president of Planning Solutions and primary author of the Mauna Kea master plan, said the additional environmental review would be determined by the U.S. agency giving the money.

But it is possible, he said, that the project would be required to complete a new environmental impact state- ment that complies with the National Environmental Policy Act, as well as conduct a formal consultation with Native Hawaiians as called for in Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.

There may also be endangered species requirements, coastal zone management issues “and a host of other environmental rules and regulations,” Hayes said, but it would be up the federal agency giving the funds.

The TMT, which would be 10 times more powerful than anything now on Earth, attempted to start construction in 2015 and in 2018 but was thwarted by protesters each time.

At the time, officials had estimated the cost of the project at $1.4 billion, but inflation and other factors prompted a recalculation that added an additional billion dollars to the price tag.

Last year the TMT teamed up with another proposed mega-observatory, the U.S.-led Giant Magellan Telescope, planned for Chile, and created the U.S. Extremely Large Telescope Program.

Under their combined funding plan, the National Science Foundation would contribute $850 million to each project, and that would guarantee American astronomers about one-fourth of the observing time on each of the powerful telescopes.

According to the plan, the two telescopes would offer astronomers full coverage of the heavens from both hemispheres. Instruments on both telescopes could be used for joint or even simultaneous investigation of any number of objects in the sky.

Last week the TMT described some of the details of its proposed operations plan on its website.

The telescope, according to the plan, would have its main headquarters in Hilo and base as many staff members as possible there while minimizing the number of staff required to travel up the mountain daily for on-site maintenance and engineering support. In this model, only about 35 staff members will need to travel daily to the site.

It was estimated that 115 staff members will be needed to fully operate the TMT 24 hours a day, seven days a week all year long.

Mauna Kea continues to be the preferred location for the telescope, but the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands remains the backup site, officials said.