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Native group
offers its plan
for Mauna Kea
development

It would allow three new
telescopes, though some
Hawaiians and others want
astronomy to expand
no further

By Rod Thompson
Star-Bulletin

HILO -- "Less objectionable" proposals are the latest hope that astronomy can continue to grow on Mauna Kea without being seen as an insult to Hawaiian culture, according to one native Hawaiian group.

Ed Stevens of Ahahui Ku Mauna hopes his group's proposals, worked out with a subcommittee of University of Hawaii regents, will be ready when the regents meet in Hilo tomorrow and Friday.

The regents are scheduled to consider a proposed new master plan to guide astronomy expansion on Mauna Kea to the year 2015. They have rejected several previous versions since last year.

Some native Hawaiian groups and environmentalists oppose the expansion because they say Mauna Kea is a sacred site.

"The Hawaiian community is screaming, 'No more,' " Stevens said.

Ahahui Ku Mauna agrees, but the all-Hawaiian group can accept "less objectionable" proposals, he said. "We know we can't make everybody happy," he said.

Power for people's council

Among Ahahui's key points are reducing the number of proposed new telescopes from five to three, and giving a proposed Kahu/Kupuna Council the power to disapprove new proposals. Kahu are teachers, kupuna, elders.

Earlier aspects of the draft plan include:

Reducing astronomy zones from 160 acres to 150, but adding five new telescopes (perhaps now only three) and expanding two.

"Recycling" four sites by replacing existing telescopes with bigger ones.

Leaving five telescopes unchanged.

Stevens knows that some people don't understand the opposition to astronomy.

He explains by referring to a ridge at the summit that has been leveled for the two Keck telescopes: "When the Hawaiians look at that, it breaks their heart."

Hawaiian cultural expert Kepa Maly said Mauna Kea is the piko, the navel, which connects Hawaiians back through time. Some Hawaiian families still carry the dried piko of their newborn children to the summit to this day, he said.

Native Hawaiian Kealoha Pisciotta spent 11 years working as a telescope operator on Mauna Kea. She says Hawaiian anger comes from three decades of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy failing to follow state and federal environmental and cultural laws.

"It's not Hawaiians against astronomy," she said. "Hawaiians have been astronomers for millennia. But people have reached the limit."

Reviewing payment terms

Institute for Astronomy head Robert McLaren says university management of Mauna Kea has been "quite significant." He concedes there is a perception that not much has been done, but says it comes from people who don't know what has happened.

Sierra Club member Nelson Ho said 99 percent of the wekiu bug, found only at the summit, has disappeared since it was discovered in 1982. No studies have been done to explain why that happened, he said.

The university could fund such studies, and satisfy state and federal environmental laws, by imposing "impact fees," Ho said.

The only payment observatories now provide is the viewing time granted to the university.

Keck head Fred Chaffee said there are contracts guaranteeing time in lieu of payment. He calls them "treaties," meaning they should not be broken.

One proposal of the new master plan is to put nonastronomy activity on Mauna Kea, such as the sticky issue of public access to the summit, in the hands of a new office answering to the chancellor of the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

Stevens said that idea is better than the present "remote control" from Honolulu.

But the head of the Ka Lahui sovereignty group, Mililani Trask, wants an independent "authority" controlling the mountain.