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Hawaii Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Building Thirty Meter Telescope

208 points by okket 8y ago

emiliobumachar 8y ago
Off-topic: the publication is named "staradvertiser". (The adds do seem unusually well-targeted to me.) It's the first time I see a publication whose name is clearly trying to appeal to advertisers rather than viewers. Has anyone else seen any others? Any insights about their counter-intuitive decision?
- true_religion 8y ago
  Australia has one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Advertiser_(Adelaide) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Advertiser_(Adelaide)
- jhall1468 8y ago
  Advertiser was a common name for newspapers at the time. It's an old publication (although I'm pretty sure it was called SomethingElse Advertiser). I'd guess it's using the older definition of advertiser "call attention to". The fact that the ads were well targeted was coincidence.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  “Advertiser” is not an uncommon newspaper name or name element. E.g., https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Advertiser https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Advertiser
- closetohome 8y ago
  Pretty sure they weren't doing targeted ads in 1856.
- jjcm 8y ago
  The name isn't trying to appeal to advertisers, it's just a name that's been inherited via mergers. The "advertiser" part of it came from the "Pacific Commercial Advertiser" which was a daily Hawaii based newspaper formed in 1856. If you look up lists of newspapers[1], you'll see that "Advertiser" was a common name for them in the mid 1800s. [1] ie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_Alabama
- sosborn 8y ago
  The name is a relic of the past. We originally had two newspapers in here, the Honolulu Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin. A while back the two merged into what we now know as the Star Advertiser. For what it's worth, as the only major newspaper, they don't have to go out of their way to appeal to advertisers. If you want to buy print ads, you don't have much choice.
- astrocat 8y ago
  Honolulu used to have two daily papers: The Star Bulletin, and the Honolulu Advertiser. A while back, they merged and created the "Star-Advertiser."
ergothus 8y ago
The actual legal issues in question are barely touched on in the article: > But some environmentalists and Native Hawaiian groups say the spread of observatories on the summit has polluted the mountain, interfering with traditional cultural and religious practices, or are actually infringing on the sovereignty of the Hawaiian kingdom. The links in the article to the actual decisions are broken (for me at least) The article https://bigislandnow.com/2018/08/08/supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-state-in-appeal-relating-to-tmt/ https://bigislandnow.com/2018/08/08/supreme-court-rules-in-f... implies that the issues were largely procedural and this decision isn't actually deciding if any of the above are true. So I'm left seeing big claims, but no real idea on if those claims are true-but-ignored, mostly-not-true, or a fringe-group-only-viewpoint. (While the media coverage IMPLIES that those claims ARE decided, and it's that implication that bugs me)
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
  Thanks, that phrase, > or are actually infringing on the sovereignty of the Hawaiian kingdom made no sense to me, given that the Hawaiian Kingdom hasn't been a sovereign entity for 125 years.
  - codezero 8y ago
    I think that since it didn't voluntarily surrender its sovereignty, some might feel it should still have it, but I don't know too much about the subject, so maybe it's time for me to read up a bit.
    - sosborn 8y ago
      You hit the nail on the head. The stuff about pollution and interruption of cultural practices is more about the idea that those things are being forced upon native Hawaiians, much like annexation was. Not all native Hawaiians feel this way about the telescopes, but the ones that do are the ones protesting.
      - protomyth 8y ago
NotAmazin 8y ago
>Thirty Meter astronomers had said if they didn’t get a green light to build on Mauna Kea, they would build it on La Palma in the Canary Islands, off Africa. Good for them
- pastor_elm 8y ago
  Mauna Kea is 6000 ft higher though.
  - dmix 8y ago
    ..and off Africa.
  - Florin_Andrei 8y ago
    Altitude is not everything, and higher altitude does not automatically translate into better performance of the instrument. There are many, many factors that matter, including light pollution, transparency, cloud cover, air turbulence, jet streams, etc.
    - bobiverse 8y ago
      A report by the Canadian Astronomical Society (Canada has a ~15% stake) found that with taking all these variables into play, Mauna Kea is still the best site for TMT. See page 35 for the final recomendations: http://casca.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/CATAC-Report-Final.pdf http://casca.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/CATAC-Report-Fina...
      - Florin_Andrei 8y ago
        Of course. I was not saying Mauna Kea is not a good location. I was just saying there is a whole bunch of factors that matter besides altitude.
  - vatueil 8y ago
    La Palma's air quality is also not as good as Mauna Kea's (more dust blowing over from the Sahara), if I recall correctly. It may be the second best site in the northern hemisphere, but it's significantly behind the top choice.
kylecordes 8y ago
I visited the top of Mauna Kea a couple of months ago, as a tourist. It is a fascinating place, already so populated with telescopes that it is tough to imagine how adding another (likely built more carefully than older ones) could cause grave damage, interference with other uses of the area, etc. On the other hand: some of the telescopes have been there many years and are probably somewhat obsolete by today's standards, producing little new science. Perhaps one of the existing structures could have been removed to make room for the TMT, to lessen conflict.
- jlmorton 8y ago
  > Perhaps one of the existing structures could have been removed to make room for the TMT, to lessen conflict. TMT project will in fact remove three old telescopes.
  - kylecordes 8y ago
    Wow, great piece of info, seems very relevant to the dispute.
  - lutorm 8y ago
    The Governor decided that three telescopes would come down. One of these is the tiny UH Hilo education telescope, so it's not really anything like the others. Many people think that this particular telescope, the only one whose purpose is directly aimed at educating the local astronomy students, should not be the one sacrificed on the altar of the TMT, especially since its local impact is practically zero.
- starik36 8y ago
  >> it is tough to imagine how adding another one could cause grave damage This issue was brought up on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast several years when the problem first surfaced. I think the problem the islanders have is there are so many telescopes on the island already. Adding another one is simply piling on, in their view.
  - 8y ago
gammateam 8y ago
This is actually a fun case to read, I was mainly looking for what the dissenting opinion was, since it was 4-1. I think at least one of the points can be appealed in the federal courts, if the US Supreme Court would be down to hear it - so there would be several gambles. > In any event, as held by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Navajo Nation v. U.S. Forest Serv. , 535 F.3d 1058, 1077 (9th Cir. 2008) RLUIPA “applies only to government land-use regulations of private land such as zoning laws not to the government’s management of its own land. Therefore, this point of error is without merit. Not that the government would ever cede control over its own land, I just feel like the current Supreme Court would be more lenient to religious arguments. All the rest of this particular case ignores the religious arguments and focuses on the procedural stuff, which was all done by the book and expected of a state and federal permitting agency, at least compared to arbitrary claims by religious folks. Now on to the dissenting opinion: I gather no real rebuttal, just a partial affirmation to "points I-III" and no comment on the other points. hm. Applauds from me.
jjcm 8y ago
I'm glad this got pushed through - environmentalists in Hawaii can be an interesting bunch, and often choose to blockade things that are high profile simply to get their message out, even if the ecological impact is highly minimal. A great example of this in the past was the Hawaii Superferry[1], which was blockaded by environmentalists who said that it would damage the reef. Which while it might be true, standard shipping freighters already travelled the same route and had a higher ecological impact than the lighter dual-hulled ferry, which would have taken a lot of the shipping volume of the more damaging ships. By blocking the ferry, the environmentalists got a lot of publicity, but ultimately the reef ended up suffering more as the ferry got shut down. With this, the ecological impact will be highly minimal (based on the impact of the existing observatory and the environmental studies done after the plans were drawn up), but it's very high profile so a natural target for them. I'm very glad that the court pushed it through as they had no data to back up their claims that that it would pollute the mountain. The claim that it interfered with traditional and cultural practices has some merit, but that's only because the entire mountain of Mauna Kea is considered sacred - nothing about the peak itself is special. Also, there's already a ton of observatories up there[2], so it wouldn't be changing the status quo in any way. Overall I personally saw their protests as more political than based on arguments with merit. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Superferry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Superferry [2] https://i.imgur.com/7TjQd52.png https://i.imgur.com/7TjQd52.png
- Steko 8y ago
  The “SuperFerry” was a huge boondoggle that tried to endrun around the EIS process which dozens of other ferrys around the country seemed to have no trouble complying with. The economics never supported a passenger ferry and the whole thing was a smokescreen to milk DoD.
creaghpatr 8y ago
Feel good compromise: Eminent Domain a spot of Zuckerberg's 750-acre property. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/mark-zuckerberg-hawaii-land-lawsuits-kauai-estate https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/mark-zuck...
bobiverse 8y ago
This is great to hear! Mauna Kea is a far better location for the kind of science TMT will be doing [1], especially when it has to compete with the European Extremely Large Telescope in the southern hemisphere. [1]: http://casca.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/CATAC-Report-Final.pdf http://casca.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/CATAC-Report-Fina...
VikingCoder 8y ago
I'm sad that some native people are upset. I wish it was easier to build things like this off of the Earth, in space or on the Moon or Mars, etc.
- myself248 8y ago
  But space is sacred! To the group of native-space-beings I just made up and claim to be a member of. Launching things into space violates our sovereignty. It tramples our sacred orbits, and makes a mockery of our proud heritage. We shall protest all launches, all progress, all research, and especially anything that might make money or improve anyone's life in even the tiniest way. We'll feed off the publicity, and the habit of some in the media to represent even our whack-ass views as being co-equal and legitimate right alongside everyone else. And when people claim we made it all up, we'll only gather the sympathy of other whackaloons who've been accused of the same. It will only make us stronger. We shall call ourselves the Righteous Indig Nation.
- 8bitsrule 8y ago
  In recent decades, many large and important observatories have been constructed in the desert of northern Chile ... pretty much uncontested. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Astronomical_observatories_in_Chile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Astronomical_observat...
  - PopePompous 8y ago
    There is something to be said for having at least one 30 meter class telescope in the Northern hemisphere. There are parts of the sky which are never visible from Chile.
PopePompous 8y ago
I don't think this ruling changes much. The TMT project had permission to start construction 3 years ago. They could not even hold the ground-breaking ceremony, because protesters blocked the access road. Every time the TMT construction crews tried to drive up the mountain, protesters would stand in the road, and block the vehicles. A couple of hours later police would show up. They would stand around for 3ish more hours, and then arrest perhaps 5% of the people blocking the road. By the time that was done, it was too late for the construction crews to get to the summit and do any work, so everyone drove back down. The few people who were arrested were immediately released once they arrived in Hilo, so they'd be ready to do it all again the next day if the crews tried to return to the mountain. No significant fines were ever levied on the arrested protesters. The only way the TMT construction will be able to proceed is if local law enforcement is willing to arrest dozens of protesters (including "aunties" - photogenic elderly Hawaiian women) every week day, and not release them immediately. There is absolutely no reason to believe that will happen. Even if the local law enforcement officials are willing to perform mass arrests, there are lots of other pressure points that the protesters could attack. I would not be surprised to see the protesters shut down the University of Hawaii, which hosts the Institute for Astronomy that runs Maunakea Observatory, because that university has a very active Hawaiian Studies program. I worked for an observatory on Maunakea when the the first set of TMT construction protests took place. The protesters were allowed to build an unpermitted shelter building, to make blocking the road more convenient for them. If they spend half a day piling rocks in the road, they can declare that it is a sacred shrine, and the road maintenance crews cannot simply remove it. Meanwhile, our observatory had to go through a formal review process with an outside board if we wanted to move a small weather station from one side of our building's roof to another side.

208 points by okket 8y ago

Off-topic: the publication is named "staradvertiser". (The adds do seem unusually well-targeted to me.) It's the first time I see a publication whose name is clearly trying to appeal to advertisers rather than viewers. Has anyone else seen any others? Any insights about their counter-intuitive decision?

true_religion 8y ago
Australia has one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Advertiser_(Adelaide) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Advertiser_(Adelaide)
jhall1468 8y ago
Advertiser was a common name for newspapers at the time. It's an old publication (although I'm pretty sure it was called SomethingElse Advertiser). I'd guess it's using the older definition of advertiser "call attention to". The fact that the ads were well targeted was coincidence.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
dragonwriter 8y ago
“Advertiser” is not an uncommon newspaper name or name element. E.g., https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Advertiser https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Advertiser
closetohome 8y ago
Pretty sure they weren't doing targeted ads in 1856.
jjcm 8y ago
The name isn't trying to appeal to advertisers, it's just a name that's been inherited via mergers. The "advertiser" part of it came from the "Pacific Commercial Advertiser" which was a daily Hawaii based newspaper formed in 1856. If you look up lists of newspapers[1], you'll see that "Advertiser" was a common name for them in the mid 1800s. [1] ie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_Alabama
sosborn 8y ago
The name is a relic of the past. We originally had two newspapers in here, the Honolulu Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin. A while back the two merged into what we now know as the Star Advertiser. For what it's worth, as the only major newspaper, they don't have to go out of their way to appeal to advertisers. If you want to buy print ads, you don't have much choice.
astrocat 8y ago
Honolulu used to have two daily papers: The Star Bulletin, and the Honolulu Advertiser. A while back, they merged and created the "Star-Advertiser."

ergothus 8y ago

The actual legal issues in question are barely touched on in the article: > But some environmentalists and Native Hawaiian groups say the spread of observatories on the summit has polluted the mountain, interfering with traditional cultural and religious practices, or are actually infringing on the sovereignty of the Hawaiian kingdom. The links in the article to the actual decisions are broken (for me at least) The article https://bigislandnow.com/2018/08/08/supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-state-in-appeal-relating-to-tmt/ https://bigislandnow.com/2018/08/08/supreme-court-rules-in-f... implies that the issues were largely procedural and this decision isn't actually deciding if any of the above are true. So I'm left seeing big claims, but no real idea on if those claims are true-but-ignored, mostly-not-true, or a fringe-group-only-viewpoint. (While the media coverage IMPLIES that those claims ARE decided, and it's that implication that bugs me)

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
Thanks, that phrase, > or are actually infringing on the sovereignty of the Hawaiian kingdom made no sense to me, given that the Hawaiian Kingdom hasn't been a sovereign entity for 125 years.
- codezero 8y ago
  I think that since it didn't voluntarily surrender its sovereignty, some might feel it should still have it, but I don't know too much about the subject, so maybe it's time for me to read up a bit.
  - sosborn 8y ago
    You hit the nail on the head. The stuff about pollution and interruption of cultural practices is more about the idea that those things are being forced upon native Hawaiians, much like annexation was. Not all native Hawaiians feel this way about the telescopes, but the ones that do are the ones protesting.
    - protomyth 8y ago

NotAmazin 8y ago

>Thirty Meter astronomers had said if they didn’t get a green light to build on Mauna Kea, they would build it on La Palma in the Canary Islands, off Africa. Good for them

pastor_elm 8y ago
Mauna Kea is 6000 ft higher though.
- dmix 8y ago
  ..and off Africa.
- Florin_Andrei 8y ago
  Altitude is not everything, and higher altitude does not automatically translate into better performance of the instrument. There are many, many factors that matter, including light pollution, transparency, cloud cover, air turbulence, jet streams, etc.
  - bobiverse 8y ago
    A report by the Canadian Astronomical Society (Canada has a ~15% stake) found that with taking all these variables into play, Mauna Kea is still the best site for TMT. See page 35 for the final recomendations: http://casca.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/CATAC-Report-Final.pdf http://casca.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/CATAC-Report-Fina...
    - Florin_Andrei 8y ago
      Of course. I was not saying Mauna Kea is not a good location. I was just saying there is a whole bunch of factors that matter besides altitude.
- vatueil 8y ago
  La Palma's air quality is also not as good as Mauna Kea's (more dust blowing over from the Sahara), if I recall correctly. It may be the second best site in the northern hemisphere, but it's significantly behind the top choice.

kylecordes 8y ago

I visited the top of Mauna Kea a couple of months ago, as a tourist. It is a fascinating place, already so populated with telescopes that it is tough to imagine how adding another (likely built more carefully than older ones) could cause grave damage, interference with other uses of the area, etc. On the other hand: some of the telescopes have been there many years and are probably somewhat obsolete by today's standards, producing little new science. Perhaps one of the existing structures could have been removed to make room for the TMT, to lessen conflict.

jlmorton 8y ago
> Perhaps one of the existing structures could have been removed to make room for the TMT, to lessen conflict. TMT project will in fact remove three old telescopes.
- kylecordes 8y ago
  Wow, great piece of info, seems very relevant to the dispute.
- lutorm 8y ago
  The Governor decided that three telescopes would come down. One of these is the tiny UH Hilo education telescope, so it's not really anything like the others. Many people think that this particular telescope, the only one whose purpose is directly aimed at educating the local astronomy students, should not be the one sacrificed on the altar of the TMT, especially since its local impact is practically zero.
starik36 8y ago
>> it is tough to imagine how adding another one could cause grave damage This issue was brought up on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast several years when the problem first surfaced. I think the problem the islanders have is there are so many telescopes on the island already. Adding another one is simply piling on, in their view.
- 8y ago

gammateam 8y ago

This is actually a fun case to read, I was mainly looking for what the dissenting opinion was, since it was 4-1. I think at least one of the points can be appealed in the federal courts, if the US Supreme Court would be down to hear it - so there would be several gambles. > In any event, as held by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Navajo Nation v. U.S. Forest Serv. , 535 F.3d 1058, 1077 (9th Cir. 2008) RLUIPA “applies only to government land-use regulations of private land such as zoning laws not to the government’s management of its own land. Therefore, this point of error is without merit. Not that the government would ever cede control over its own land, I just feel like the current Supreme Court would be more lenient to religious arguments. All the rest of this particular case ignores the religious arguments and focuses on the procedural stuff, which was all done by the book and expected of a state and federal permitting agency, at least compared to arbitrary claims by religious folks. Now on to the dissenting opinion: I gather no real rebuttal, just a partial affirmation to "points I-III" and no comment on the other points. hm. Applauds from me.

jjcm 8y ago

I'm glad this got pushed through - environmentalists in Hawaii can be an interesting bunch, and often choose to blockade things that are high profile simply to get their message out, even if the ecological impact is highly minimal. A great example of this in the past was the Hawaii Superferry[1], which was blockaded by environmentalists who said that it would damage the reef. Which while it might be true, standard shipping freighters already travelled the same route and had a higher ecological impact than the lighter dual-hulled ferry, which would have taken a lot of the shipping volume of the more damaging ships. By blocking the ferry, the environmentalists got a lot of publicity, but ultimately the reef ended up suffering more as the ferry got shut down. With this, the ecological impact will be highly minimal (based on the impact of the existing observatory and the environmental studies done after the plans were drawn up), but it's very high profile so a natural target for them. I'm very glad that the court pushed it through as they had no data to back up their claims that that it would pollute the mountain. The claim that it interfered with traditional and cultural practices has some merit, but that's only because the entire mountain of Mauna Kea is considered sacred - nothing about the peak itself is special. Also, there's already a ton of observatories up there[2], so it wouldn't be changing the status quo in any way. Overall I personally saw their protests as more political than based on arguments with merit. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Superferry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Superferry [2] https://i.imgur.com/7TjQd52.png https://i.imgur.com/7TjQd52.png

Steko 8y ago
The “SuperFerry” was a huge boondoggle that tried to endrun around the EIS process which dozens of other ferrys around the country seemed to have no trouble complying with. The economics never supported a passenger ferry and the whole thing was a smokescreen to milk DoD.

creaghpatr 8y ago

Feel good compromise: Eminent Domain a spot of Zuckerberg's 750-acre property. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/mark-zuckerberg-hawaii-land-lawsuits-kauai-estate https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/mark-zuck...

bobiverse 8y ago

This is great to hear! Mauna Kea is a far better location for the kind of science TMT will be doing [1], especially when it has to compete with the European Extremely Large Telescope in the southern hemisphere. [1]: http://casca.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/CATAC-Report-Final.pdf http://casca.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/CATAC-Report-Fina...

VikingCoder 8y ago

I'm sad that some native people are upset. I wish it was easier to build things like this off of the Earth, in space or on the Moon or Mars, etc.

myself248 8y ago
But space is sacred! To the group of native-space-beings I just made up and claim to be a member of. Launching things into space violates our sovereignty. It tramples our sacred orbits, and makes a mockery of our proud heritage. We shall protest all launches, all progress, all research, and especially anything that might make money or improve anyone's life in even the tiniest way. We'll feed off the publicity, and the habit of some in the media to represent even our whack-ass views as being co-equal and legitimate right alongside everyone else. And when people claim we made it all up, we'll only gather the sympathy of other whackaloons who've been accused of the same. It will only make us stronger. We shall call ourselves the Righteous Indig Nation.
8bitsrule 8y ago
In recent decades, many large and important observatories have been constructed in the desert of northern Chile ... pretty much uncontested. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Astronomical_observatories_in_Chile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Astronomical_observat...
- PopePompous 8y ago
  There is something to be said for having at least one 30 meter class telescope in the Northern hemisphere. There are parts of the sky which are never visible from Chile.

PopePompous 8y ago

I don't think this ruling changes much. The TMT project had permission to start construction 3 years ago. They could not even hold the ground-breaking ceremony, because protesters blocked the access road. Every time the TMT construction crews tried to drive up the mountain, protesters would stand in the road, and block the vehicles. A couple of hours later police would show up. They would stand around for 3ish more hours, and then arrest perhaps 5% of the people blocking the road. By the time that was done, it was too late for the construction crews to get to the summit and do any work, so everyone drove back down. The few people who were arrested were immediately released once they arrived in Hilo, so they'd be ready to do it all again the next day if the crews tried to return to the mountain. No significant fines were ever levied on the arrested protesters. The only way the TMT construction will be able to proceed is if local law enforcement is willing to arrest dozens of protesters (including "aunties" - photogenic elderly Hawaiian women) every week day, and not release them immediately. There is absolutely no reason to believe that will happen. Even if the local law enforcement officials are willing to perform mass arrests, there are lots of other pressure points that the protesters could attack. I would not be surprised to see the protesters shut down the University of Hawaii, which hosts the Institute for Astronomy that runs Maunakea Observatory, because that university has a very active Hawaiian Studies program. I worked for an observatory on Maunakea when the the first set of TMT construction protests took place. The protesters were allowed to build an unpermitted shelter building, to make blocking the road more convenient for them. If they spend half a day piling rocks in the road, they can declare that it is a sacred shrine, and the road maintenance crews cannot simply remove it. Meanwhile, our observatory had to go through a formal review process with an outside board if we wanted to move a small weather station from one side of our building's roof to another side.