Mauna Kea

Searching the Universe while Destroying the Earth

By Henry Curtis

The Geography

Imagine a single mountain 60 miles long and 30 miles wide, standing almost five miles tall. Mauna Loa (Long Mountain) is the second highest mountain in the world.

Mauna Loa is dwarfed by the world’s tallest mountain: Mauna Wakea (Mountain of Wakea) aka Mauna Kea (White Mountain). Like Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea rises from the seabed with less than half of its height above sea level.

The third tallest mountain in the chain is Haleakala (House of the Sun). Through eons of erosion Haleakala has shrunk in size, and the island it sat on (Maui Nui) has retreated under the ocean, creating the separate islands of Maui, Lana`i, Moloka`i, Kaho`olawe, etc.

Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa and Haleakala are tall peaks within a vast ocean; the Pacific Ocean covers nearly 1/3 of the Earth’s surface.

Mauna Kea is significantly taller than Mt. Everest. From seabed to mountain tip, Mauna Kea is only slightly less in elevation that from the bottom of the deepest point in the Mariana Trench to sea level.

Mauna Kea: Picture by SOEST

The Northern Pacific Ocean extends from just off the islands on the edge of North America (Vancouver Island, etc.) to the islands on the edge of Asia (Philippines, etc.), from islands below the North Pole (the Aleutians) to the Equator. In this vast Northern Pacific Ocean region there are only a few land masses, most of which are low to the horizon. They are mostly atolls and islets. By contrast, Hawai`i (4000 square miles) has 7 of the ten largest islands of the Northern Pacific Ocean and over half the land mass of this vast empty oceanic region.

The Southern Pacific Ocean has more land areas, and many famous islands, but is still fairly sparse in terms of the land area compared to the ocean area.

Snow and Ice

Snow falls on Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa and Haleakala, unlike most of the Pacific islands located on either side of the equator.

Snow on Mauna Kea: Picture by NASA

To find snow outside of Hawai`i one has to travel 2,000-6,000 miles away: east to California; southwest to Puncak Jaya, Indonesia; southwest to Aoraki, New Zealand; and southeast to Ojos del Salado, Chile.

The Native People

The Pacific Ocean was settled by oceanic explorers travelling by double hold canoes over a period of several thousand years. They explored and settled in areas from what is now called Alaska, California and Chile, and all of the islands of the North and South Pacific.

Reaching Hawai`i from Tahiti in the south, they discovered a very large mountain. They named it Mauna Wakea, named after the great sky god Wakea. A shortened form of Wakea is Kea which has a second meaning: the color white. Hence Mauna Kea, with its snow belts visible from the sea, is sometimes translated to be White Mountain.

Travelling 1000s of miles by canoe and beholding the majestic Mauna Kea with its snow belt must have been breathtaking for the first explorers.

Mauna Kea is considered the piko by Native Hawaiians, a place of great spiritual value. Wākea (the sky father) married Pāpā (the earth mother) and their first born son is Mauna Kea. The summit is a taboo place, a region for high chiefs and a realm of the gods. The mountain is also known as Mauna o Wākea.

Four water goddesses ruled over the mountains north of Kilauea: Poliahu is usually referred to as the snow goddess; Lilinoe to fog, mist and rain; Waiau to the lake; and Houpo o Kane (the breast of Kane) is usually referred to at that point on the south side of Mauna Kea where springs break out and a small stream of water runs down the mountainside - as Kepa Maly describes - like a trickle of milk from a breast.

Clarence Ching notes "to have observed the 'trickle' of water around a foot wide at its beginnings calmly working its way down the mountain for at least a hundred yards of so, between, on both sides, a narrow, green carpet of grass (maybe 2 feet wide on each side), is a marvel to behold."

Kealoha Pisciotta: “It’s referred to up here as an alpine desert. But it’s important to realize there is a lot of water on Mauna Kea. Sometimes when you walk around, there are places where you can hear the water and it’s running. You can hear big drips. ...Like the pure water captured in the piko of a taro leaf before it can reach the ground, the waters of Mauna Kea, suspended high above in the realm of the sky father, Wakea, is considered pure and life giving. ...It is so pristine, it is the perfect water. It was the water that was able to bring back life, to resurrect someone who had already passed. That is how sacred the water from Mauna Kea is considered. It is not just water in liquid form, but water as ice, water as snow and also water from Lake Waiau. These are all considered sacred waters, and any water that’s harvested directly from the sky. ...Sometimes people harvest as the snow is falling. They collect it because that really hasn’t touched anything. ...Mauna Kea was one of the few places in the tropics that was repeatedly covered by glaciers during the ice ages. An ice cap as much as 400 feet thick once covered about 26 square miles of the summit area. The effects of the last ice age are still felt on the mountain. Permafrost, or ground ice, found just a few feet below the surface, is all that is left of a once-giant glacier."

Keawe Vredenburg: “Lilinoe is the kupua of fog and mist. And you can see Lilinoe as she comes down over the mountain sometimes. She flows up and over, very gently, very soft, like very fine kapa, white kapa*. It’s a remarkable sight and it really makes you very aware of the mist, of how mist flows around. It’s not obtrusive, it doesn’t get in your face. But it’s there and it’s obvious that it’s very, very beautiful.”

Lake Waiau: Photo by Na Maka o ka Aina 

The Tsunami

Tsunamis struck Hilo in 1960 resulting in heavy damage to downtown Hilo. The Hawai`i Island Chamber of Commerce turned to astronomy as a possible economic answer. In 1961 the University of Hawai`i’s Hawai`i Institute of Geophysics (HIG) was founded with a solar observatory was planned for Haleakala. Thus a competition resulted between business interests in Maui and Hawai`i Counties for the future location of astronomical facilities.

The Moon Race and Mars

The world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik I was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957 and circled the world in 98 minutes. President John F Kennedy initiated a decade long drive to land a man on the Moon. In 1969 crew members from Apollo 11 landed on the lunar plain called the Sea of Tranquility.

NASA felt that Hawai`i would be the ideal place to build an observatory to monitor the Apollo spaceships. Hawai`i Governor John A. Burns agreed.

Honolulu Star-Bulletin Editorial (September 28, 1964): “Suddenly, in the rush to Space, the peaks of the Hawaiian Islands have become a scientific asset of incalculable value. They are unique; nowhere else do peaks rise so high surrounded by sea. Thus their tops are (1) high enough to be above most cloud formations and (2) in air uncontaminated by dust. ...Nobody is going to 'destroy' the peaks in the sense of bulldozing them down. But installations on their slopes which produce dust, bugs or other contaminators of pure skies would render them useless. ... Only the hand of man can destroy them as such. This must not be allowed to happen.”

In 1964 initial planning began for a road to the summit. Mauna Kea became home to an astronomy observatory to assist the Moon Mission. Then scientists began envisioning more telescopes. In 1965 plans were under way for a telescope designed to monitor Earth’s 1967 close encounter with Mars.

Gov Burns favored a road from the peak of Mauna Kea to the new science city of Waimea. "Burns cherishes the idea of a science city at Waimea, generated by the community of space scientists who will stare at the stars through giant telescopes at Mauna Kea's summit. It would be backed by a four-year residential liberal arts college, also at Waimea. ...‘Any development you get on any part of this Island helps the whole Island and the whole State,’ Burns said firmly. Now is a 'very real time of change and challenge,’ for the Big Island, not a time for 'parochialism,' said Burns." (Honolulu Star-Bulletin Editorial (October 20, 1967)

Gov. Burns wanted the scientists to live in Waimea. Burns stated: "Hilo is fighting to keep them in Hilo, but they don't want to go to Hilo. They want to come here. You've got such a nice place, people are going to move in. ...We can't hold up the progress of time. Change is with us." (Honolulu Advertiser, October 21, 1967)

The Hawaiian-Polynesian Rebirth

Following the illegal 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation, and decades of cultural and language suppression, Native Hawaiians began to reassert themselves in the 1970s.

In 1973 the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS) was founded. The Society sought to answer questions relating to how Polynesians voyage across vast sections of the ocean. In 1975 the Polynesian Voyaging Society began building the Hōkūle‘a and the following year the Hōkūle‘a sailed on its maiden international voyage, travelling from Hawai‘i to Tahiti, guided by master navigator Pius Mau Piailug, a resident of Satawal (Yap, Micronesia).

“Since its first voyage to Tahiti in 1976, PVS has journeyed across the islands of Hawai'i, from Cape Kumukahi and Ka Lae on the Big Island to Papahānaumokuākea; to the far corners of Polynesia (Aotearoa and Rapanui); from Vancouver south to San Diego and north to Alaska; and through Micronesia to Japan. It has explored the ocean of our ancestors in order to rediscover and perpetuate through practice Hawaiian voyaging traditions and values and to bring together communities throughout the Pacific”.

The navigation took place relying on ancient knowledge of the sea, the stars, the weather, without the use of modern technology.

Multiplying Pimples

The University of Hawai`i’s Institute for Astronomy (IfA) was established in 1967, and planning was initiated for the first telescopes on the summit. Following delays due to altitude, ice, storms, and telescope equipment, the first major telescope on Mauna Kea, the UH 88-inch telescope (1970), was dedicated as the seventh largest optical/infrared telescope in the world. Others followed: UKIRT infrared reflecting telescope (1979); Canada-France-Hawaii optical reflecting telescope (1979); and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (1979).

Mauna Kea Telescopes: Photo by IFA

Hawai`i County Mayor Herbert Matayoshi (1974–1984) considered the astronomical facilities on Mauna Kea to be “pimples of the face of a beautiful mountain."


Mae Mull of Sierra Club began to call for a limit on the proliferation of telescopes and improved management of the fragile summit in the late 1970s.  The efforts of Sierra Club, and the complaints of hunters, skiers, and others including Mayor Matayoshi, led to a call by Governor Ariyoshi for a management plan for the summit.  

Mauna Kea Management Plans

The Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), the Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) and the University of Hawai`i (UH) created a series of management plans for Mauna Kea including the DLNR Mauna Kea Plan (1977); Hale Pōhaku Complex Development Plan (1980), the University's 1985 Mauna Kea Management Plan (approved by BLNR); the 1995 Management Plan (approved by BLNR); and the University’s 2000 Mauna Kea Science Reserve Master Plan (developed by Group 70 International; not approved by BLNR).

Group 70 International wrote the 1983/85 plan. The plan called for a maximum of 13 telescopes atop the mountain; the limit of 2 minor telescopes and 11 major telescopes, less than 125 feet tall, was based on the best available science. That number became a source of some of the conflict to follow. The 1983/85 master plan was intended to govern development on the mountain through 2000.


This was the last plan to describe how many telescopes should be on the summit. The 1995 plan was silent as to the telescope limit and the carrying capacity.


There are now at least 20 individual telescopes. (The Smithsonian submilimeter array has 8 individual telescopes).

Flair Ups

Kahea: “The law requires the state to collect fair market rent on our mountains, for the benefit of the people of Hawai'i. (HRS 171) We know that telescope time can go for as much as $80,000 per night; yet revenues from telescope time are collected by the observatories and remain with the observatories. For decades, summit conservation lands have been leased to some of the wealthiest national governments, institutions, corporations in the world for a mere $1/year.”

Sacred temple or window on the universe — or both? By Leslie Lang (Honolulu Weekly, March 27, 2002): “The 11,300-acre Mauna Kea Science Preserve, most of it at the summit of Mauna Kea, sits on ceded land. That’s land belonging to the Hawaiian Kingdom that was ceded to the U.S. government with the 1898 annexation. In 1993, Congress and President Clinton issued a formal apology for what they acknowledged was an illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. Hawaiians are still trying to regain control of those 1.8 million acres of ceded land, most of which was turned over to the state at statehood in 1959. The land beneath the astronomical observatories, which themselves generate a not-insignificant $142 million per year to the state’s economy, is leased by the state to the University of Hawai‘i through 2033. UH, in turn, leases land to the observatories for $1 per year.”

Destruction

While astronomers were exploring the stars, Native Hawaiians were finding that their family shrines were being removed by those connected to astronomy. Environmentalists noticed construction debris blowing down the mountain. Toxic chemicals were dumped. Summit cinder cones were flattened.


The summit ecosystems have been altered by dust, compaction, habitat alteration, pollution, and runoff. The habitat for the native alpine plants and insects has been diminished, but studies to monitor the impacts have not been funded as promised by the management plans dating back 1983.   Fred Stone, an entomologist who participated in the studies leading the the first EIS, discovered major wekiu bug habitat destruction had occurred when the base of the Pu`u Hau`oki cinder cone was dozed  for a construction site in 1996, contrary to protections outlined in the management plan.


An early study found that in less than two decades the wëkiu decreased in population by 99.7%. The studies funded since the discovery of habitat destruction (and since the study stating the 99.7% number) indicate that wekiu are widespread, but their numbers are affected by many factors, including compacted substrate and reduced snow cover.


It appeared to many that the summit was destined to become an industrial city. The use of cesspools has led to seepage of thousands of gallons of sewage and spills of hazardous fluids into the ground at the summit. This is an affront to the Native Hawaiians and practitioners who feel that the waters of Kane originate at the summit, and that the purity of the aquifer is tainted by this offense.

Kealoha Pisciotta (Mauna Kea Anaina Hou) and Nelson Ho (Sierra Club) has raised the issue of hazardous materials used in the telescope industry. For example, telescopes use mercury which is highly toxic. There have been a number of accidental mercury spills on the Mauna Kea Summit.

Subaru Excavation

The 1998 State Legislative Audit

At the request of the legislature, the State auditor conducted an audit of the management of Mauna Kea and the Mauna Kea Science Reserve.

Audit of the management of Mauna Kea and the Mauna Kea Science Reserve: "We found that the University of Hawai`i’s management of the Mauna Kea Science Reserve is inadequate to insure protection of natural resources. The university focused primarily on the development of Mauna Kea and tied the benefits gained to its research program. Controls were outlined in the management plans that were often late and weakly implemented. The university’s control over public access was weak and its efforts to protect natural resources were piecemeal.  The university neglected historic preservation, and the cultural value of Mauna Kea was largely unrecognized.  Efforts to gather information on the Wekiu bug came after damage had already been done.  Trash from construction was cleaned up only after concerns were raised by the public.  Old testing equipment constructed in the early years of development has not been removed as required by the lease agreement." 


Life of the Land testimony to the UH Board of Regents (September 9, 1999): “The development of Mauna Kea is a huge issue in communities all around Hawai`i nei. The mismanagement of our natural and cultural resources was severely criticized in the February 1998 Legislative Auditor’s Report and the serious breach of trust with the community was the paramount issue at three public hearings held in late May in Kona, Waimea, and Hilo. This breach of trust is so serious that kupuna, Hawaiian organizations, community people, environmental groups, the Hawai`i Island Chamber of Commerce and the Big Island Economic Development Board have all called for a moratorium on development”.

Telescopes and the Courts (2001-07)

Unable to stop the University of Hawai`i and the Board of Land and Natural Resources from rubber stamping development plans in the sacred summit area, environmentalists and Native Hawaiians turned to the courts. These groups and individuals included OHA, Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, The Royal Order of Kamehameha I, Sierra Club and Clarence Kukauakahi Ching.

In 2003, The Office of Hawaiian Affairs sued NASA to compel it to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. OHA prevailed. Judge Susan Oki Mollway ruled that “The court specifically holds that the present EA does not adequately consider the impact of development of the outrigger telescope site when added to other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions.”

The University of Hawai‘i Institute for Astronomy filed a Conservation District Use Permit application (CDUA) with the BLNR to construct and operate up to 6 telescopes at the summit. The EIS eventual completed for the NASA Keck Outrigger telescopes revealed that the cumulative impact of telescope development on natural and cultural resources had been significant, adverse and severe.  Following public hearings and a contested case proceeding, the Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) approved the CDUA is 2004. On appeal, in 2007 Judge Hara ruled in favor of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou et al, noting that approval of a management plan was a “precondition to granting CDUP.” The last valid comprehensive management plan (the one approved by the BLNR in 1995) was silent on telescope development. Because no additional development was planned for, the permit granted by the BLNR for the Keck Outrigger project was in conflict with the plan they themselves approved. He therefore revoked the permit.

The 2005 State Legislative Audit

Follow up audit of the management of Mauna Kea and the Mauna Kea Science Reserve: The audit found that many of the recommendations from the 1998 audit had been acted on but that more needed to be done. The Management Plans needed updating, provide greater transparency and accountability, and increase community involvement. The audit found that the University had the responsibility for the protection of cultural and natural resources within its jurisdiction, but it could not legally establish and enforce administrative rules.

The Proposed Expansion Continues

Further Astronomical Facilities are being planned for Mauna Kea: Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT); Pan-STARRS; and the Subaru Telescope.

State Laws Continue to be Ignored

Miwa Tamanaha (Kahea, 2011): “The law requires the protection, preservation and conservation of Mauna Kea and Haleakalā through "appropriate management" and promotion of "long-term sustainability and the public health, safety and welfare." (HRS 183C)


The law requires the state to develop comprehensive management plans, (HAR 183C) to be approved by the State Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) when astronomy developments are proposed in the conservation district. A proper planning process begins with the resource management agency (DLNR) from thorough baseline information on ecosystems, including habitat, hydrology, vegetation, cultural sites, traditional and customary practice, native species, and geology, and lead to a public, community-driven process for designating appropriate land use. In contrast, we have yet to see any study of the carrying capacity of Mauna Kea for industrial development. To date, few conservation districts anywhere in the world have been so industrialized with so little basic planning, so few basic studies of ecosystems and resources, and so little assessment of how ecosystems might be impacted by proposed development.


In April 2009 (Mauna Kea) and December 2010 (Haleakalā), over protests of community members and cultural practitioners, the BLNR instead signed off on plans written by the lead developer, the University of Hawai'i. These plans are not based on any study of carrying capacity of these summits for development. Nor do they attempt to place any upper limit on development. In approving these development plans, the BLNR literally "paved the way" for the largest expansion of industrial land use on these summits in nearly a decade--the 18-story Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea, and the 14-story Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) on Haleakalā, and supporting new roads, construction staging area (batch plant), parking, people, and vehicle traffic.”

The Cultural Clash Continues

Mauna Kea Anaina Hou et al (2010): “Mauna Kea has been and continues to be held in reverence by the Hawaiian people as a Wahi Pana and Wahi Kapu. Mauna Kea is revered in the same way that other religions revere churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques.

The upper regions of Mauna Kea reside in Wao Akua, the realm of the Akua-Creator. It is the burial ground of the most sacred of our ancestors. It is considered the Temple of the Supreme Being and is acknowledged as such in many oral and written histories throughout Polynesia. It is home of Na Akua (the Divine Deities), Na 'Aumakua (the Divine Ancestors), and the meeting place of Papa (Earth Mother) and Wakea (Sky Father) who are considered to be the progenitors of the Hawaiian People. It is where the Sky and Earth separated to form the Great-Expanse-of-Space and the Heavenly Realms. Lake Waiau is considered (among other things) to be the doorway into the Po (i.e., the mystical realm of the ancestors). Mauna Kea in every respect represents the zenith of the Native Hawaiian people's ancestral ties to the process of creation itself.

The ceremonies and practices on Mauna Kea (practiced nowhere else) formed the basis of the navigational knowledge that allowed Hawaiians to navigate over ten million square miles of the Pacific Ocean millennia before modern science and before Captain Cook ever set eyes on Hawai`i Nei. Hawaiian navigation is both a cultural and scientific contribution, not only to Hawai`i but also to the world and the global knowledge base. ...

The summit lands are designated conservation lands not only because of their unique cultural, historic, geological, and climatic features, but also because they are watershed lands. Mauna Kea is the principle aquifer for the island of Hawai`i.

If these waters are contaminated, they can no longer be used for ceremonies, healing, and/or for drinking. Mauna Kea's highly protected status as a National Landmark, a National Historic District, and a State Conservation District are because of these unique, rare and fragile features. These natural resources are part of the public trust recognized in Hawai‘i's Admission Act, the Hawai'i State Constitution, and in the judicially recognized public trust duties and responsibilities of the State. By comparison, the development of astronomy facilities, however valuable they may be in their own right, are not afforded this level of reverence and protection by our society.

Unlike the summit district and the practices related to it, construction of astronomy facilities is not mentioned in any state statute or the constitution. It is not a protected public trust activity.”

The Public Trust

The public trust is supposed to be enforced by the government, but sadly, it is being ignored at Mauna Kea. Instead, the public trust is being enforced by the courts as a result of actions by a handful of dedicated environmentalists and Native Hawaiians.

** The author wishes to thank Miwa Tamanaha, Clarence Ching, Deborah Ward and others for suggesting editorial changes which are reflected in this revised article.

By Henry Curtis
ililani.media@gmail.com


# # #