Mauna Kea Summitry
Sacred temple or window on
the universe — or both?

Leslie Lang

March 27, 2002

"Some just look up and see a mountain, but for the Hawaiians it’s like building a McDonald’s at Stonehenge," an environmentalist once said. It’s an apt description for how many people feel about modern astronomical observatories resting on what Hawaiians consider their most sacred temple. Filled with both ancient and modern shrines, heiau, burials and other significant spiritual sites, Mauna Kea is, according to an interpretation of the Hawaiian creation chant, the place of origin of the Hawaiian people. The summit of Mauna Kea — the highest point in the Pacific — is considered "wao akua," or the realm of the gods.
     "It’s our Garden of Eden," says Paul Neves, ali‘i ‘aimoku (high chief) of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I. Also a pastoral associate, he speaks animatedly on the phone from his office at a Roman Catholic church in Keaukaha: "At the highest part of the mountain is where our sky father Wäkea and earth mother Papa meet. The observatories are right in it. You’re talking about money changers in our temple."
     "The burials up there are the burials of the highest-born people, the sacred ancestors," says Kealoha Pisciotta, president of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou and biodiversity education coordinator for KAHEA, a statewide nonprofit alliance of Hawaiian cultural practitioners and others concentrating on environmental and cultural issues. She says that Hawaiians have climbed the mountain to collect medicines, to worship and to take part in other traditional rituals for countless generations, and points out that these activities still occur today.
     Another sticking point: 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.
     "In regard to Mauna Kea," says Ed Stevens, a member of the Hawaiian cultural group Kahu Ku Mauna, "we were very angry — and sad — that they mismanaged the mountain, our ceded, sacred land up there, and allowed all this stuff to happen without consultation." Kahu Ku Mauna advises the Board of Regents of the University of Hawai‘i on cultural matters pertaining to Mauna Kea.

Astronomical Heaven
     Scientists and administrators, seemingly without exception, acknowledge the sacredness of the mountain and its import to Hawaiians. This is not debated. Where all the debate stems from is in how that sacredness is interpreted.
     "What I have learned is that the fact that the mountain is sacred obviously does not affect any kind of facilities up there," says Rolf-Peter Kudritzki, director of the University of Hawai‘i’s Institute for Astronomy (IfA), speaking softly and deliberately during a phone interview. "The question is, how do you deal with the people — or how do you communicate with the people — who think that the mountain is sacred?"
     The IfA advises the various observatories building and operating on the mountain and, in return, gets observing time at those observatories’ telescopes. The time is used by UH researchers and astronomy graduate students. Kudritzki says the IfA is one of the top five astronomy institutes or departments in the United States, and, in terms of citation counts in scientific papers, it’s ranked No. 2 in the country. "I think for a small state university like the University of Hawai‘i, that’s quite an astonishing accomplishment," he says. "And I think that is because we have access to all the telescopes on Mauna Kea."
     (Neves sees the whole topic of modern astronomy atop Mauna Kea in a different light. "You have people at the University of Hawai‘i saying, ‘But this is for education.’ What? Desecration? You’re going to give a Hawaiian student a degree at the cost of desecrating your most holy temple?")
     Before taking his position at the IfA a year and a half ago, Kudritzki, himself a longtime astronomer, directed a university observatory in Germany where he was also a county councilor and member of the Green Party. He says he knows there’s a lot of mistrust and skepticism about the astronomers on the mountain.
     "I can understand this," he says. "But I think people have to realize there is a new generation of people here who are very serious about their attempt to do their science, but who also want to have the public informed about everything that is going on and involved in everything that should be done in the future."
     Kudritzki says there needs to be clear limits on future development of the mountain. "The question is, should there be new telescopes and new facilities in the future? If yes, one of the ideas would be if you introduce a new telescope, then maybe you demolish an existing one. Or you stick to the master plan and restrict yourself to those sites which are foreseen in the master plan."
     Hawaiians, environmentalists and others concerned about the future of Mauna Kea agree on the need for limits, but Pisciotta of KAHEA and Mauna Kea Anaina Hou takes it even further. The Keaukaha resident, dressed in black and sporting a full body tattoo representing Mauna Kea, sits at a table outside a Hilo coffee house. She is emphatic. "We want no further development," she says. "The carrying capacity has already been reached."
     Thirty-two-year-old Pisciotta worked on Mauna Kea as an electronic technician at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory for a year, and then worked 11 years as a Telescopes System Specialist at the James Clerk Maxwell Submillimeter Telescope. Aside from visiting scientists, she says, she was only the second woman to work on Mauna Kea in modern times — and the first Native Hawaiian.
     She came down from the mountain and formed Mauna Kea Anaina Hou — a group of practitioners and cultural and lineal descendants with traditional ties to Mauna Kea — after her family shrine, where for years she had stopped on her way up or down the mountain to leave ho‘okupu (offerings), was removed from the mountain by, she says, an employee at the Visitor Information Station on Mauna Kea.

Modern History
     A 1983 master plan for Mauna Kea, prepared by Honolulu’s Group 70 International architecture and planning firm, called for a maximum of 13 telescopes atop the mountain. That number became a source of some — but not all — of the conflict to follow.
     Though the 1983 master plan was intended to govern development on the mountain through 2000, the real complaints about Mauna Kea stewardship began in the early 1990s. Some say the first flare-up involved Sierra Club members who noticed a few pieces of construction trash blowing down the mountain from the observatories. When they complained, they were ignored.
     Hawaiians had concerns about construction that had flattened some summit cinder cones, considered kino lau (body forms) of deities or markers of celestial events. An entomologist discovered that construction activity had destroyed critical habitats for the wëkiu bug, which eats wind-borne insects and is protected from freezing by its biological "antifreeze." Between 1982 and 1999, the summit’s wëkiu population collapsed, dropping 99.7 percent.
     Amid mounting concerns and pressures, the state did an audit of the UH-sponsored summit management. Published in 1998, the audit criticized the university, finding that it managed the mountain solely for its own benefit — for its research program and to build telescopes — while neglecting the historical, cultural and natural resources of Mauna Kea.
     The other driving fact in all the controversy is the number of telescopes. It appears that the ’83 master plan limited the number of telescopes on the mountain to 13; yet there are now about 25.
     "They tried to play ‘funny language’ by saying the Smithsonian is really only one observatory," Pisciotta says. "Yeah, but how many telescopes? They set 13 (telescopes) as a limit based on scientific data on the carrying capacity of the mountain — that number wasn’t just pulled out of the air."
     In response to the state’s 1998 audit, the university asked for public input in order to develop a new Mauna Kea Science Reserve Master Plan. There was enormous public response and a great amount of rancor about desecration of traditional sites, blocked access to gathering and spiritual sites, and about what was widely perceived to be general disregard for the care of the mountain.
     The new master plan, which went into effect in 2000, allows for the building of three additional observatories and the redevelopment of five current facilities. It established the Office of Mauna Kea Management (to implement the new master plan and bring management of the science reserve, previously on O‘ahu, to Hilo); established the Mauna Kea Management Board, comprised of Big Island community members who advise the OMKM and the UH Hilo chancellor; and established the Hawaiian cultural advisory group Kahu Ku Mauna to advise the Board of Regents of UH.
     And the plan allows for NASA’s longtime plan to build four to six new telescopes at the Keck Observatory.

NASA
     More than 200 people felt strongly enough about further development on Mauna Kea — many of them against it, some for it — to show up for a long Thursday evening, March 21, at a Hilo public hearing before the state Board of Land and Natural Resources. A similar hearing, also well attended, had been held the night before in Kona.
     The volatile topic at hand: a Conservation District Use Application (CDUA) filed by IfA on behalf of the California Association for Research in Astronomy, which seeks a permit to build six new telescopes on the mountain.
     Fred Holschuh, the permit-granting state Land Board’s Big Island representative, opened the crowded meeting by acknowledging that the topic is an emotionally charged issue and asking everyone to show respect for others in the room.
     About 60 people had signed up to testify. The crowd was calm but tension was evident. Samuel Kaleleiki, who opposes the permit, started his testimony by pointing to the far-more-than-capacity crowd and stating firmly, "You asked that we have respect for each other, yet you did not have respect for us. Next time," he said, "find a space big enough."
     The new telescopes would be built around the existing Keck Observatory, which holds the world’s largest and most powerful telescope. The smaller "outrigger" telescopes would collect starlight and combine it with that collected by the two Keck telescopes. This, says the IfA, would allow study of astronomical objects in far greater detail than is now possible. The $50 million project is key to NASA’s Origins project, which seeks to discover if there is life on other planets.
     At this point, much of the controversy regarding the permit application centers around NASA’s Environmental Assessment (EA) for the project. Virtually every agency and community organization that reviewed the EA — including the UH’s Office of Mauna Kea Management — found the project would have significant environmental or cultural impact and recommended that a full Environmental Impact Study (EIS) be completed before construction begins. An EIS would take at least a year to complete and would entail comprehensive analysis of the summit’s ecological, economic, social and cultural resources and significance, as well as quantify impacts of the proposed telescopes’ construction. The IfA, on the other hand, has proposed a "finding of no significant impact," which means it recommends that the CDUA be issued with no further study necessary.
     Wearing the distinctive black suit that signifies the Royal Order of Kamehameha, Paul Neves stood up and requested that the Land Board reject the permit application and instead allow a contested case hearing, a court-like proceeding in which various interested parties present evidence for or against the permit request. He listed some examples of what he called "the tragic history of desecration" on Mauna Kea: thefts of sacred artifacts and properties, the disturbing of graves, the closing of public roads by unauthorized persons, mercury spills and the denial of gathering rights and traditional-use rights.
     "The Royal Order of Kamehameha is aghast at the University of Hawai‘i’s plans to further desecrate our sacred site," Neves said, addressing the Land Board. "We encourage you to do what you are appointed to do and take care of the land and the natural resources."
     Ululani Sherlock of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) cited additional concerns: about hydrology on the mountain, whether there’s a public benefit to observatories paying only $1 per year lease rent, and the cumulative impact of development on Mauna Kea. She stated that OHA does not support the permit application.
     Hilo resident Genesis Lee Loy told the Land Board it could help rectify the harm of earlier land boards by denying the permit. Referring to the tenuous survival of the wëkiu bug atop Mauna Kea, Ed Clark of the Sierra Club reminded the board that "extinction is forever," and said an EIS must be done to understand the impact of development on the summit’s fragile environment.
     Speaking for issuance of the permit were astronomers from Mauna Kea and citizens like Ähualoa resident Pablo McLoud, who said he completely understands the cultural concerns but still supports construction of the telescopes because he wants answers to the big astronomical questions, "Are we alone?" and "Where do we come from?"
     NASA has been planning this expansion at the Keck Observatory, and the public has been strongly objecting, for quite some time. A 1999 Keck Observatory newsletter discussed results of public hearings that were held when a draft of the 2000 Master Plan was first released. "The outpouring of anti-astronomy sentiment these [hearings] elicited from, especially, native Hawaiian groups was sobering and distressing," stated the newsletter. "It is clear we have a lot of fence-mending to do."
     NASA has met extensively with concerned Hawaiian groups since then, and Pisciotta says it offered, among other things, "to buy us off. We said, ‘We’re not asking you for money because we cannot mitigate desecration. But we do want to know how much you think our culture is worth.’
     "You know what they came up with?" she asked. "$450,000. Then nobody said anything, and they said they could probably get it up to $850,000. And then they said, ‘Oh, we just got word from headquarters that we can add another million.’ That’s $1.85 million now.
     "And guess who they would give that to? The Office of Mauna Kea Management.
     "It’s like paying yourself."

Solutions?
     Mauna Kea Anaina Hou and the Royal Order of Kamehameha I recently produced a thick document entitled "Mauna Kea: The Temple, Protecting the Sacred Resource." The report lays out what the Royal Order and Mauna Kea Anaina Hou describe as serious inadequacies in protecting both the environment and the cultural landscape of the mountain. It categorically states that there is "a great imbalance in the benefits derived from the use of the mountain for astronomy. There is more than enough funding for science, but little for preservation of our resources."
     It continues, "We propose the creation of a separate authority to restore public involvement in the protection of our sacred resources. We submit that sustainable funding for this protection already exists but needs to be committed. Finally, we recommend the mitigation measures that must be taken before any further development takes place on the mountain." The report gives detailed information about how each of its three proposed solutions might be implemented.
     Bill Stormont, director of the Office of Mauna Kea Management, says none of the suggestions in the detailed report are unworkable, but the idea of taking management of the mountain away from the university and creating a management group made up of community and cultural representatives is unlikely. "I don’t think there’s a political will for it," he says.
     Kudritzki says that another of the report’s proposals — to sell some of the telescope time allotted to the UH by other observatories, to the tune of an estimated $45 million annually, which could benefit various Hawaiian, environmental and educational groups — runs completely counter to the university’s educational and research goals. Neither does he think astronomers would buy the University of Hawai‘i’s observing time, anyway. "That’s completely unrealistic," he says.
     The report’s solutions section proposes that if income is not generated by reselling telescope time, then the state should assess a fair annual lease rent for each observatory as opposed to the current $1 per year.
     "It’s a framework of viable alternatives," says KAHEA Executive Director Cha Smith in Honolulu, defending the report, "that would get the public involved in a meaningful way, generate income for the state and hold NASA, the Department of Defense and the astronomy industry accountable."
     Ed Stevens of the Hawaiian cultural advisory group Kahu Ku Mauna suggests another approach altogether: that astronomers simply find a way to make better use of what’s already at the summit.
     "Why keep adding another facility?" he asks calmly. "They’re almost all redundant, excepting one of course, which is a radio telescope. Some are more powerful than others, some have their little special features others don’t, but they’re all basically the same thing.
     "It’s like they’re competing with each other, to see who can be the biggest and the best," he says. "And they’re steamrolling the mountain. They’re like a bulldozer in their zeal to be the first with the best and the most. They don’t seem to have the concern for preservation, for the sacredness of the mountain. Nobody took the time to tell them. This is where we’re at right now. We’re trying to tell them: Enough already."
     Pisciotta agrees. "For 30 years you’ve had unencumbered access. Free rein. You have violated all the state and federal laws for protection, you haven’t mälama’d the mountain, you haven’t given Hawaiians any respect about it, and the public doesn’t have any say. So don’t ask us to compromise. We have compromised for 30 years. We have compromised very deep parts of our culture. Pau already."
     Neves says the entire situation is a survival test. "It’s a test to say, ‘What are you going to stand for? What am I going to live and die for?’ This is our watch. We can’t blame what somebody did last year. But we can try to fix it. It’s our watch now."