Maunakea bill gets a reprieve

A controversial bill that would restructure the management of land on Maunakea will be the subject of a state Senate committee hearing today.

House Bill 2024 is a proposal to take all the lands on the mountain above the 6,500-foot-level and place them under the jurisdiction of a new state entity, the Mauna a Wakea Stewardship Authority. In doing so, this would remove the University of Hawaii as the managing entity for the summit lands.

The bill was expected to die when it reached the Senate. Earlier this month, Sen. Lorraine Inouye (Hilo, Hamakua, Kohala, Waimea, Waikoloa, Kona), chair of the Senate Committee on Water and Land, said she would refuse to hear discussion about the measure if and when it reached her committee, which is normally where land-related bills would be heard.

But the bill unexpectedly found a reprieve last week when it was scheduled before two different Senate committees, Ways and Means, and Higher Education, thereby avoiding Inouye’s committee. Higher Education will discuss the bill today.

It was not immediately clear how the bill was diverted. The newspaper contacted Senate President Ronald Kouchi’s office for comment, but did not receive a response in time for this story.

Having dodged death, the bill now seems more likely to advance, forcing the astronomy community to confront what might happen should it pass.

“We have very large concerns about the time requirement,” said Doug Simons, director of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy.

Simons explained that, because UH’s current master lease for the summit lands expires in 2033, each of the Maunakea Observatories and UH are in the negotiation process for possible lease extensions. Should the Stewardship Authority take over management of the mountain — which would happen in three years, according to the bill — UH would no longer be a party to those negotiations.

“I’ve been leading these negotiations for years, and believe me, it’s an incredibly complicated process,” Simons said.

Under the terms of the bill, Simons said the future of astronomy on Maunakea is murky. The bill imposes requirements for existing astronomical facilities that are not too dissimilar to the ones they already follow, Simons said, but added that there is one added clause that confuses the entire measure.

According to the bill, the Stewardship Authority will develop a plan to return all lands above the 9,200-ft. elevation to a natural state “when ground-based observatories are rendered obsolete due to developments in space-based astronomical technology.”

“This is centuries away,” Simons said, explaining that, with current technology, space-based facilities such as the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope can conduct ground-breaking research, but are still complementary at best to ground-based facilities.

A space telescope’s aperture is very small compared to the largest apertures possible on a ground-based telescope, for example, allowing more flexibility for ground-based facilities.

“It’s not clear if space-based astronomy will ever replace ground-based astronomy instead of being complementary,” Simons said. “The universe is a very big place, and I think there will always be a place for ground-based telescopes.”

But the unclear language in the bill could still be bad for astronomy in Hawaii. With a new managing entity would come a new round of negotiation and litigation for the Thirty Meter Telescope project, and the chance for another contested case hearing, none of which would help the project become reality, Simons said.

“The key is whether there will be any lease or land authorization post-2033,” said Greg Chun, executive director of UH’s Center for Maunakea Stewardship, adding that the bill is also unclear by which mechanism the Maunakea lands would be transferred to the new entity.

Chun acknowledged that the bill as it stands would have drastic effects on UH, the state “and, most likely, international science as a whole” and that UH opposes the measure.

“But let’s not lose sight of what this bill is about, and that is the historic injustices faced by Native Hawaiians,” Chun said. “And astronomy is not an attempt for us to disregard that.”

The Senate Higher Education Committee will discuss the bill at 3 p.m. today.

Email Michael Brestovansky at [email protected].