(AP) — The Hawaii Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday over whether a hearing officer’s membership in an astronomy center impacted her decision to grant a permit for a giant telescope project.
Opponents say the telescope will desecrate land sacred to Native Hawaiians. Supporters say it will bring economic and educational opportunities to Hawaii.
The state allowed retired judge Riki May Amano to preside over contested-case hearings for the embattled project despite complaints from telescope opponents who said her paid membership in the Imiloa Astronomy Center was a conflict of interest.
Hawaii Supreme Court justices listen to arguments by Richard Wurdeman, a lawyer representing opponents of the Thirty Meter Telescope, on Thursday. Justices are considering an appeal of a decision to grant a permit for the telescope projec.t
AP
The Big Island center is connected to the University of Hawaii, which is the permit applicant.
Opponents appealed to the Supreme Court after Amano recommended granting the permit.
“She should have never presided over the case,” Richard Wurdeman, an attorney representing telescope opponents, told the justices. He noted the center included exhibits about the project planned for the Big Island’s Mauna Kea.
Amano was just a casual member of the center, a “remote and tenuous relationship” that doesn’t create an appearance of impropriety, state Solicitor General Clyde Wadsworth told the justices.
Associate Justice Richard Pollack asked why Amano later cancelled her membership in response to the concerns. Wadsworth said the cancellation was not a concession of bias.
Associate Justice Sabrina McKenna noted that Amano had visited the center on a school trip with her child.
Opponents of the telescope project pray in front of a statue of King Kamehameha outside the Hawaii Supreme Court building on Thursday.
AP
This is the second appeal before the high court involving the project. Justices are already considering another appeal challenging the state land board’s decision to allow the University of Hawaii to sublease mountaintop land to telescope builders.
The appeals are crucial to whether the Thirty Meter Telescope can be built.
Plans for the telescope date to 2009, when scientists selected Mauna Kea after a five-year, worldwide campaign to find the ideal site for what telescope officials said will likely revolutionize understanding of the universe and allow scientists to make groundbreaking discoveries.
The project won a series of approvals from Hawaii, including a permit to build on conservation land in 2011. Protesters blocked attempts to start construction. In 2015, the state Supreme Court invalidated the permit, saying the board’s approval process was flawed, and ordered the project to go through the steps again.
Protests disrupted a groundbreaking in 2014 and intensified after that. Construction stopped in 2015 after 31 demonstrators were arrested for blocking the work.
A second attempt to restart construction a few months later ended with more arrests and crews retreating.
A lawyer representing the TMT project told the justices the state should allow the “global and noble effort” to proceed.
Ross Shinyama said the project will result in little environmental impact to Mauna Kea, where there are already other telescopes. Shinyama said full funding hasn’t been secured for the project, which has been estimated at $1.4 billion. He said it’s impossible for projects of this magnitude to secure funding before a site has been secured.
Telescope officials have a backup location in the Canary Islands off the African coast if it can’t be built in Hawaii.
It’s not clear when justices will issue a decision.
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