The University of Hawaii must move more quickly to adopt the administrative rules that will empower it to govern the island’s highest summit.
That’s according to Oahu Rep. Andria Tupola, who made the case in Kailua-Kona on Thursday that the Office of Mauna Kea Management must take decisive action.
“We know this is going to be a bleed-out. Without their rangers being law-enforcement trained, this will go on forever. Band-Aid solutions will not solve the problem — if Hawaii PD has to keep coming to save the day, this will never end,” said the freshman Republican lawmaker whose district spans from Maili to Ewa, and who claims ancestral ties to this island.
“Everyone from my district is putting themselves in the conflict,” she said. “This is everyone’s problem.”
Her remarks came as the Big Island’s state and county lawmakers remain largely silent on the conflict over the Thirty Meter Telescope and access to the summit.
Tupola intended to hold a similar meeting today at 6:30 p.m. at U.H. Hilo. She spoke in Kona at the urging of fellow Republican and political hopeful Kelly Valenzuela.
“It’s time for the truth to surface,” Valenzuela said. “This is a mess. Nobody here wants to touch it. So we have to bring in this Waianae girl.”
Kailua-Kona resident Teresa Nakama said the significance of Mauna Kea cannot be delineated by geography.
“The western mind believes we have to belong to one area, but we are one island,” Nakama said. “We believe the water is a bridge between all the islands.”
The UH has had rule-making authority over the Mauna Kea Science Reserve since 2009 and has delayed exercising that authority due to contested case proceedings surrounding the Thirty Meter Telescope.
With protests against the TMT making national headlines in the past few months, OMKM laid out a plan for regulating commercial and public use of the science reserve. Highlights include limiting access to four-wheel drive vehicles, limiting the type of equipment that can be used for snow play, possibly restricting nighttime use and establishing fees for access and parking, among other provisions. The eight tour operators who hold permits to take visitors to the summit would have to reapply for their permits and rangers would crack down on illegal tours, under the rules, whose formulation resumed in April 2013.
An August 2014 audit noted the rules likely won’t be adopted until 2017 — 12 years after the auditor first recommended that UH implement its authority to govern the mountain.
“Before UH can initiate enforcement proceedings and assess fines, it must adopt rules to implement the law,” the auditor wrote. “Without them, UH must rely on DLNR’s Division of Conservation and Resource Enforcement and county police to carry out this function.”
Deficiencies in management include no protocol for levying fees on tour operators, and the auditor questioned whether money gathered over a decade should be returned.
“These are things that are negligent, not complete,” Tupola said. “As lawmakers we need to step in and ask, ‘how can we help out?’”
In a recent interview, OMKM director Stephanie Nagata said at least a year of process lies ahead as the rules are drafted, vetted by the public and finally signed by the governor.
That’s not soon enough for Tupola.
“If we can expedite emergency rules, we can expedite this process,” she said.
Tiffnie Kakalia, a board member of Kahu Ku Mauna, said an audit in the 1990s found too heavy of a science focus and neglect of cultural resources. Kahu Ku Mauna is a Native Hawaiian advisory council to the OMKM board.
“The kuleana was back in 2000 to address things that are only now being addressed,” she said. “Culture is not an afterthought.”
Pua Case, who is party to a lawsuit to block the TMT, said the rules package offers nothing to Native Hawaiians.
“You can see right through it: Let’s hurry up and pass these and get these guys off the mauna and build what we will,” she said. “The rules are not going to benefit us on the mountain. This system is not set up for the people. It is not set up for us to be victorious.”