I shuddered when I read that the Thirty Meter Telescope will be completed in “the mid 2020s.” Roughly translated, that is 12 long years of construction. We missed that little detail.
If, through our ignorance, this boondoggle is allowed to proceed, this is what is in store for our dear Mauna Kea in the next 12 years.
Huge trucks loaded with thousands of tons of cement, steel and glass will be grinding up and down the mountain every day for 12 years.
For more than 3,000 days, trucks loaded with heavy material will be going up and back daily. A multitude of workers will commute up that windy road each day. That will mean stepped-up traffic and added danger.
A decade of trips by so many vehicles almost guarantees an accident. These heavily loaded trucks will be winding through Hilo neighborhoods for more than a decade with black exhaust blasting from their pipes.
It will be a constant disruption to residents.
This is not your regular construction job, this is a shaky, first-time attempt at constructing the largest telescope on Earth on the largest volcano on Earth by way of one tiny road.
You thought a few protesters disrupting things was bad. When 10-wheelers go roaring up there, grinding gears and spewing exhaust, the tour guides and people at the visitor center will wish they had the gentle protesters back.
Hawaiians waiving signs is peaceful compared to the deafening onslaught of monster tractors.
Tourists, and fellow residents seeking the serene, fun experience of visiting the summit of our mountain will not have it. Instead, for more than one-tenth of this century, the top of Mauna Kea will be overrun by workmen (imported from the mainland), be disturbed by the pounding of hammers and the screeching of power saws.
The top of our scenic mountain will be a tacky construction zone — is there any other kind? — strewn with porta-potties, orange cones, lunch trucks, pop-up tents for workers and piles of cement bags. Paving acres and acres, while constructing a titanic-sized building is not a pretty sight, it is a cringing eyesore.
The finished product of all this, a big, black telescope, will be a permanent eyesore.
Did you think the great citadel of knowledge and star-gazing would magically appear one day on the mountain? No. It will be years of sludge, noise and social upheaval. This grandiose telescope dream is the very definition of megalomania.
This is another overshot, too-big project inflicted upon us by outside developers. The virus of development is like a drug that makes people have unreal, impractical visions that can destroy communities like ours. Like any dangerous drug, just say no.
Dennis Gregory is a resident of Kona.
My Turn articles are the opinion of the writer and not necessarily the opinion of West Hawaii Today.