As the days add up in the Thirty Meter Telescope contested case, so does the cost.
As of Dec. 31, the state’s bill for the quasi-judicial hearing was $224,789.62, according to the Department of Land and Natural Resources. Expenses through January were still being tallied, a department spokesman said.
By the end of the year, about two dozen days of witness testimony had been held, plus several pre-hearing conferences.
Parties in the hearing have met 18 days since then at the Grand Naniloa Hotel in Hilo, with dates scheduled through the end of the month.
The biggest expenses were compensation for hearings officer Riki May Amano ($152,905.68), venue rental ($28,825) and travel for staff ($21,537.32).
Amano, a retired judge, can make up to $200,000, according to her contract.
Additionally, between three and six DLNR Division of Conservation and Resource Enforcement officers are at the hearings providing security, a spokesman said. DOCARE has 23 officers on Hawaii Island.
The hearing, which would help determine if the giant telescope is built on Mauna Kea, is a replay of a 2011 contested case that lasted merely seven days. The state Board of Land and Natural Resources approved the permit, but the state Supreme Court overturned that decision in late 2015 since a vote occurred before the hearing started.
About two dozen parties have joined the hearing, including the six petitioners in the original contested case, with dozens of witnesses being called. New parties include additional Native Hawaiians who oppose the project, including those who protested or blocked construction two years ago, a group of Hawaiians who support it and TMT International Observatory, the organization behind the next-generation telescope.
The University of Hawaii, as the permit applicant, also participates.
Each participant is allowed to call and cross-examine witnesses, though only about half regularly show up.
As with the original hearing, issues being raised include impacts to the environment near Mauna Kea’s summit and Hawaiian cultural or religious practices. An added element is the issue of Hawaiian sovereignty.
Several of the new participants have focused on claims that the United States is unlawfully occupying Hawaii, though Amano has repeatedly said those aren’t pertinent to the project’s proposed Conservation District use permit.
Kealoha Pisciotta, a Hawaiian cultural practitioner and one of the original petitioners, said she expects the hearing won’t finish until sometime in March.
She said the hearing’s length has been frustrating for opponents as well as supporters of the $1.4 billion project. Some have trouble attending because of work obligations and many represent themselves.
Pisciotta said she doesn’t think it’s fair to blame project opponents for the length of the hearing.
“There are more voices this time. That’s proper,” she said, adding the second hearing is allowing “healing” to occur, following arrests of protesters on the mountain.
“I really thank the judge for making sure that everyone can view it publicly. That helps with the due process.”
But time may not be on TIO’s side.
After several years of delays, TIO officials have said they intend to resume construction on Mauna Kea or the Canary Islands, an alternate site, in April 2018. It’s not clear if the review process will be finished by then, since appeals are expected, or when the organization makes its decision.
In December, Hilo Circuit Court Judge Greg Nakamura ruled that E. Kalani Flores, a cultural practitioner participating in the ongoing contested case, should be given a contested case as he requested for the project’s sublease.
The sublease with UH-Hilo covers six acres in the Mauna Kea Science Reserve.
The state Attorney General’s Office filed an appeal of that decision to the state Intermediate Court of Appeals on Feb. 3.
A spokesman for the AG’s office said no decision has been made yet about pursuing the contested case while the appeal is being heard.
In her testimony Monday, Pisciotta, a former telescope technician, said the observatory would diminish cultural and religious practices on the mountain. She believes the mountain has been overdeveloped.
“Mauna Kea is a temple of the supreme being and the akua,” she said. “It’s a heiau, or temple, created not by man but rather by the akua for man so man can learn the ways of the heavens so man can understand his place in creation and in the world.”
Keahi Warfield, of the pro-TMT group Perpetuating Unique Educational Opportunities, testified Wednesday.
He said he got involved in the TMT issue after a kid in his Keaukaha One Youth Development program told him she no longer wanted to be an astronomer because an uncle said she would be betraying her people. That happened, Warfield said, when protests against the telescope were going on the mountain a couple years ago, dividing some families.
“And in my mind I’d rather see that student become an astronomer on Mauna Kea than in South America or other place in the world,” he said. “Growing up I never knew any Hawaiian astronomers.”
If built on Mauna Kea, the observatory, which could see more than 13 billion light years way, would be 180 feet tall and sit on the mountain’s northern plateau at 13,100 feet above sea level. Supporters say it will keep Hawaii at the forefront of astronomy and could unveil the makeup of exoplanets.
Thirteen telescopes currently sit on the mountain.
The telescope organization’s partners are Caltech, University of California, Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy and national institutes in Japan, China and India.
Email Tom Callis at tcallis@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
TMT contested case expenses
As of Dec. 31:
Travel: $21,537.32
Per diem: $9,894.48
Newspaper ad: $1,019.27
Hearing venue*: $28,125
Other venue: $700
Car rental: $2,401
Document service: $206.87
Hearing officer: $152,905.68
Court reporter*: $8,000
Total: $224,789.62
*Indicates expenses to be paid