http://hawaiialoha.tribe.net/thread/016d2ce2-6f79-4c9a-b8cc-0dd930be4e4b?format=rss Tribe.net. Local Connections http://HawaiiAloha.tribe.net/thread/016d2ce2-6f79-4c9a-b8cc-0dd930be4e4b#a056a471-fd57-4b89-86eb-8c28c9032e87 Thanks for this. I have shared it with my other groups to spread the good news. Mon, 02 Jul 2007 12:27:24 GMT http://HawaiiAloha.tribe.net/thread/016d2ce2-6f79-4c9a-b8cc-0dd930be4e4b#a056a471-fd57-4b89-86eb-8c28c9032e87 White 2007-07-02T12:27:24Z http://HawaiiAloha.tribe.net/thread/016d2ce2-6f79-4c9a-b8cc-0dd930be4e4b#ef52da47-73d6-4926-81c9-42694e1835d2 Mauna Kea Ruling Halts Telescope Expansion Hawai‘i Land Board Rebuked for Ignoring Law Requiring Comprehensive Planning Building new observatories atop Mauna Kea will now be more difficult after a Hawai‘i judge ordered the state’s Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) to come up with a comprehensive plan that protects the mountain’s natural and cultural resources. Third Circuit Court Judge Glenn S. Hara issued his final order this week, voiding BLNR’s permit for six new Keck “outrigger” telescopes proposed by NASA, the University of California, Caltech and the University of Hawaii. In issuing the order, Hara affirmed his January 19, 2007 ruling on the permit and rejected a UH Institute for Astronomy petition to reconsider it. The order comes at a time when astronomers are vigorously pushing two new summit projects, an Air Force telescope to scan the sky for near-space objects and a giant University of California/Caltech thirty-meter optical-infrared telescope. The judge rejected BLNR’s approval of the outriggers because BLNR failed to adopt a comprehensive management plan that conserves the natural and cultural resources of the summit, a state-designated “conservation district.” The judge ruled that BLNR’s approval was “not consistent with the Legislature’s stated purpose for managing the Conservation District” and that “the resource to be conserved, protected, and preserved is the summit area of Mauna Kea.” He further affirmed that appropriate management is for the promotion of the long term sustainability of the protected resources of Mauna Kea. The 14,000-foot volcano, sacred to Native Hawaiians, is home to fragile ecosystems and ancient cultural and religious sites. “Judge Hara’s order makes clear that Mauna Kea must be managed in the public’s interest for conservation, not to promote observatory development for international astronomy,” said Kealoha Pisciotta of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, which joined Sierra Club, the Royal Order of Kamehameha I and several Native Hawaiians as a plaintiff in the lawsuit that led to the order. The ruling challenges the legal status of the University of Hawai‘i’s 2000 Master Plan and the UH Office of Mauna Kea Management the plan created—neither reviewed nor approved by BLNR. Environmentalists and Hawaiians have long urged Hawai‘i’s Legislature to create an independent management authority composed of representatives of the conservation district’s legally defined rightholders—Hawai‘i citizens, in whose interest the district was created, and Native Hawaiians who by law are beneficiaries of Mauna Kea’s ceded lands. Funding for the proposed agency would come from lease rents assessed on existing observatories who now pay the state only one dollar a year and forfeit some observatory time to UH in exchange for their district subleases. “This ruling is significant for all conservation districts where astronomy development is proposed, including Haleakala as well as Mauna Kea,” said Clarence Ching, a Native Hawaiian practitioner who was a plaintiff in the suit. The judge’s order also overruled BLNR’s 1995 attempt to transfer their authority to manage Mauna Kea to UH, which later created its Office of Mauna Kea Management. “Now maybe UH will stop spending public funds to circumvent laws meant to conserve our vulnerable resources for future generations,” said Deborah J. Ward of Sierra Club. Hara’s ruling opens up the question of what to do about telescopes built under the university’s now defunct master plan, including the Gemini Telescope and at least two of the Smithsonian Institution’s submillimeter antennas. The last BLNR approved plan, created in 1985, allowed only eleven major telescopes (and two then existing small 24 inch telescopes). Depending on how they are counted—a longstanding bone of contention—as many as twenty telescopes now exist on Mauna Kea. Hara’s ruling was the second legal setback for the observatories. In 2003, Honorable Susan Oki Mollway judge of federal district court, district of Hawai`i, found NASA’s environmental assessment for the outriggers inadequate, a decision that compelled NASA to prepare the first federal EIS ever submitted for a Mauna Kea telescope. Previous U.S. government projects that violated U.S. law requiring such reviews include the NASA Infrared Telescope, the Smithsonian Institution’s Submillimeter Array, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Very Long Base Array and the Gemini Telescope. Both decisions reflect continued public discontent about the way Mauna Kea has been managed by BLNR and UH. “We pray the state and federal governments take these court decisions to heart,” said Paul Neves of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, “so people will be relieved of the burden of going to court to force these agencies to do their jobs and protect the people’s rights and resources.” Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:54:01 GMT http://HawaiiAloha.tribe.net/thread/016d2ce2-6f79-4c9a-b8cc-0dd930be4e4b#ef52da47-73d6-4926-81c9-42694e1835d2 $item.owner.firstName 2007-06-12T13:54:01Z