 Welcome to the show, the state of the state of Hawaii. I'm your host, Stephanie Stull Dalton. Today's topic is about big islands, Hawaii's world renowned mountain K a mountain is the likely installation of a 30 meter telescope, and always known as the TM to T as well. So our expert guests here for this conversation about that, that placement of that important resource for not only Earth, the universe is here and he is Sam King. So welcome and Mahalo Sam. Thank you for having me. The pleasure. So why don't you begin by telling us what is the TMT. Okay. The 30 meter telescope is a astronomical facility ground based telescope that has a meter that is 30 meters wide. And so the consortium that wants to build it is an international consortium it. These, the people that got together were University of California system Caltech, the, and then the lead scientific agencies in India, Japan, China, and Canada. And so the project is multi billion dollars and they want to build this telescope on top of my decay on the veil. And you, the telescopes, you know, it's, it's kind of, I am not a scientist, I'm an attorney. So I asked the scientists guys for all the details but from what I learned, you know, it's all just about collecting the light, right. So the bigger the telescope the bigger the mirror, the more light you collect, fast you collect it, and the sharper images you can get so these next generation telescopes are way bigger than anything else they've ever built. And the Europeans are building some there's another American consortium out of Texas that's going to build one and that's looking to build one in Chile which we could talk about a second thing. And so they're all these really, really large 30 meters or more telescopes, and they can, they're so powerful they look back close to the beginning of the known universe. So Sam this telescope the TMT is about has been about will be about looking right scanning the universe and looking into the universe, versus the other work that's listening that's something else correct. So TMT is about the, can you clarify that. Yeah I mean again I'm not the scientist guy but yeah that's all, you know, nobody when they do astronomy and space sciences they're not really physically directly looking at things they do. But a lot of times it's spectrum of light right or they're they're collecting some other data that you wouldn't normally see the human eye or human senses. So TMT, though will be collecting physical will be collecting photons the light will be hitting the instruments they're not listening for sound waves or anything like that, but it's probably not too different from what you when you get down to it. There's actually a group, which I'm also involved in the executive director of all on a kilo Hoku, and I'll honey kilo Hoku has these sessions where we've teamed up with some people from university California system, where Santa Cruz, and we are able to watch astronomers use the telescopes on Mount okay. So we posted the videos on all on a kilo Hoku dot orgs website, and you can see what these guys do and it's very interesting because they're not looking directly at one little star right there. They're, they're looking at it but it's not like you're zooming in like it's Star Trek or something right where you're watching it it's they're collecting light beams and then they're cutting those beams into a rainbow spectra. So, that's the kind of TMT we do. That's fascinating but is that publicly accessible, or do you have to have something from the UC to get you in. So the videos we have online for a hundred kilo Hoku are publicly accessible they're on there on our website. And then we have a registration link you can sign up, and you can go and we'll send you an email as we, we work on the program right now we don't have on deck but we're working on having some more videos, some more partnerships online, and then when you register at the current system will send you an email, and then that email have the zoom link and you can jump in and watch the show. That's nice opportunity for those who have interest so take a look at this website. It's, it's going to stream across the bottom of the screen and this is a different one so that that's emuotmt.org I'll just clarify for your viewers emuotmt.org is a separate group, not to confuse anybody, but ohana kilo Hoku.org is a is another group that's just an example of, of what this, what this provides. It already confuses death. Well that's well if somebody goes on your website can they ask that question and get the link to the next one to the other. Absolutely I mean they can email me for sure. At gmail.com, we can definitely send people any information about ohana kilo Hoku on a kilo Hoku is a separate group that is native Hawaiian supporting astronomy and space sciences in Hawaii. And so it's a yeah it's fabulous group it's it's a ton of fun. Actually, it would team T is much more focused on TMT and whereas on a kilo Hoku is more about supporting the astronomy industry as a whole. And so it's, it's a great, it's a great network is a great group, and those videos are are great stuff and you go to the ohana kilo Hoku.org. And you check out the videos tab and you can, you can see those videos and then you can, you register at our opportunities page as a section about shadow the scientists. Shadow the astronomer astronomy nights that's that's what it's called. Okay well just say it one more time maybe Michael can pick it up. Michael's got an ohana kilo Hoku.org. Think tech tech, aren't they okay um well tell us a little bit how did you get involved with this since you said you're an attorney and so now this is a lot less. Yeah, so speaking of TMT specifically right and which is which is a very different thing. Industry as a whole. TMT started. I've been watching the TMT issue for a while. For a couple years while I was in law school especially because it just brings up a lot of interesting topics. You know, native wine rice native wine history land use law which I specialized in when I was in law school and I and I worked on that after law school. So, while I was watching it. There was protest in 2015 that prevented the construction start, and then the Supreme Court overturned the permit, because TMT went and got a, they got a decision by the Board of Land and Natural Resources before the contest case hearing happened, which is a process that the BLNR had followed previously. To the criticism of many people, where they were voting on things before they had these contest case hearings and BLNR's logic was well we can't have a contest case hearing if we don't do anything. So we have to vote first and then have it so Supreme Court said no no no you can't do like that you got to do contest case hearing first so in 2015 TMT got a rule because of that. Then they went back they did another contest case hearing. And then in 2019 TMT tried to build again. And so this is, I mean we can go over a little bit of this history again, just to explain. And maybe it's worth mentioning that the steeple chase that TMT has gone through to get approval. I mean that the things I just described are just two minor things I mean this doesn't even talk about all the community outreach TMT did right. In the DIS process they went through two different contest case hearings getting a conservation district use permit to Supreme Court cases. It's the, the amount of vetting this most vetted project, I think in the history of the state of Hawaii. And so I got involved in 2019. I saw the protest happening, and I just, I couldn't believe that the state of Hawaii was not enforced in the law and arresting the people blocking the road physically blocking the road despite the fact that TMT had been approved by the Supreme Court that permits were finalized. And it just upset me I was just like that's it's not acceptable that that this is happening in my state. And also the fact that the narrative that was being told was that native wines were opposed to the project. Whereas the polls that were coming out at the time said that 70% of native wine supported the project right and the polls were not great for that demographic, but they showed that they, they support them and I you know I've talked to many native wines and they all tell me oh yeah we support and I, and there's plenty that oppose it, and plenty of people that oppose it but not as many as was painted. And so it just drove me up a wall and so I had to get involved. You said they did an IES, an EIS, which is an environmental impact statement and so, were they also doing a statement about the cultural issues. So as these EIS involves that. With those getting documented to critically documented or validly documented to. Absolutely. So the environment and that was one of the reasons I got involved so one of the things I wrote. In my op-ed, what triggered my involvement was I wrote an op-ed about the protest and I with Malia Martin, who was the co-founder of Imua TMT, the group. She, the lady in Malia Martin had started a Facebook page a few years earlier. And so we teamed up to create the group. And so that op-ed we called for everyone to come to a rally at the Capitol. And one of the things that you realize is when you read the EIS you read about how good it is right. And so how good the project is. And one of the things in the EIS is a cultural impact section by Keppa Mali who's one of the greatest experts around. And there's actually some stuff in there I don't fully agree with that's more slanted towards the sacredness discussion which we can cover to. We did document all of that I mean it's been extensively discussed, and the University of Hawaii has done a tremendous job documenting it. It's actually funny that UH gets so criticized now for their management about a cab because they got one bad audit 22 years ago even three years ago now. And they moved dramatically. Now one of the things they do so well is they document all the cultural sites all the ancient, you know, and traditional customary practices of native Hawaiians, including the ads query. Right, I mean I don't know if many people know that the native Hawaiians the ancient Hawaiians use Mauna Kea as an industrial site right shaving rock at the level that we had back in the day. These were kahuna priests doing this because they want to keep the monopoly on the rock is my theory. And so because the rock at top of Mauna Kea is really hard lava rock so it's the best rock in the islands. Very dense and so they use an area that's about 960 times the size of the TMT site to to mine Mauna Kea and it was all these shavings all around and we know a lot of this because you know UH is going around doing all these studies and they're looking at all these things. When did the TMT first go in. What was the beginning. Oh, that is a good question I think TMT started looking at Hawaii is a location in like 2005 around them. And so they I think they officially started coming in around 2010. What is it they were already 10 or 12 telescopes up there. There was already a site. Yeah, there's something like 13 telescopes up there already right now. You happen to know when all that began. The telescope started going up in about the 70s so back in the late 60s. There were a couple things going on. One of them was that the big guy got hit by a tsunami. So the economy was devastated so the business community was looking for new ways to expand new new new ways to generate growth on the big island. And one of the things they looked at was astronomy. And so they went to Mount again they UH did a study and said this is one of the greatest places in the world to do astronomy and so then in the 70s they started looking into it there's actually a report on a Mua TMT website. There is a report that was an audit that was recently done. And that audit has a timeline of it and basically in the 1970s that built the first telescopes and there's nobody protested at first. Nobody said anything everybody thought it was great. And I'm there's people that we've worked with there's one attorney that's been on Mua TMT's panels chemo stone who's you know he lived on the big out he's you know said like I remember living there people thought it was fantastic that the telescope is going on I know other people from the big island they they love driving up to Mount Ikea to play in the snow and the road was only built for the telescopes right you couldn't get up there, except if you were riding a horse. You know, people thought it was great and then there was some concerns over time about the construction there was stuff left behind construction materials that were cleaned up trash wasn't cleaned up and that that started happening a little bit after the development and then it started becoming a political issue you know people that lived on the big island didn't like the telescopes obstructing their beautiful view of the mountains right they're like oh they look like pimples right they want to live in their idealistic view of what Hawaii was supposed to be whenever they bought the brochure, or there are people that started coming up with more political reasons to object to astronomy I'm out of camp. Well, is this the point at which the sacred issue came up. Yeah, that's about that most of the sacred issues started coming up. Well, I think there have been some discussions about it, but one of the things documented by the EIS and by more teams discussions also is that a lot of the religious practices on people claim our religious practice Hawaiian religious practices didn't start until after the TMT contested case hearings. Right and during the contested case hearings they interview people that are claiming that the protesters that are claiming these religious practices and they admit that they haven't they didn't start practicing these things until after the TMT protest, and it makes total sense and this is an important thing to know. The uniqueness of Mauna Kea, from a native Hawaiian perspective is based on the Kapu religion, right the Kapu religion was the dominant Polynesian religion of Hawaii, right that all throughout Polynesia there was a Kapu or taboo religion that existed and it was kind of a system it wasn't fixed there were no set priests right there was a lot of different people and different beliefs different gods everybody had their own gods. And that's like kind of the dominant religion of Hawaii. So, when Kamehameha conquered the islands, he started trying to standardize the religion, right because before Kamehameha conquered remember Hawaii wasn't all called Hawaii, right the first documented name of these islands is not is the sandwich aisles right that was when Kamehameha arrived he's like I'm going to call these islands the sandwich aisles right but but the actual natives he spoke to called it a Tui, right because they were talking about Kauai it was the first place he showed up was Kauai. And so that he asked him what the name is they said a Tui but they didn't say these are the Hawaiian islands, because Kamehameha conquered all the islands from Hawaii. So, prior to that conquering there was no Hawaiian religion, because there was no Hawaii. Kamehameha tried to create a Hawaiian religion by imposing his idea of what the Kapu system should be, and how people should act. But then after he died, his favorite wife Queen Kahumanu became the queen region, and the mother of Kamehameha the second Queen Keopuala Keopualani Keopualani sorry. They overthrew the Kapu system. Keopualani and Kahumanu didn't like the Kapu system because men and women couldn't eat together. And Kahumanu especially was chafing under the system because she was the region and there were certain political decisions made and hey how that she couldn't attend she couldn't eat with the men. So she didn't want to go there so they convinced community the second to eat dinner with them publicly in front of all the chiefs. And then she ended in the abolition of the Kapu system which they called Ainoa, which means free eating. And after that happened, there was actually a civil war in Hawaii, where the nephew of Kamehameha the first, to whom Kamehameha the first had given his war god idol, objected to destruction of the Kapu system because his power was based on the religion, the old religion that Kamehameha was trying to establish right. And he said no we're going to keep it and Kamehameha the second and his prime minister and his forces, after declaring that the Kapu system was gone and ordering the desecration of all the hey, the destruction of all that's why nobody can, you know, all the archaeologists now upset they all all the hey are destroyed is because maybe the second destroyed them all. And after the second, Kamehameha the first nephew objected, Kamehameha the second forces when killed him, and they killed them all and Kamehameha the, you know, this, this guys, there's a main man the first nephew's wife name but no no was executed on the battlefield there's a whole article about it and the point is that the, the religion was obliterated right so there's no. There was not a lot of people practicing it and to the extent there were they were practicing it secret and privately, which is fine but when you fast forward to today. The reality is that from the time of the kingdom. And Kamehameha has had freedom of religion, right, there's been debates and fights about imposing moral laws and ironically, the moral laws that the elite you're trying to oppose for Christian laws right the elite converted to Christianity, and started trying to impose Christian morals on Hawaii and Kamehameha the third was one of the guys that objected to that, but land and all of this that gets us into the sacred land problem. The thing is that in, in the Kapu religion, I mean it was a, it was a theocracy right so they used religion to govern land use. It wasn't. But the fundamental point of it all was that all land was sacred, right the entire state is sacred all the land is sacred right wiki key is sacred wiki key had some of the best water on Taro land in the whole state, and it's owned by the elite and now it's hotels, right and the elite trust are making bank off tourists right and because, because Hawaiians are adapted and innovative and entrepreneurial right we're we're out there making money and people want to come here and enjoy the beach. So do we, and we're happy to put you up for the night, if you will pay us for your services that's perfectly fine that's a great thing. In fact, I think it's one of the greatest things because exporting love and fun and aloha how could that is the best thing you could possibly produce next to really cool astronomy pictures. Great memories of a trip to Hawaii, I have literally traveled to over 40 countries. I went to Syria, and I thought umbrella. Syria, there's an umbrella with Hawaii with one eye and a palm tree on it right. That was the image people had of what was a happy place right I went to Zambia, and I was eating a Hawaiian pizza I didn't even like Hawaiian pizza that much now like pineapple, but they had an idea of it right and that that is awesome. That's a great thing. And you've just carved out that the whole that that that maybe maybe you've indicated that then the whole sacred and constrain or issue or controversy is a cherry picking kind of issue and they decide that that Malake had special activities, whether they were religious or what cultural or what have you, but it's not, it's not coming down through the religion which is what seems to be the message that this is, you know, established established view of that. And I think the key thing for viewers to know for the people Hawaii to know for the world to know is that we have freedom of religion in Hawaii. We do not. The state does not establish religions in this state. And we never did even from the beginning the first constitution under commandment of the third. It's still it actually mentioned Jehovah and said you know you should respect Jehovah but it said no one will be punished for ignoring Jehovah right and the second constitution they said there is freedom of religion that's that's from the kingdom. Well, it seems that then there are that that usually is considered one of the strands of the controversy I mean the cultural issues the religious issues. You know that that involved the sacredness and then there's the competition with other places that might have mountains comparable to Malakea that this could move away from Hawaii and away from the US and be somewhere But it seems like the cultural issues in this religious issue have have are they playing out their role or are they subsiding as I mean because they've been so strong with all the demonstrations is that or is that might be You know, it cannot be resolved see that the objections to TMT are based on movement politics right the protesters are using a tactical known as movement politics and movement politics is about winning. Every day that TMT is not built the protesters consider a victory. So they will never stop making up claims about whatever is going on every single claim the protesters have ever come up with has been debunked. That's not sacred as a native line matter as I've already explained. The TMT is not going to harm the aquifer the protesters are still claiming that TMT and I explained the steeple chase right TMT went through an environmental impact statement. They went through all the vetting from the press they went through the Supreme Court. There is no reason to believe the protesters are ever going to stop. That being said, there are an efforts now in the legislature to try and come up with a way to have dialogue. And you know that's a good thing to have dialogue in Hawaii it's a way we resolve conflict and that's that's a good idea. It's just, I always cautioned people to to acknowledge that dialogue in and of itself is not useful if the people aren't coming to the table and good faith right we already had the good faith dialogue that's what the contested case hearing is that's why you had to sit on the stand and answer questions right. But now the dialogue just being used as a delaying tactic. And that being said, I'll just wrap with this, the federal government has said through the National Academy of Sciences that the TMT is the most important project for ground based astronomy in America, and they should team up with the giant Magellan telescope, which is the Texas consortium they're going to build one down in Chile. And that's the most important thing to fund. You have to go through another EIS process that will involve another cultural impact component, and that'll bring in a lot more money to mitigate the cultural impacts, and that if that gets funded, that will push TMT forward again and there'll be so there'll be more conversations about these. Okay, and what about the funding? I mean, speaking of topics to come together on I know that one of the critics of the work is saying that they're in the decision making process it's about TMT, the activities surrounding it, that there hasn't been community input that that somehow these these have all been decided decisions are top down decisions by the managers and talk to that just a little bit about how that works and if he's right, or we could do better The protesters have been listened to they just haven't long. That's why they're upset there has been community input they just haven't they just not we're not doing what they want and therefore they're claiming you're not listening to them. TMT is listening to people like me, I'm saying go build that's excellent and they should do that. And the community in Hawaii in general has consistently been in favor of the 30 meter telescope so there's been tons of community input and like I said I just explained. There was a contested case hearing media coverage. I mean, that is the process. What about this bill house bill 2024. What is that bringing to the discussion. I don't have it all by fingertips but I believe this is the one where the mountain care working group that was convened by the House of Representatives for the state of Hawaii is looking at a new managing entity for the mountain care. So right now, the Department of Land and Natural Resources runs out of care, they released the summit. University of Hawaii, and you each manage it to day to day. Now they're talking about creating a new entity to manage it, which is interesting to me. If they told me they were going to promise that TMT was going to get built, I'd listen to them. The reality is my concern that they're just using this as a delaying tactic right you come up with this new process, and then you say oh we got to do this new thing it's going to be great. But in the meantime all it does is create uncertainty for the telescopes and they don't want to invest if they don't think there's going to be a lease for them to build telescopes on so there's ways to do it and you could change the structure and that's an interesting idea it's okay I mean you age is not the be all end all, but you just done a really good job the criticisms of them is are not well founded. One step in up aren't they to write more reports about and they just got a master plan approved by the regions and they, they've just restructured I mean they've been doing an incredible job. What they failed on was preventing the protests, and that's not that shouldn't have been their job anyway because it's a self fulfilling prophecy where the protesters have worked themselves into this anger. And there's things that were worth objecting to right the fact that no other telescopes paid rent. That's an interesting thing to discuss and TMT is now paying a million dollars in rent a year, plus a million dollars in scholarships plus another million dollars in training right so and that's great and that's something that was objected to during the contested case hearing process that was discussed that was worked out. That's when those things should happen. Now it's just delaying tactics to try and drive up costs and kill the project. Well tell us now what what do you think are the next steps for TNT we're getting down to just about 45 seconds left so what are next steps for TNT and what what do you see the future. The next step is go to a mua TMT.org and sign up for our email list and I'll send you out emails, you got to testify, that's the big thing so we got to keep the momentum moving we got to make sure you H gets its loose renewed, so that there is astronomy on TNT needs to go apply to the federal government for a billion dollars so that they can get national science foundation to come in and fund them. That's going to be the next big step. Tell me about the billion that's the only thing it'll track NSF National Science Foundation what does that mean for them. I mean unless Elon Musk decides to just give us a billion dollars we're going to need the National Science Foundation to come in and and give funding so the. That's, that's where the, the CATL survey came in to this big survey that the federal government puts on looks at all the ground based astronomy says what's the most important thing to do, and all these scientists and specialists professors say what it is and they said it's TMT. And so they're looking at Mounted K or Spain but right now TMT is committed to Mounted K and Mounted K is clearly the better site, and I want it here we want it here. And so identifying our economy is what we're all about isn't it and certainly to take this away is going to get in the way of that. And it's, and it's also about the perpetuation of Hawaiian culture through contribution. It's really, you know, our ancestors sailed here by the stars and that's, that's what we do we're navigating space by using the telescopes to navigate the stars and that's awesome that's a great story and it'll create tons of job opportunities right here at home for our kids for my kids. And I can celebrate and I do celebrate. I think it's going to, I think it's going to work out. It's going to be great but it does require people to stay engaged. Well, I think that's beautiful that you said that Sam because the, the, the stars the story of the stars is especially Hawaii's of the of for our nation to represent that that heritage that's a huge cultural heritage it's very important and that's made it really important to understand where the protestors was coming from since that's been important to the Hawaiians, moving around. Everybody's trying to claim to be the native Hawaiians but the reality is native ones are not required to agree about everything. And we're all members of this democracy and we all have equal rights. And so we're not required to be one voice right nobody asked the Japanese or the Koreans all agree on stuff right or the howlies right like we're all, we're all different people we don't have to agree and so, but everybody wants to capture it so that you can claim the mantle, but in the end the truth is that there's a story to tell that's positive from this whole thing. It's all a negative story and the protesters are and I choose not to do that I choose to tell a positive story. And that story is that we can perpetuate the greatest aspects of our navigational heritage through contribution to modern astronomy with these fantastic instruments it's it's so cool I mean I can't wait to see what the universe was like back when it was born our panel in a canoe or see life on other planets. Pardon me. They're going to look for life on other planets. It's so amazing that Hawaii could be at Mount okay and not only for the earth, but only for the country USA having this tremendous work but also having the first universal connection made through through that point in time which would be just phenomenal. But I thank you so much. This has been a fascinating conversation I'm kind of stumbling here because I got another bunch of questions to ask. We'll have to do another talk together, especially as our questions come in and more news is generated. But thank you very much for participating in think technology and being on this show the state of state of Hawaii. And I'm your host Stephanie stole Dalton. And thank you viewers. We really appreciate your attention and Aloha everybody.