Giant telescope backers to seek permit for new site

The director of a Spanish research center said Monday that the international consortium that wants to build a giant telescope on Hawaii’s tallest peak despite protests from Native Hawaiians has decided to seek a building permit for an alternative site in the Canary Islands.

Canary Islands Astrophysics Institute Director Rafael Rebolo told The Associated Press that he received a letter from the head of the Thirty Meter Telescope project saying its board recently decided “to proceed with the request to seek a building permit” for the island of La Palma.

However, Rebolo insisted the consortium that already obtained a permit in Hawaii still plans to put the $1.4 billion telescope on the top of Mauna Kea.

Some Native Hawaiians believe the Big Island mountain is sacred, and protesters are in their fourth week of blocking access to Mauna Kea’s summit to prevent construction.

“We are observing what is happening in Hawaii with the maximum respect,” Rebolo, the point man for the alternative site in Spain’s Canary Islands, said.

“Our position is that we are here if the TMT project needs us,” he said in a telephone interview from the institute’s headquarters on the island of Tenerife.

Scientists selected Mauna Kea’s summit for the giant telescope because the weather and air conditions

there are among the best in

the world for viewing skies.

The Hawaii Supreme Court last year ruled the international consortium behind the telescope lawfully obtained a permit to build the telescope, clearing the way for the construction to proceed.

Separately, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources granted a twoyear extension to the deadline for starting construction. The new deadline is Sept. 26, 2021.

Given the opposition, the international consortium in October 2016 announced a backup location in the Canary Islands — Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma.

Rebolo said local officials who would have jurisdiction over a La Palma building permit for the new telescope solidly back the project and that the observatory site has already passed environmental impact evaluations.

“Our mountains are not sacred,” he added.

A Native Hawaiian protest leader called the development regarding the building permit a good sign.

“There’s lots of good science to be done from the Canary Islands,” said Kealoha Pisciotta, who has helped organize the blockade on Mauna Kea. It would “be a win for everyone.”

But the news won’t prompt protesters to stop demonstration, she said.

Kaho’okahi Kanuha, another protest leader who has been arrested several times trying to block telescope construction on Mauna Kea, said he hopes telescope builders make the “right decision.”

CARLOS MORENO — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE The Gran Telescopio Canarias, one of the the world’s largest telescopes is seen at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in the Canary Island of La Palma, Spain. A leading Spanish official said Monday that the consortium pushing to build a giant telescope in Hawaii amid continued protests by locals is planning to ask for a building permit for an alternative site in Spain’s Canary Islands. The notification comes as Native Hawaiian protesters enter the fourth week of blocking construction of the telescope on a mountain they consider sacred.