The University of Hawai‘i is seeking public feedback on revisions to its plan for managing Mauna Kea.
While UH is set to relinquish control of the Mauna Kea Science Reserve — more than 11,000 acres on the summit of Mauna Kea, where the observatories are — to the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority in 2029, the university this week revealed a proposed revision of its master plan for the land, which was last updated in 2022.
According to UH, the changes to the plan are intended to align the document with Act 255, the 2022 law that created the MKSOA. As such, the bulk of the changes remove language from the plan stating that decommissioned observatories on the summit “will not be available for future astronomy use.”
While UH representatives declined to comment on the changes to Aloha State Daily, Act 255 specifies that, as management of the mountain transitions between UH and MKSOA, the transition management plan should prioritize the reuse of observatory sites and footprints for new facilities, as opposed to developing facilities on undeveloped or undisturbed land.
For example, where the plan previously said the sites of now-decommissioned observatories Hōkū Kea and the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory had no potential for future use, but, in the proposed new plan, are only “highly unlikely” to be reused.
The UH Board of Regents requested the revisions to the plan in February, amid the development this year of House Bill 2592, a bill that set deadlines for MKSOA to complete elements of the transition, or else summit authority will revert to the university.
Pertinently, HB 2592 also stipulated that any rule changes UH implements during the transition period will be taken up by the MKSOA after the transition is complete. Therefore, UH’s revisions to the master plan, if approved, will be adopted by MKSOA in 2029.
UH’s notes about the revisions include a disclaimer about whether the changes are in service of the development of the Thirty Meter Telescope, the controversial observatory long proposed for Mauna Kea summit. The disclaimer states that the revisions “could affect the alternatives available to a wide range of possible future astronomy projects, not only TMT.”
Interested parties are encouraged to read the revisions and submit feedback online through Sept. 16. UH will also discuss the revisions at a Sept. 8 meeting of the Mauna Kea Management Board and a Sept. 10 meeting of the MKSOA board.
The revisions will also, eventually, need to be approved by the UH Board of Regents at an undetermined future meeting.
MKSOA declined to comment on the matter in advance of the Sept. 10 meeting.
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