![]() ![]() The two sides arguing over the permit’s validity also had different views on a decision made by former Land Board Chair Suzanne Case in 2019 granting a two-year extension to meet condition No. Supporting TMT International in its claim were representatives of the University of Hawaii at Hilo, which holds the lease to the site and is the permit holder, and the organization Perpetuating Unique Educational Opportunities. Shinyama also told the board that construction contracts were signed, and contractors were paid for work that included having the construction vehicles stand by for 25 days until it was clear that government officials weren’t going to facilitate passage for the equipment up to the summit amid demonstrators. ![]() What was being done here was a clear intention of construction under condition 4.” “This effort to mobilize and move the convoy was an extensive effort,” he said. Ross Shinyama, an attorney representing TMT International, told the board that such qualifying work done before the 2019 deadline included the project’s construction manager and civil contractor verifying GPS coordinates on the project site, using equipment to locate underground utility lines on or near the site access road, and trying to deliver 18 construction vehicles to the project site only to have them stop short because protesters blocked the access road. ![]() 4 allows for satisfaction by initiating “any work done or construction to be done on the land” in accordance with construction plans signed by the Land Board chair. The telescope project’s developer, TMT International Observatory, contends that the precise wording of condition No. Kalani Flores, a Hawaiian cultural practitioner representing the Flores-Case Ohana, and Lanny Sinkin representing the Temple of Lono. The two other petitioners contesting the permit’s validity are E. “I come from a construction world,” she said. 4 in the permit has been violated is Hawaii island resident Cindy Freitas, a Native Hawaiian who has been in the construction business for 16 years.įreitas told the board that things like excavation work and pouring concrete foundations, among other things, constitute construction and haven’t been done on the TMT site. “Construction is, as we stated in the dictionary definition, the building of something, typically a large structure.”Īnother party petitioning the Land Board to decide whether general condition No. “Clearly there’s been no construction,” he told the board. Richard Naiwieha Wurdeman, an attorney representing Mauna Kea Hui, led off Tuesday’s oral arguments by urging the board to invalidate the permit on grounds that construction never began by a September 2019 deadline, two years after the permit was issued, based on a plain language meaning of a key word contained in one of 52 permit conditions. The effort to invalidate TMT’s state conservation district use permit is widely seen as an attempt to derail, or at least set back further, the $2.65 billion telescope project on Hawaii island where 33 protesters were arrested in 2019 for blocking an access road to Mauna Kea’s summit in an effort to prevent construction. Defining the word “construction” took up a large part of a more than three-hour Tuesday hearing that could determine whether a permit to develop the controversial Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea is valid.įour groups opposing the indefinitely stalled project tried to convince the state Board of Land and Natural Resources that a deadline related to commencement of TMT construction hadn’t been met, while three organizations backing the project made counterarguments during the hearing held via Zoom. ![]()
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