TMT - Contested Case Hearing Status - Hilo

[TomK]

1) "We also engaged in another simulation, where we went up to Pu`u Poliahu … and there, too, the red balloon was still in the sky. And from there you could see that it would be impossible to get a view of, say, the rising sun without the TMT in the viewplane."

2) "Ward then asked if, from Poliahu, the TMT would also obstruct views of Pu`u Makanaka. Makanaka is a cinder cone where a number of pre-contact Hawaiian sites and burials have been located.

“Yes,” Townsend replied."

3) "Throughout her testimony, at several points, Townsend stated the Thirty Meter Telescope would be “an 18-story, five-acre building,” describing it as “a structure bigger than anything on the island of Hawai`i.”"

4) "Yet when asked by Ward to discuss the widened jeep trail leading to the TMT site, Townsend said that the widening had destroyed wekiu bug habitat. “It’s been decimated,” she said. “That cinder has been compacted. And wekiu can’t live in compacted cinder. … They are endangered, and they are a beautiful symbol of the kind of unique and amazing natural environment in Hawai`i. ”"

5) "Cindy Freitas asked Townsend if she had knowledge of the glaciers on Mauna Kea. “I know that they exist, that’s about it,” Townsend replied."

All of these are claims by the Director of the Hawaii chapter of the Sierra Club, Marti Townsend. Not one of them is true. Yet she testified to them in the contested case hearing.

http://www.environment-hawaii.org/?p=9484