TMT - Contested Case Hearing Status - Hilo

[Guest]

PaulW, LOL. thank you and yes that was a great example of the sandwich technique.

PaulW, the Military was not going to be using the Super Ferry either but I believe they have. I do believe there are Other telescopes that were first being used by the astronomy community that are now being used by the military as well.

Insurance companies may pay some pretty good coin to some to think about the what "if" scenarios and then calculate those what if's into their going rates and benefits. The TMT corp or state of Hawaii may have done this sort of thing too in my opinion.
Our state may be approaching hosting something like 10 million visitors a year. All looking for fun and exciting things to experience, like our volcano national park and or beaches they have to pay to visit now. Can our summit of Mauna Kea handle a million or more visitors year after year without causing some kind of adverse or substantial damage to the environment or the Hawaiian traditional practices?
I have to guess that the TMT will be using millions worth of electricity because other current telescopes atop Mauna Kea use that kind of electricity and the TMT will be much bigger and powerful. Maybe the TMT corp or Helco can give us the public a better guess to how much electricity will be used or needed to operate the TMT year after year.

As to the TMT being worth a billion today and possibly a trillion in fifty years, Well inflation like gravity does happen. Just look how much other businesses like the Cowboys or Dodgers organizations, players and stadiums are worth today compared to fifty years ago.
Another example of inflation a little closer to home are the Puako lots. They were once given away or sold for as little as $100 dollars some fifty years ago, they are now worth millions each today.

Update on the case here:
http://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2016/1...estioning/

Happy Holiday's PaulW.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

please chime in and answer any of these questions or concerns of mine regarding the TMT. Maybe you could try the sandwich technique

Chicken salad, or egg salad?
Here are a few comments I'd like to make:

1) Military - The military is extremely secretive. Not secretive in a "we'll use the facility without telling you," kind of way, more like, they won't share a facility with civilian astronomers due to high level security concerns. There are military observatories on Maui. I have been in two of them. One is AMOS, you can look it up. The other, well, I was a lowly contractor and was not even told the name of the place, just the location so I could find it. That's how the military operates. The TMT is not military.

2) Visitors - Why would a million more, or a million total visitors visit Mauna Kea only if the TMT is built? Why would there be more visitors? How can you calculate potential visitors? Do you have a source for this number?

3) Cultural Practices - How will visitors interfere with Hawaiian cultural practices? Will the roads, parking lots or other public areas on the summit be expanded? If they are the same, and cars and buses continue to come and go, how will anything change? Do you realize that the only reason Mauna Kea is easily accessible to Hawaiian practitioners is due to the road, which would not exist EXCEPT for the observatories? Otherwise people would have to walk up a 4000 foot incline from the highway or visitor center (which also only exists due to the observatories), in the bitter cold much of the year over a winding path miles and miles long. How many would attempt this arduous journey?

I hope I was able to clear up a few of your questions. Let me know if you'd like me to further explain any of my comments.

"One may pretend knowledge of philosophy more successfully than that of arithmetic." -Last Aphorisms (or how about, one may pretend knowledge with an opinion more successfully than with facts)

[punaticbychoice]

gypsy69 you had a comment here @9:02:17, then it disappeared. Before anyone had a chance to see and comment.
You responded to my original question but have not answered it. Answer and response are two different things. I and others have a lot of unanswered questions for you and the "protectors".

[TomK]

"PaulW, the Military was not going to be using the Super Ferry either but I believe they have. I do believe there are Other telescopes that were first being used by the astronomy community that are now being used by the military as well."

If there are, none of them are on Mauna Kea. None of the MK observatories are used for military purposes. Once they become non-operational they have to be decommissioned and removed, it's a term of their sub-leases. Your post is another example of making things up to suit your own agenda.

[TomK]

PS. Gypsy - you are aware, I assume, that Hilo international airport hosts military operations all the time? It is a much more important target, in military strategic and tactical terms than any of the astronomical observatories on Mauna Kea, none of which can support military operations. Then there is the deep-water harbor in Hilo and the army training base at Pohakuloa.

Where is your outrage about those places?

[PaulW]

"As to the TMT being worth a billion today and possibly a trillion in fifty years, Well inflation like gravity does happen"
I don't think you understand how inflation works. It doesn't make anything increase in value.

[Aaron S]

gypsy69,

You may have found apparent flaws in the TMT FEIS in your opinion. However, the said document is binding and cannot be legally challenged.

The FEIS was accepted in 2010. No one challenged the legality of said document within the 60 day window post acceptance.

It is my recollection the TMT spent over 2 years working on this EIS document, which the public had equal opportunity to comment on.

[kalakoa]

It's the million visiting tourists a year to the TMT site that may also cause environmental harm or impacts to the summit area that should be included or predicted in the EIS.

When those tourists rent a car, they sign a contract in which they promise not to take the car off pavement; the Mauna Kea access road is unpaved.

Will these million tourists risk heavy penalties for violating their rental contract and/or damaging their rental vehicle?

No, they'll probably take a package tour -- in which case those tourbuses can be covered by additional regulations to protect the mountain, possibly including a checkpoint and payment of fees to mitigate the impact.

Of course, we'll have to beg State for this, because the top of Mauna Kea is beyond County's control...

As a though exercise: assume the million tourists all drive their rental cars to the top of Mauna Kea. Rentals are new, low-mileage vehicles which have not yet developed leaks. How many rental cars does it take to equal the environmental impact of one leaky local vehicle? It's entirely possible that the "protectors" created more contamination than either tourists or telescope staff -- and that's just the oil/coolant, not the urine/feces.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

the environmental impact of one leaky local vehicle

Take a walk down on of the many paved roads in Lelani Estates after the rainfall has let up. How many oil rainbows can you count on the pavement?

"One may pretend knowledge of philosophy more successfully than that of arithmetic." -Last Aphorisms (or how about, one may pretend knowledge with an opinion more successfully than with facts)

[kalakoa]

How many oil rainbows can you count on the pavement?

Depends on the thickness of the PGV exhaust plume.