Honolulu Star-Advertiser - October 29, 2019
Officials with the Thirty Meter Telescope on Monday denied a report in the Canary Islands that a decision on where to construct the $1.4 billion project will happen within the next few weeks.
The newspaper El Dia reported in its online edition Sunday that officials with the TMT International Observatory developers met with La Palma business leaders and told them that the decision on location would occur within “a matter of two or three weeks.”
The report comes as the TMT International Observatory Board of Governors is meeting this week in California at its regularly scheduled quarterly meeting.
The news of the imminent decision, according to the newspaper, came from TMT observatory scientist Christophe Dumas and Gordon Squires, TMT vice president for external relations, who met with the business leaders as part of a visit to the telescope’s backup site.
In the meeting, Dumas and Squires described the difficulties that the proposed cutting-edge telescope is experiencing in Hawai`i and said they believe La Palma is a real possibility as the location of the telescope.
In addition, they said the intention of the international coalition is to start construction in April.
In a statement sent Monday to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Squires said Mauna Kea remains the preferred site for the TMT, but the nonprofit continues to follow a process allowing it to relocate to its Plan B site on La Palma should it not be possible to build in Hawai`i.
Squires, who is in California for the TMT board meeting, said no time frame has been identified for deciding on a location and that even if La Palma is selected as the site for TMT, it is unknown when construction might begin.
In any case, he added, the TMT has not yet received all the permits and permissions necessary to build on La Palma.
According to El Dia, the two- to three-week time frame matches what the president of the local town council has said about the timing of TMT’s decision-making.
Dumas and Squires told the business group that construction will last 10 years, the paper said, and that educational training will be available to the local population. The consortium, they said, is committed to offering annual scholarships — something it is already doing in Hawai`i.
Another newspaper, Diario de Avisos, reported Friday about Dumas’ visit to the island.
The report said La Palma is becoming an increasingly probable location for the telescope, and next week’s meeting of the board of governors could be key to the fate of the TMT in the Canaries.
Diario de Avisos and other media outlets have been reporting in recent weeks that local officials are moving swiftly to process the permits necessary to give TMT the green light for construction.
But, as in Hawai`i, the TMT could run into some additional roadblocks. At least one environmental group in the Canary Islands has pledged to continue to fight the project.
An organization known as Ben Magec, part of the Spanish “Ecologists in Action” federation of environmental groups, already won a victory this summer when a judge overturned a concession granted by the local government.
In August, Pablo Batista, a Ben Magec spokesman, said in an email that the group will likely take legal action if the TMT were to win approvals once again.
Batista said the proposed La Palma construction site is a conservation area with archaeological sites that the group aims to protect.
Meanwhile, protesters continue to make their stand at Mauna Kea, blocking a project they say will desecrate a sacred summit. The nonviolent demonstration has been ongoing since the middle of July.
At this week’s TMT International Observatory quarterly meeting, representatives from Japan, Canada, India and China will meet with their partners from Caltech and the University of California.
Last month a report issued by a group of astronomers advising the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy said holding out several years for construction on Mauna Kea may be worth it to get the superior viewing conditions found atop Hawai`i’s tallest mountain.
The report to the Canadian Astronomical Society’s Canadian Long Range Plan 2020 panel says Mauna Kea’s site characteristics are vastly superior to La Palma’s.
“TMT is being built for future generations, and will have a productive lifetime of many decades. We should not be shortsighted about the impact of a few years’ delay, but must build the best telescope we can, on the best site we can: of the options available, this site is Maunakea,” the report said.
While the TMT is delayed, the project’s components and the scientific instruments continue to be manufactured around the world. Officials say they will be able to be mounted on the giant telescope whenever and wherever it is built.
