The dispute over construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is raging, going back to when 33 protesters were arrested in 2019 for blocking workers from carrying needed equipment up Mauna Kea.
Hawaii Gov. David Ige has also issued an emergency proclamation allowing law enforcement more flexibility in how they patrol the work site area, including closing roads and other activities.
All the latest chaos comes after a legal challenge to the project was shot down in the Hawaii Supreme Court in 2019.
The latest battle over construction of telescopes on Mauna Kea erupted in 2015 over matters ranging from environmental concerns, to free land use to the desecration of a site indigenous Hawaiian people hold sacred.
"This is not only an ecologically sensitive area for Hawaiians, it's where our origin story begins,” former Mauna Kea Anaina Hou President Kealoha Pisciotta told Forbes. “It's a place where significant ancestors are buried, so it’s a burial ground. It's the abode of the gods and goddesses, and you have to go there with strong reverence."
TMT Community Affairs Manager Sandra Dawson views the land and situation much differently.
"We have a lot of support – almost unanimous – from the business community," she said. "Astronomy puts a lot into the local economy. Hawaii Island is not Oahu - it doesn’t have high-tech business. The business community sees TMT as a great kick-starter for high-tech business on the island."
Many native Hawaiians are equally torn on the issue.
"I understand the need for cultural sensitivity to special places and the Old Culture," University of Hawaii astronomer Paul Coleman told Forbes before he passed away in 2018. "But in the Old Culture there were ways to get around restrictive rules.
"I don’t see where there’s a downside since I believe the TMT project guys have been culturally respectful. They've been open to the process for seven years. To have this [the protests] thrown in at last little second is a very disheartening thing."
TMT is a nonprofit collaboration between the University of California, the California Institute of Technology, the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the countries of Canada, India and Japan.