TMT lease on BLNR agenda

This Friday, June 13, the Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) will once again take up the issue of approval of a sublease between the University of Hawaii (UH) and the TMT International Observatory LLC, under General Lease No. S-4191, which UH currently holds from the state.

On the BLNR agenda for this month’s meeting, buried half-way down a list filled with much more mundane issues, is “consent” for the TMT sublease. Should the BLNR vote to give its consent to the sublease plan, the project would still be unable to move forward while there is litigation in progress. However, it would likely signal the two camps involved with the court case as to which side the department charged with protecting the State’s natural resources and with helping to set land-use policy is on. It would also mean one less obstacle along the path toward constructing the massive proposed observatory.

After it was proposed, the TMT project immediately came under fire from native Hawaiian groups that formed a hui in 2011 and filed a lawsuit to try and block the project. UH student group hauMĀNA (the student wing of Movement for Aloha No Ka ʻĀina) has also led protests against the UH Board of Regents who voted to approve the proposed sublease in February of this year, despite the fact that the case has not been resolved.

The BLNR will be accepting public testimony on all the agenda items, including D (Land Division) 8,  the TMT sublease consent item. The meeting begins at 9am at the Kalanimoku Building, Land Board Conference Room 132, on 1151 Punchbowl Street. The room is small and likely to fill up quickly, so get there early.