Authority over Maunakea will begin shifting from the University of Hawaii to a state agency in less than a month, but what that necessarily means is unclear.
The Maunakea Stewardship Oversight Authority, which was established last year by the state legislature, will begin a five-year transition period wherein it gradually takes over responsibility for the mountain from UH on July 1, with the agency assuming full control in 2028.
But the shape of that transition is still uncertain. At the Authority board’s most recent monthly meeting on Thursday, chair John Komeiji said the Authority and UH still need to determine how they will co-manage the mountain once July begins.
“The question, again, is what is that relationship (between the Authority and UH will be),” Komeiji said, adding that he hopes to hold additional public meetings with Authority members to hash out how responsibilities over the mountain will transfer to the authority, rather than “just jumping in.”
Authority member and Hawaii County Managing Director Doug Adams said that the Authority is currently in no position to take over all of the activity on the mountain permitted under UH’s lease, and added that, in fact, the Authority had not yet reviewed the terms of the lease.
Greg Chun, director of UH’s Center for Maunakea Stewardship, introduced at Thursday’s meeting three planned projects involving Maunakea that he said demonstrate the sort of complicated interdepartmental agreements that govern most things on the mountain, and whose continued viability depends on the transition being as coherent as possible.
One of projects Chun mentioned involved the ongoing decommissioning of Hoku Kea, UH’s defunct educational telescope. In particular, a Hoku Kea outbuilding houses radio components that represent a vital component of the island’s emergency communications systems, and which will have to be relocated to a different telescope.
That is easier said than done, Chun said: “What that would involve is a new operating agreement between the university, Hawaii County and (the authority) … From a technical perspective, it’s fairly easy to execute, but it is going to require coordination and development of this memorandum of agreement.”
Another UH project on Maunakea involves the installation of electric vehicle charging stations at Halepohaku, UH’s facility located about halfway up the mountain. Chun said the site has been selected by Hawaiian Electric as a pilot location for EV chargers, but will also likely require another operating agreement with Hawaiian Electric as well as other permitting issues.
Finally, Chun said there exist two underground fuel storage tanks at Halepohaku that must be decommissioned and removed by 2028, which will be such a long bureaucratic process that it must begin now to be completed on time. Like the other two projects, Chun said the decommissioning will require interdepartmental cooperation as well as lengthy design and engineering studies and conservation district use applications.
“These are just the projects that are top-of-mind for us,” Chun said. “As you might imagine, these things come up throughout the year … and understanding how we jointly manage going forward is going to be really critical for us.”
Komeiji said that it still isn’t clear which aspects of those projects will be the responsibility of the Authority, or to what degree the Authority will be able to influence projects that are already in progress.
He added that the Authority still hasn’t hired staff, which means that the Authority board will be split between the high-level management of the mountain and lower-level administration duties for the time being.
Authority member Lanakila Mangauil pointedly noted that the projects Chun mentioned are tied into broader questions about the future of development on Maunakea that the Authority has not yet answered.
“These are large infrastructure projects that could be supporting something that might not be moving forward,” Mangauil said.
“I don’t feel we should be pushed or rushed into pushing forward with projects that we’re assumed we just have to carry on. We are here to have bigger conversations about the entire structure of what happens on the mountain.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
