Astronomers and business leaders grew frustrated that the state was not doing enough to keep the road open for construction trucks and workers.  “The result of the faulty law enforcement surrounding Mauna Kea is fostering tension, aggression, racism and business uncertainty,” business organizations and the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce wrote to the governor. “Ambiguity surrounding the rule of law has prompted a poor economic climate.”  Stopping trucks on the steep slope was dangerous, said Dr. Bolte, adding that “people were basically trapped at the summit.”  Dr. Simons, the Canada-France-Hawaii director, grew increasingly worried about the effect of the protests on the astronomers, who became reluctant to be identified as observatory staffers.  “It really tugged at us to see the staff going from being proud to scared in a matter of weeks,” he said.  Meanwhile Ms. Pisciotta‘s coalition was plugging through the courts.  On Dec. 2, the Hawaiian Supreme Court revoked the telescope building permit, ruling that the state had violated due process by handing out the permit before the contested case hearing.  “Quite simply, the Board put the cart before the horse when it issued the permit,” the court wrote.  By mid-December, Clarence Ching, another member of the opposition, stood in a crowd with other Hawaiians and watched trucks carrying equipment retreat from the mountain.  “David had beaten Goliath,” he said. “We were even happy and sad at the same time — sad, for instance, that somebody had to lose — as we had fought hard and long.”  The court’s decision set the stage for a new round of hearings, now scheduled to start in mid-October. The case, presided over by Riki May Amano, a retired judge appointed by the Land Board, is likely to last longer than the first round, which consumed seven days of hearings over a few weeks, partly because there are more parties this time around.  Among them is the pro-telescope Hawaiian group called Perpetuating Unique Educational Opportunities or PUEO, who contend the benefits of the TMT to the community have been undersold.  Whoever wins this fall’s contested case hearing, the decision is sure to be quickly appealed to the Hawaiian Supreme Court.  In an interview, Edward Stone, a Caltech professor and vice president of the Thirty Meter Telescope International Observatory, the group that will build the telescope, set April 2018 as the deadline for beginning construction. Depending on how it goes in Hawaii or elsewhere, the telescope could be ready sometime in the last half of the next decade.  “We need to start building this thing somewhere,” he said.  “We still hope Hawaii will work,” he added. “What we need is a timely permit, and we need access to the mountain once we have a permit.”  But there is no guarantee that even if the astronomers succeed in court they will prevail on the mountain. In an email exchange, J. Douglas Ing, lawyer for the TMT Observatory, said they were “cautiously optimistic” that local agencies would uphold the law, but the astronomers have also been investigating alternative sites in Mexico, Chile, India, China and the Canary Islands.  “It’s wise of the TMT to be exploring other sites,” said Richard Wurdeman, the lawyer for the Mauna Kea Hui.  I asked Ms. Pisciotta what would happen if the giant telescope finally wins.  “It would be really hard for Hawaiian people to swallow that,” she said. “It’s always been our way to lift our prayers up to heaven and hope they hear us.”  Dr. Bolte said he had learned to not make predictions about Hawaii.  In a recent email, he recalled photographing a bunch of short-eared Hawaiian owls. “These are called pueo, and they are said to be the physical form of ancestor spirits,” Dr. Bolte recounted.  Referring to the Hawaiian term for a wise elder, he said, “I had one kupuna tell me it was a great sign for TMT that so many pueo sought me out that trip, and another tell me it was a sign that we should leave the island immediately before a calamity falls on TMT.”  Correction: October 4, 2016 An earlier version of this article misstated Mauna Kea’s size relative to other mountains in the solar system. It is one of the biggest, but Mauna Loa in Hawaii, which measures 56,000 feet from its base on the sea floor, is taller, so Mauna Kea is not “the second biggest mountain in the solar system” after Olympus Mons on Mars.
The effort to build the Thirty Meter Telescope has been held up by Hawaiians who say it desecrates Mauna Kea, one of their most beloved mountains.