Stop The Construction the TMT Telescope on Mauna Kea and the Arrest of Mauna Kea Protectors

[LTX]

200. From the baseline survey you appended:

"Adverse influence of the human activities associated with astronomy is not apparent. This assertion rests largely on a) the finding that construction and related activities have not fostered the establishment of introduced plants in the study area and, more importantly, b) our finding that the frequency of native plants near the road, observatories and other constructed facilities is about the same as at more distant locations within and outside the Astronomy Precinct when comparing similar substrates."

I'll note that the study's recommendations are directed to control of invasive species promulgated through human traffic, which, as the study notes, takes the form of recreation (skiing, hiking, etc.), as well as local population traffic (presumably sacred site visitors) and traffic associated with the observatories.

I'll also note that the difficulty in establishing a baseline assessment of lichen populations in the summit region is, rather ironically, the inverse of the difficulty in establishing baseline assessments of lichen populations in areas of extraordinary fecundity, such as the Smoky Mountains, where more than 800 species of lichen have been identified. As stated in the study:

"This report includes a discussion of the difficulty of identification of lichens in the Mauna Kea environment and a preliminary analysis of lichen community structure and the environmental factors that may shape the communities.These findings are briefly presented in this section. The work of identifying the unidentified species is continuing. Identification is made difficult or impossible because many specimen lack reproductive structures and spores. It appears that the usually dry environment of the alpine environment on Mauna Kea supports reproduction in many lichen species only during atypical periods of higher than normal moisture . . . . [App. D-3 has the detailed lichen assessment]"

The observatory construction has nevertheless undoubtedly had its share of environmental impact, and the study notes that observatory foundations are not observed to be colonization points for lichen or moss populations:

"No new lichens or mosses have become established in the [Observatory] area as a consequence of the construction or have used the structures as their habitat. The number of calciphiles in Hawaii is small because even though the basalts are basic the pH is close to neutrality. Therefore, though there are some small areas of elevated coral or lithified dunes in the Islands there is very little habitat for calciphiles."

Nevertheless, the lichen populations in the summit region do not give an indication of overall distress (not surprising given their substrate and facet habitats), and as the study notes:

"The checklist of the lichens in this survey notes 23 species, twelve more than observed during the 2008 study (Smith 2008) (Appendix 1) and two more than the study in 1982 (Smith et al., 1982). The difference between the two recent studies is due to expanding the studying area down to 13,000 ft, a recommendation of the 2008 study, as well as including three sites on the western boundary of the area around Puu Poliahu. The three western sites were somewhat richer in species (at least three species were unique to this region of the study area) or had better developed thalli which better linked the depauperate specimens in the TMT area with species found at Hale Pohaku, e.g., Physcia dubia."

Your interviewee (in the video) seems like a sincere researcher with a reasonably broad knowledge of the area's botanicals, but even you have to admit that he brings to his ostensible conclusions a decidedly political agenda. I'll also note that his conclusions are drawn from a (not entirely unreasonable) lack of sufficient evidentiary base, but are nevertheless conclusions that are not drawn from or tied to the baseline study itself.