The state Department of Health has recommended that a permit for storm runoff at the Thirty Meter Telescope construction site be approved.
The DOH Clean Water Branch on April 8 issued a recommendation that the department’s director renew the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Permit for the TMT International Observatory Site on Maunakea, which originally was issued in 2014.
The permit requires any future TMT construction site to conform to specific storm water runoff practices in order to prevent contamination of waters farther down the mountain. The permit identifies Kemole Gulch, Kuupahaa Gulch, Puupohakuoloa Gulch, Pohakuloa Gulch and the Wailuku River as the waters that ultimately will receive any storm water runoff from the site.
Darryl Lum, supervisor for the Clean Water Branch’s engineering section, said such permits must be renewed every five years, but the DOH was unable to renew the TMT permit when it first came up for renewal in 2019. Instead, Lum said, the DOH extended the permit indefinitely until earlier this year, when it resubmitted its recommendation to renew the permit.
The permit only applies to stormwater runoff from the TMT construction site on Maunakea, not the telescope facility itself, Lum said.
Nor does the renewal of the permit represent any major step forward for the TMT project, which has not made much progress in Hawaii since the months-long standoff with Native Hawaiian groups in 2019.
With the recommendation filed, members of the public can submit comments on the recommendation until May 8 via email at cleanwaterbranch@doh.hawaii.gov.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.