A contentious proposal to build a satellite receiver array in Ka‘u was once again postponed Thursday.
At a meeting of the Windward Planning Commission, the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics was scheduled to make its case for a special permit to operate an array of 10 satellite dishes on a two-acre rural lot in Wood Valley.
The array would be located about 200 feet away from the intersection of Wood Valley Road and Makakupu Road, and would be used to detect Fast Radio Bursts, fleeting yet powerful pulses of radio waves originating from deep space.
Geoff Bower, ASIAA’s chief scientist for Hawaii Operations, said in January that detecting FRBs requires astronomers around the globe to watch the skies continuously and simultaneously. A Hawaii array, working in tandem with mainland and Asian facilities, would allow astronomers to triangulate the point of origin of an FRB.
The Ka‘u location is essential, Bower said, because of the dearth of radio signals that would otherwise drown out an FRB, which are immensely powerful on an astronomical scale — releasing on average three times the daily energy output of the sun within a single millisecond — but only register on Earth as an extremely faint burst of radiation.
“We set up a dish in Hilo to test it, but it’s completely saturated there,” Bower said. “It’s like trying to stargaze while standing under a streetlight.”
Bower said the array would be composed of 10 off-the-shelf satellite dishes 20 feet in diameter that would passively wait to receive signals. The array would not release any signals, the dishes would not be remotely operated, and would require minimal additional infrastructure — ASIAA’s proposal includes a 10-kilowatt solar array and a water catchment tank.
ASIAA proposed a similar project last year on a different Wood Valley parcel about two miles away from the current proposed location, but the county Planning Department recommended that that request be denied because of the proposed site’s agricultural potential.
The Planning Department has determined that the new proposed site is more suitable and has recommended that the request be granted. However, like last year’s proposal, Ka‘u residents have voiced disapproval for the project.
“Our main concern is that this area would evolve further from something that would be a land that serves its people,” said Wood Valley resident Stefan Taylor during Thursday’s meeting. “It could be something like what has happened on South Point … where similar satellite structures have been placed, which are now sites for gawking, where travelers, tourists, locals come to see and disturb the local area.”
Another resident, Michelle Weil, said the array’s need for a lack of radio signals would seem to impede any attempts by Ka‘u residents to improve cellular service in the area.
Taylor suggested that he and other residents would pursue a contested case hearing against the proposal if the matter continues.
However, the commission did not discuss the request Thursday. This was the second time this year the commission was scheduled to hear the proposal but, like the previous meeting in January, the matter was postponed after the panel failed to reach a quorum.
County Planning Program Manager Maija Jackson said two commissioners, Louis Daniele III and John Cross, both have ties to the Edmund C. Olson Trust, the owner of the Wood Valley lot the array would be built on.
Citing a potential conflict of interest, the two commissioners recused themselves and, because of the absence of a third commissioner, no quorum could be reached Thursday, postponing the matter again until next month.
Jackson said that, should the commission have full attendance at its March meeting, it will reach a quorum even if Daniele and Cross recuse themselves again.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
