WAILUKU - A supplemental draft environmental impact statement has been published for the proposed Advanced Technology Solar Telescope atop Haleakala.
The deadline for public comments is June 22.
The proposed 92-foot-long telescope would be housed in an observatory that would be 143 feet high and 84 feet in diameter. It would be aimed at studying solar magnetic activities and variability as a way of understanding astrophysics and the behavior of the sun, which affect space weather and communications for satellites around the Earth and how the sun affects the Earth's climate. The telescope also will help scientists understand the hazards the sun creates for astronauts and air travelers and for communications to and from satellites.
The project has been opposed as a visual blight on the top of Haleakala and as being offensive to a sacred place for Native Hawaiians.
The project is being proposed by the National Science Foundation.
The supplemental draft environmental impact statement is a joint federal and state of Hawaii document prepared in compliance with the federal National Environmental Policy Act. The federal process is separate from the state's environmental review process.
The project needs a special use permit from the National Park Service to operate commercial vehicles on roads at Haleakala National Park during the construction and opera-
tion of the telescope. In 2006, the foundation issued a draft environmental impact statement that did not include an analysis of the effects of the project on the park's roads.
The supplemental environmental study was done to include those anticipated impacts as well as additional studies done in response to comments received during the review of the draft environmental impact statement.
The solar telescope would be on approximately 0.86 acres at Pu'u Kolekole, near the summit of Haleakala, considered one of the best sites in the world for astronomical and space surveillance activities. Among other reasons, the summit of Haleakala is remarkably free of dust when compared with other sites considered. In a two-year study, 70 possible sites worldwide were considered for the solar telescope observatory, but the National Science Foundation, in collaboration with the solar physics scientific community, "demonstrated that Haleakala is the only site satisfying the ATST science goals," according to the project's supplemental EIS.
The proposed project would be the world's largest optical solar telescope, with a 13-foot diameter main mirror combined with state-of-the-art computer and optical technologies providing the sharpest views ever of the sun.
"From a site on Haleakala, the proposed ATST project would have unprecedented sensitivity for measuring the sun's outer atmosphere, and it would be able to see the finest details on the disk of the sun," the supplemental environmental review says. "The proposed ATST project would be unique in its ability to resolve fundamental length and time scales of the basic physical processes governing variations in solar activity.
"Just as fundamental problems in atomic, nuclear and gravitational physics were revealed through earlier studies in solar physics, the proposed ATST project would have a broad effect on astronomy and astrophysics, plasma physics for potential future power systems, solar-terrestrial relations and climatology, and ultimately, prediction of solar activity."
The cost of the telescope has been estimated at $161 million, with funding coming from the National Science Foundation.
The telescope would be located east of the existing C.E. Kenneth Mees Solar Observatory. Land at the site is under the control and management of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy.
* Brian Perry can be reached at citydesk@mauinews.com
