A federal agency will take at least two years longer to determine whether to fund the Thirty Meter Telescope.
In July 2022, the National Science Foundation issued a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement for the TMT project on Maunakea.
But two year later, that EIS has not been completed, and the National Environmental Policy Act requires that such statements be finished within two years of the notice of intent.
In order to comply, the NSF on Tuesday announced it has extended its environmental review until the end of 2026.
The decision to delay the process was “influenced by various considerations … including potential environmental impacts and advancements in analytical methods, such as the appropriate incorporation of Indigenous knowledge,” according to the NSF statement.
The delay also allows the NSF to complete an extensive community consultation process with Big Island stakeholders. In 2023, NSF reached out to various Big Island groups to consult in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act, and was planning meetings with those groups to take place during the first half of the year.
Those meetings have been delayed, according to the NSF.
TMT Project Manager Fengchuan Liu said Tuesday’s announcement was not unexpected, given that the environmental review had to be completed by this month or be extended.
“We welcome NSF’s continued engagement in Hawaii,” Liu said in a statement. “For our part, we remain committed to listening to, and learning from, community members, building long-term relationships, and co-creating programs that create a brighter future for everyone.”
The delay does not appear to apply to the Giant Magellan Telescope, an observatory under construction in Chile that together with TMT would form an “Extremely Large Telescope Project.”
In 2022, the National Academy of Sciences recommended that the NSF invest in both TMT and GMT.
However, earlier this year, the NSF board recommended that the agency spend no more than $1.6 billion on the ELT project, which would only suffice to build one telescope or the other.
To determine which telescope to pursue, the NSF board announced in May it would conduct a review of both projects this year to evaluate them on various criteria. That panel’s findings were, at the time, due to the NSF board by September of this year, although no date for a final decision by NSF was ever announced.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate is debating a budget bill that would award $73.7 billion in research spending to various agencies, including $9.55 billion to NSF. That allocation would include $100 million for new astronomical facilities — with the ELT considered the most likely recipient of the funding — while U.S. senators want NSF’s 2026 budget request to include its first construction cost estimates for the ELT.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.