Hawai’i – Page 44 – A Darker View

About the Jobs

Note: This is an editorial that I wrote a while back. It was originally published in Civil Beat on August 18th, 2016. It appears here in the original form (pre-editor) and with far better photos…

Ancient and Modern — A radio telescope of the Very Long Baseline Array stands in the background of an ancient ahu atop Mauna Kea

The construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope has become a symbol of the many issues that swirl in these islands. It is an argument that touches the fundamental question as to who we are and where we are going.

While many frame the argument as one between science and culture, others frame it as one of development versus culture. Their premise is that somehow building another telescope is destroying local culture. They overlook the opportunity the telescopes represent, that the right economic development can support a community, preserve a culture.

Supporters of TMT highlight the jobs that the telescope will bring… “It is not about the jobs!” is the reply from opponents. Of course it is. You cannot maintain a culture in poverty. You cannot maintain a culture when your keiki leave to seek opportunity elsewhere. Leave the island behind… Leave the culture behind. Economic struggle is the greatest single threat to a local culture, a threat that cannot be overstated.

The lack of economic opportunity has an enormous impact on a local community. The stress of struggling for a living, of getting by on a low paying service industry job can be destructive to families and individuals. Drugs use, family abuse, all of the social ills so often identified in low income areas are as destructive to the culture as they are to the person. The statistics tell the story… Hawai’i Island routinely tops rest of the state in numbers that are not good…. Lowest per capita income, highest number of children living in poverty, unemployment and more.

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Mauna Kea Adze Quarry

The AO system was broken, nothing really bad, but something I would need to go up and fix. Reading the nightlogs each morning there are occasionally surprises like this, a sudden re-planning of an otherwise lazy Sunday.

Workshop — A workshop in the Mauna Kea adze quarry

I suspected that the fix would not take me long at all. But I would be on the mountain… What to do with the rest of the day? I load camera and hiking gear along with my backpack of tools. If I do complete the job quickly I will go hiking. The Mauna Kea adze quarry springs to mind as a likely spot to spend a few hours.

The ancient Hawaiians had no access to metal on these volcanic islands. What they did have was a source of very hard volcanic rock. High on Mauna Kea there were once glaciers, a place where the fury and heat of the volcano met ice. Cooling quickly in the icy realm the lava formed a dense, fine grained rock suitable for making tools.

The rock from this quarry could be shaped and ground into a number of tools, particularly adzes that could be used to cut wood or carve the great ocean going canoes. Tools made from this particular rock were so prized that they have been found in archaeological sites on distant islands across the Pacific.

I have known how extensive the adze quarry is for years. The numbers are abstract, number of find sites mapped, square kilometers of area, just numbers on paper. What I found was quite different than what I was expecting, nothing conveys the actuality of being there.

I was amazed at the sheer size of the piles of flakes. These are sites that were worked for centuries, each workshop accumulating many tons of waste rock flake to tumble down the slope. Having worked with my hands continually over my lifetime, I know how hard hand labor like this is. I stood amazed at the sheer amount of human effort it took to accumulate these piles.

I found I had another misconception to correct… Looking from a distance you see the caves with piles of waste rock spilling down. I had assumed that the caves and ledges are where the actual mining took place, where the basalt was pried from the mountain. Visiting one of the workshops I quickly see this is not the case.

Orchid

Hapu’u

Plumeria

Pāhoehoe Inflation

Most people think that lava flows simply ooze forward and cool in place. But there is more going on than this simple version. Yes, flows ooze forward, but much of the mass of a lava flow arrives later, the flow can inflate to many times the volume as more lava arrives and lifts the crust from underneath.

How many of us have played with molten wax from a candle, or perhaps simply watched a thick syrup or honey flow over a pancake? An observant person watches things like this and learns how materials behave. The problem is that these lessons, while valuable, sometimes do not translate well to all cases. Lava is a good example, it behaves much differently than many would expect.

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Hurricane Week is Over

Well? We have survived Hurricane Week, two hurricanes brushing past the island. Other than a bit of rain and shattered schedules we are just fine. Madeline caused some power outages and dumped a good deal of rain on the windward side. Lester turned north and did not impact the island to any significant degree other than high surf.

Here in Waikoloa we got some wind and no rain from Madeline, and a touch of rain from the water vapor left behind by Lester. Mostly it has just been muggy and hot here on the leeward side.

Next Up? Hurricane Lester

Hurricane Madeline has come and gone. Other than some flooding, a few power outages, and minor damage here and there, Madeline failed to leave much of an impact on the Big Island. Indeed, satellite imagery loops show the storm coming apart as it interacted with the island and the big mauna. At the house there was some wind, no rain, just a very warm and muggy afternoon and night.

Next up is Hurricane Lester, due to brush the northern side of the island on Saturday…

GOES West 20160901 — Hurricane Lester approaching the Hawaiian Islands on September 1, 2016. GOES West color image.

Madeline Arrives

So far is is just windy.

As the first part of the storm pushes ashore on the other side of the island all we are getting is wind. Gusty conditions prevail from Waimea to Waikoloa, about what we would get on a bad day of trade winds. It is enough to bump your car around the road a bit, with gusts around 45mph.

Keck closed up HQ at noon today, sending everyone home. Observing was cancelled last night and is cancelled again tonight. A few support guys went to the summit this morning, checked everything, then left.

While Madeline has been downgraded to a tropical storm, Lester remains a strong hurricane. I am a little more worried about the weather Lester will bring on Saturday.

Hurricane Afternoon — The view from Waimea towards Mauna Kea as Madeline pushes ashore. The cloud bands are just visible as the high clouds on the left.