September 2014

TMT passed another significant milestone yesterday. We carried out the first earth work on the TMT site under the Conservation District Use Permit and the sublease. This was the grading for the groundbreaking. It began at 6:30 am with a safety meeting at Hale Pohaku and mobilization of the workforce at the site by 8:00 am. The excavator, dozer, loader, crusher, roller and water trucks were prepositioned last week.

The attached picture was taken at 4:45 pm yesterday by Paul Gillett. The site began in much of the shape of the surrounding large rocky ridges. By the time this photo was taken, the area of the groundbreaking ceremony was ripped, piled into boulder piles, hammered and then the rocks began to run through the crusher. You can see the excavator in orange which performed the ripping and shoveling and hammering with different tools attached. It is shoveling in the photo. More important, to its left is the crusher spewing small size material on the now leveled site. The watering truck, for dust control, is to the left. The roller smoothed the road and the segment near the watering truck is the kind of surface that we are working towards. Behind the orange excavator is a clearing and turnaround for the groundbreaking bus and vehicle parking.

This was a legal milestone in that it was construction activity with full authority and approval. And it is a major step towards preparing for the October 7 ceremony. With continued good conditions this work may finish next week.

Everyone is to be congratulated for the years of hard work to get to this big legal and small physical milestone.