Opposition  began on July 12, 2005 when Ed Lindsey testified at the first public ATsT scoping meeting:

“MR. LINDSEY: Ed Lindsey. This question is for Jeff the scientist. I appreciate your passion and your delivery for the importance of the study of the sunspots, as far as the scientific community is concerned. And for Jeff the architect, how many stories is your building?

MR. BARR: If you identify it, you refer to it as something like a 10-story building.

MR. LINDSEY: In other words, the building will be higher than the county building up on Haleakala, and that’s going to be pointed white; is that correct?

MR. BARR: Correct.

MR. LINDSEY: And that’s for scientific reasons and usage. Somehow, I feel like the fox is in the chicken coop asking the chickens when they want to be eaten, because I would rather have this project built in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, or California, rather than here on Maui. That’s one of the problems that we have here on Maui being the best place for everything.

So right now we find our local people in a pickle, not being able to even get housing, leave alone the lands. And so we have homeless Hawaiians here, and we have the federal government supporting a project such as this. And as worthy as it may be, there’s a complete disregard from the federal government for supporting the needs of the Hawaiian people and including the rest of the community over here on Maui. The impact on traffic is going to continue, the impact of construction is going to continue, the degradation of our cultural sites will continue. I just returned from a hearing where more cultural sites are being destroyed under the name of private ownership and private ownership rights. Now we have ceded lands, and I believe they are 5F lands; is that correct? In other words, another word for ceded lands is stolen lands, and it belonged to the Hawaiian people. And yet, there’s a continuous degradation in both the Hawaiian students, our Hawaiian culture, our Hawaiian elders, and the basic community fabric of our Hawaiianness.”  (see transcript)

The Native Hawaiian Legal Corp estimates that it may take time for the Supreme Court to render its decisions. Because the case is still being decided, some people think nothing is happening. The Haleakalā cases have gone under the radar and most think the DKIST is a done deal. Not yet.

Ironically, and unfortunately, we can literally say we have been fighting the project now for 10 years. And Ed Lindsey has since passed on.