Hawaiian Volcano Observatory’s new permanent home still slated for completion in early 2027

Last month, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hilo office appeared on an original list of about 440 federal buildings called “not core to government operations,” which sent shockwaves among the scientific and many people on the Big Island who live near active volcanoes.

But the original list of buildings on the chopping block — which was initiated by the Trump Administration and made public on the General Services Administration website — was quickly trimmed to 320 and a day later taken down completely after public outcry.

Weeks later, Hawaiʻi County Mayor Kimo Alameda and many others breathed a sigh of relief when the General Services Administration posted a new list of only 16 properties on the chopping block, with none of those buildings located in the state of Hawai‘i.

The U.S. Geological Survey’s office building in Hilo also is the temporary home of the agency’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, which for more than 100 years has been tracking the movements of Hawai‘i’s volcanoes, and now is in the midst of a series of 16 eruptions and pauses by Kīlauea.

U.S. Geological Survey officials declined to answer questions about the scare and current status of its Hilo building, located in the Iron Works Building on Kamehameha Avenue.

But they did confirm that work is still moving forward on two new facilities for its Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, which is needed because its longtime Jaggar Museum and research building — perched near the Halema‘uma‘u crater within Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park — was badly damaged and left structurally unsound by the partial collapse of Kīlauea’s summit during the Lower East Rift Zone eruption in 2018. The building was demolished in 2014.

The observatory’s new facilities will include a field station within Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park and a research facility in Hilo that will be part of a larger U.S. Geological Survey research facility located on the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo campus. This facility will be shared with the USGS’s Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center.

The field station is expected to be completed in January of 2026 and the research facility by January of 2027. The projects, both currently in the design phase, are projected to cost a combined $127 million.

When the Hilo building was put on the original list, Rose Gallo, a University of Hawai‘i student currently working on her doctorate in geology, said: “We were wondering how they would operate without their space. Do they [the Trump Administration] not realize what’s in this office?”

The government currently monitors dozens of active volcanoes near population centers, including Kīlauea, the world’s most active volcano, and Mount Spurr near Anchorage, Alaska. Hundreds of thousands of people live near these two volcanoes alone.

Alameda said the work of the U.S. Geological Survey on the Big Island is critical, adding: “When the federal government makes sweeping decisions without taking into account the uniqueness of our situation it can be problematic.”

Had the U.S. Geological Survey Hilo building remained on the list, it was not clear what that would have meant to the operations that now occur inside it.

And, if the federal government decides to reverse course again and cancel the building’s lease, Alameda said the county would find a way to keep the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory housed until it’s new facilities can be completed.

After the observatory lost its home in 2018, observatory staff and the analytical instruments used to predict eruptions, and study and forecast lava flows, were spread out across multiple temporary facilities, including the U.S. Geological Survey building in Hilo. Since then work has been underway on a new home.

“Without the observatories in place, scientists would be unable to do the work that leads to early warnings for evacuations or for changes to air travel,” said Miel Corbett, Western Communications Chief with U.S. Geological Survey.

The new facilities for the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory will be state of the art, Corbett said. They will have lab spaces designed and dedicated to current and future needs, such as geologic sample processing and monitoring tool development that enable scientists to fulfill its mission using the latest technologies.

The joint research facility will be the new permanent location for the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, which monitors and assesses hazards from active volcanoes and earthquakes in Hawai‘i. The site was blessed in June 2023.

The facility will sit on 6.8 acres of state-owned land off Nowelo Street, near the intersection with Komohana Street and on the campus of the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo.

The buildings are funded through the Additional Supplemental Appropriation for Disaster Relief Act of 2019, signed by President Donald Trump during his first term, which appropriates $98.5 million to support recovery and rebuilding activities following the 2018 Kīlauea volcano eruption, Hurricanes Florence and Michael, the Anchorage earthquake and the California wildfires.

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory opened in 1912. Over the decades, it has followed many eruptions, providing the public with timely and ongoing information. This has included the decades-long Kīlauea eruption in the 1990s that resulted in lava flowing into the ocean from Kalapana; the devastating 2018 eruption that destroyed homes, roads and wiped out Pohoiki Boat Ramp; and now the current eruption.

In 2022, Mauna Loa erupted for the first time in 38 years encroaching on Hawai‘i Island’s main thoroughfare across the island, Daniel K. Inouye Highway.

Gallo said the ability of the observatory to predict what’s going to happen and create accurate guidelines has increased with time.

If the observatory wasn’t able to operate the way it does now those living on the rift zones would be at risk.

“It would be cruel and ridiculous for the government to be indifferent to that,” Gallo said.

Today, scientists are updating the public daily on an eruptive event at Kīlauea Summit that started in December 2024. There have been ongoing eruptive episodes ranging from 13 hours up to 8 days, with pauses between activity lasting less than 24 hours to 12 days.

Episode 16 of the ongoing Halemaʻumaʻu eruption ended at 12:03 p.m. on Wednesday.