TMT Work to Resume Says Ige!

[TomK]

The decision to decommission UKIRT came from UH, not Ige. It was the easy target because the UK gave UH the money to decommission it as part of the deal to transfer ownership. It will become clearer over time this decision was politically and financially driven, and has nothing to do with science. The rust-bucket UH 88-inch is not a target for decommissioning, despite being spectacularly unproductive, because UH wants to redevelop that site.

My understanding is if UKIRT is decommissioned, the site will not be redeveloped. This was in some agreement made several years ago, I forget which one it was, there have been so many.