TMT CONSTRUCTION PROBABLY WONʻT RESUME UNTIL 2021
Hawai`i News Now - July 16, 2020
Construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea will not begin this year, a project official said Wednesday.
Gordon Squires, vice president of external affairs for the TMT International Observatory, announced on Hawaii News Now Sunrise that construction will probably not happen until sometime after spring or summer of 2021.
“With the pandemic and other factors that have come in, winter seems like a long ways away, but it’s not that far away and for us to resume construction activities on site, winter on Mauna Kea just isn’t feasible,” Squires said.
Despite this, Squires said, “We’re absolutely committed to finding a way forward in Hawaii.”
His announcement comes exactly one year after construction was slated to begin — on July 15, 2019. The project was later halted following months of protests from those who saw the giant telescope atop Mauna Kea as desecration of a sacred mountain.
“We’re still working, we work every day to make sure this project doesn’t move forward, so this week, we’re celebrating and commemorating one year that we’ve been able to stop the project from moving up the mountain,” said Noe Noe Wong-Wilson, one of the leaders in the TMT protest.
