The DOWs were sold to UIUC, presumably to cover the funds that needed to be paid back to NSF/DOJ.
The Doppler on Wheels (DOW) mobile radar and instrumentation facility has joined the Department of CliMAS at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
atmos.illinois.edu
From the UIUC piece linked to by Rob above:
- “How much did the new facility cost? How did the department raise funding for the facility?”
“The department doesn’t actually own the multi-million dollar facility, but instead has acquired it through a long-term contract. The contract is currently financed through internal departmental funds, but soon will be supported through external research grants through the National Science Foundation, other government agencies, and hopefully private industry usage and sponsorship.”
Admittedly I have no idea how these types of things work in academia, but it sounds like the DOWs were not actually “sold.” The language used by UIUC is confusing, because “acquired” typically means purchased in a business/finance context, but perhaps here is just intended to mean *physically* acquired. I’m wondering if the DOWs were confiscated by a government agency as collateral and/or as direct repayment of the debt, and now UIUC is paying to use them? I would tend to think UIUC is leasing them, but then again why wouldn’t they just come out and say that? It can’t be that they are just financing the purchase, because when you finance something you own it, just like your car or your house. The statement clearly says they do not own the DOWs.
Interesting that Karen Kosiba remains involved with the DOWs as an adjunct professor of UIUC. Wasn’t she basically Josh Wurman’s #2? Josh is not mentioned as having any involvement.
Kind of funny to get caught up in this story as relative outsiders… While the general public couldn’t care less, here I am as a “fan” and observer of the “severe weather enterprise,” finding myself fascinated by the intrigue, no different than with scandals in sports, business or politics...
![Smirking face :smirk: 😏](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60f.png)