State, mine officials sign Homestake pact

By Bill Harlan, Journal Staff Writer | Wednesday, September 21, 2005

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LEAD — Gov. Mike Rounds pledged Tuesday to begin a statewide campaign to win support for his plan to spend $35.6 million to convert the closed Homestake gold mine in Lead into an underground science laboratory.

"Today is the first step in the sales pitch to the rest of South Dakota to confirm how special this opportunity is," Rounds told a crowd of more than 100 people gathered at Gold Run Park in Lead.

The state Legislature already has committed $15.7 million to the Homestake lab proposal, including a $10 million federal grant engineered by Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., three years ago. Now, Rounds will ask for another $19.9 million, probably in a special legislative session sometime in October.

The governor called the underground lab proposal "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our young people to benefit from a national laboratory within our borders."

National labs attract billions of dollars in research, and they spawn business and education opportunities, too, the governor said.

Rounds spoke Tuesday during a ceremony to sign an agreement with Homestake Mining Co. and its parent company, Barrick Gold Corp. of Toronto. The agreement could give the state possession of the mine for use as a lab even as the National Science Foundation is deciding whether Homestake should be the site of a national underground laboratory.

If the Legislature approves the additional funds, the state could almost immediately enter the closed gold mine, renovate part of it and invite scientists to do experiments 4,850 feet underground.

The Homestake mine is 8,000 feet deep, and it is one of two finalist sites the NSF is considering for a Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory, or DUSEL.

Underground labs protect experiments from cosmic radiation, and the Homestake proposal calls for a laboratory 7,400 feet underground — the deepest in the world. However, the NSF selection, design and construction process will take years — in part because it will need approval from the White House and Congress. The soonest construction could begin on DUSEL is probably 2009.

Scientists want to begin underground experiments sooner, and some researchers say 4,850 feet would be deep enough for many experiments.

Rounds said the 4,850 level at Homestake could be re-opened and ready for experiments by early 2007 — a sort of "interim DUSEL."

The stumbling block to that plan, however, has been Barrick's reluctance to turn over the mine to the state of South Dakota before the NSF decides whether to put DUSEL there.

On Tuesday, the governor credited Barrick vice president Patrick Garver with reaching a solution. "Patrick Garver has kept us on the straight and narrow," Round said. "He asked the hard questions. He made us develop solid business plans to make this a reality."

Barrick will still donate the mine to South Dakota for use as a lab. The $35.7 million the state would commit to the project is the amount Barrick officials say is necessary to re-open Homestake safely.

Part of that money will buy an insurance policy to protect Barrick from liability for property the company will no longer control, Rounds said, but most of it will be spent to re-open and maintain the mine.

Rounds said that the additional, one-time appropriation of $19.9 million would enable the state to keep the mine open for science through 2012. By that time, Rounds hopes, the NSF will have decided to build DUSEL at Homestake.

The state could also begin pumping out water that has been slowly filling the mine for more than two years since Barrick turned off underground pumps. The water level currently is between 6,400 feet and 6,800 feet underground.

Pumping out the water is an important step because the NSF also is considering Henderson Mine in Colorado as a potential DUSEL site. Henderson is a working molybdenum mine about 50 miles west of Denver. It has some advantages over Homestake. Most obviously, it isn't filling up with water. Henderson also offers horizontal access, and it is close to a major metropolitan area.

Opening Homestake early, however, gives South Dakota a clear advantage, Rounds said.

The state likely would begin pumping out water immediately, but only to keep the water level below 6,000 feet. If Homestake is picked as DUSEL, the deeper levels would be pumped dry, making it much deeper than Henderson.

Rounds said Homestake also could gain an advantage over Henderson by becoming a working laboratory well before construction could begin on DUSEL.

Early entry to Homestake depends on approval from the state Legislature of the additional $19.1 million. State Sen. Jerry Apa, R-Lead, said Tuesday he believed the approval would be overwhelming. Other legislators contacted by the Rapid City Journal agreed.

The early-entry plan also depends on scientists agreeing to conduct experiments in Homestake. Rounds said he was confident they would do that, in part because of the efforts of physicist Kevin Lesko of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. "Kevin Lesko understands what we're doing here," Rounds said.

Lesko is the "principal investigator" of the Homestake DUSEL proposal, and Rounds credited him with creating a consortium of top scientists nationwide who are supporting the Homestake plan.

Lesko was traveling this week and was unable to attend the ceremony, but in an e-mail Tuesday, he called the agreement with Barrick "the most encouraging announcement we have received since I began working on a national underground laboratory in 2000."

Rounds agreed that the deal he signed Tuesday was important, but he also called for "redoubling our efforts to finishing the project." It will be finished, the governor said, "when the National Science Foundation identifies us as the location for the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory."

Contact Bill Harlan at 394-8424 or bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com