PIERRE - Gov. Mike Rounds said he'll ask the National Science Foundation to cover an $11 million funding gap beginning in 2011 at the Sanford Underground Laboratory in Lead.

He said the state Legislature and state philanthropist T. Denny Sanford have provided the money to get through 2010 and put a lab at the 4,850-foot level. Now, he says, it's time for the NSF to kick in some money until Congress decides whether to locate a national scientific laboratory even deeper in the former gold mine.

Rounds said the $11 million shortfall is not a surprise and has been part of the development plan for several years.