On the trail with lab proponents

By Betsy Steele
Staff writer

The DUSEL proponents say they will pursue their proposal here even if the Citizens’ Advisory Committee gives it a thumbs’ down. That message was conveyed toward the end of the meeting on Sept. 16 that included a field trip to the base of Cashmere Mountain.

Chief instigators to establish a federal deep lab here, physicists Wick Haxton and John Wilkerson, led the trip on a chilly, rainy Thursday afternoon. And a number of protesters along Icicle Road waved “No DUSEL” signs and chanted against the project as the field trip bus passed by on its way to the site.

Cashmere Mountain loomed above the group as they disembarked and followed two of the foremost experts in nuclear theory through wet grass and hiking paths not far from Icicle and Eightmile Creeks above the Bridge Creek Campground.

This was the first time the committee of 27 met with the scientists and walked the ground where the lab could possibly be constructed. If the scientists have their way, the rumble of big trucks, blasting and construction equipment; and the bite of a huge Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) will replace – at least for a while - what is now a quiet forest recreation area.

Haxton and Wilkerson pointed out three potential locations for the entrance to the lab and Redd Robinson, director of underground services for TBM experts Shannon and Wilson, explained how the engineering would be done.

There were many questions about the staging area for assembling the necessary equipment, how the roads would be designed and rebuilt to accommodate intense year ‘round construction activity, where the rubble from many miles of tunnel and lab space would be deposited, how the concrete liner for the tunnels would be handled, lighting, ventilation and security, and proximity to wilderness and a wild and scenic river study area.

The choice of this general location was based entirely on the geology, Robinson said. “Initially, we found 12 places in the U.S. that matched the physical requirements for this type of lab. And this massive, beautiful Mount Stuart batholith, one big bubble of granite, has just the properties that we were looking for.”

“Did you consider any other qualities of the surrounding area, community, current uses, that sort of thing?” asked one of the committee members.

“No,” Robinson said. “I’m a geologist.”

And at this point the geologists are “theoretically” convinced that there are few fractures in the rock that could cause problems as they drill into it. But they need to gain more assurance and are hoping to receive the go-ahead from the National Science Foundation to take some rock samples. That would involve drilling a two-inch diameter core 1,000 feet horizontally into the rock face; and another core 6,000 feet vertically from about two and a half miles up.

Where best to enter into the deep recesses of Cashmere Mountain was the next question for the lab team. And they have chosen three possible sites. Those need to be at least 300 feet from streamsides and relatively flat so that a gravel based staging area could be constructed for materials, equipment and assembly of the TBM.

“Five acres would be a nice size, but not absolute. We could go with a smaller area, but it would be much more costly…Larger is better and more efficient,” Robinson said.

The team plans, however, to move underground after the initial blasting and excavation to expose rock face. Then, as the TBM proceeds, more is assembled to convey the rock chips out. Eventually the noise and work would become less evident; and the entrance itself would become a minor intrusion, Wilkerson said.

The TBM would start its work putting in a rail line that it travels along, angling gradually down, actually going under the creek. It would be preceded by drills “that explore out 200 feet ahead of the machine to test for groundwater flows and fractures and the abrasiveness of the rock.”

If fissures are encountered, where water flows, the TBM will be stopped, and the holes grouted over to keep water out, Robinson explained.

And it will “run dry; the stuff will be dusty,” he said when asked about oily lubricants that could contaminate the water.

Getting the equipment in and tailings out will require rebuilding, but not widening, several miles of Icicle Road, Haxton said. But “that is something the Forest Service said has to be done sooner or later, regardless.” And rebuilding, he said, will take care of frost heaves and icing that shuts down traffic for part of the year – a concern expressed by some committee members.

Haxton said that yes, all the roadbuilding will be an inconvenience but no more than such repair work that takes place elsewhere. And as far as the tailings go, again, according to Haxton, the Forest Service could come to the rescue, since they “need gravel and are interested in stockpiling [the rock chips] for use on their projects. We estimate that the Forest Service might be able to use 20 to 30 percent.”

A committee member reminded Haxton that Eight Mile Road is the primary access point to the Enchantment Lakes. “Won’t all the truck traffic pose a major inconvenience to those wishing to visit the high country?” The estimated 44 trucks per day, full of excavation debris, will go in convoys of four or five, with flaggers there to manage traffic all summer long, Haxton said. But the Bridge Creek Campground will have to be closed for the duration of the construction, which could be several years.

Issues such as water availability and wilderness were not addressed in any detail during the field trip. When they were brought up, Kaleen Cottingham, public relations coordinator for the science team, said “We haven’t fully evaluated all the legal ramifications.”

After the field trip, the group returned to Leavenworth where they spent the next three hours further questioning the scientists and planning their agenda. Their report for the Port of Chelan County is due by the end of November. And some on the committee are beginning to question how important that report will actually be.

Haxton explained that it is just one of many factors because the lab’s “potential benefits” go beyond the immediate community. The National Science Foundation is expected to choose a lab location in a year or two after the final proposals from several different areas of the country are submitted.

Leavenworth Echo, June 9, 2004

DUSEL facilitator addresses City Council
by Betsy Steele

The Leavenworth City Council heard from the facilitator hired to report on the community’s issues and concerns associated with the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL) proposal for Icicle Canyon.

Jim Reid of The Falconer Group Introduced himself to the city staff and council and explained his role in the process. He plans to meet with an estimated 90 people by the end of June, 43 who had already been interviewed by June 2.

“I’m asking for guidance as I talk to people in the community and begin the process of putting this together,” Reid said at the June 1 study session, emphasizing his neutral role as an independent agent and his lack of association with the project proponents from the University of Washington or the Port of Chelan County that hired him.

He also hopes to arrange for public forums during which experts and rep-resentatives from agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service can present information related to the proposed project. That will be the extent of his role in presenting technical information, however. “I am not a technical expert on this,” he emphasized, admitting that he did not even know a great deal about the actual proposal. And his report will not be a pro and con presentation, as some in the community have thought. He sees himself primarily as a listener and reporter, he said.

Reid gave assurances that the report, set to be completed by late November, will be made available to the general public, “since it is a public document,” he said.

This document on public sentiment will be turned in to the Port of Chelan and sent to the Cascades Collaboration at the University of Washington, headed by physics professor Wick Haxton.

“This public comment will help shape the formal proposal to be submitted to the National Science Foundation before the end of the year,” Haxton said. And that formal proposal will not be readily available to the public, according to NSF policies and procedures.

The foundation will review all of the proposals - there are likely to be six - and then decide whether to provide funds for detailed site evaluation, such as core sampling of Cashmere Mountain’s granite by geotechnical experts.

“This is the starting point for the people of the Leavenworth area to de-cide what they want the project to look like and define how it will fit into the community, if it is ultimately selected by the foundation,” Haxton added.

But some in the community are questioning whether this “starting point” is fair, since Reid is querying the public before they’ve had an opportunity to review the draft proposal just recently issued by Haxton’s team.

“Those who could be impacted by this really need to comprehend the length and extent of the construction process, the costs and what could actually take place in this massive lab over the decades, before they are interviewed and officially on the record,” said Anne Nowacki of Leavenworth.

Most City Council members and Leavenworth Mayor Mel Wyles said that they had not yet looked at the extensive draft proposal. And they appeared to expect Reid to come through with a condensed version, outlining pros and cons and public issues and concerns “in a form we can look at and understand, not a massive volume,” said Councilman Tibor Lak.

“It’s best to have this report that says ‘these are the facts. This is what will happen,’ not somebody going around waving a sign or saying things that are distortions or unrelated to this area,” said Councilman Bill Wells.

Other council members generally reiterated that sentiment. “Once we know the facts about the project, we can form our opinion after this fact-gathering is completed in November,” said Councilman Larry Langston.

Councilman Rob Eaton suggested that the council consider how best to approach public input from ‘Leavenworth citizens. But no further discussion ensued on that topic.

The DUSEL project pre-proposal is available for review at local libraries and at http://int.phys.washington.edu/ NUSEL/icicle.html.

Leavenworth Echo, May 19, 2004

Public input on DUSEL shunted to facilitator

BETSY STEELE, STAFF WRITER

Very shortly, a “pre-proposal” for what is now called the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Lab Cascades will be published, allowing citizens a glimpse of what the final proposal to the National Science Foundation might look like.

And, just a year after the acronym NUSEL was first heard around the valley, a report reflecting public sentiment is set to be delivered to city and county entities this November.

By 2005 the foundation will decide whether the Cashmere Mountain site or some other locale is worthy of its endorsement.

So the project proposal is well on its way from eliciting “well, just wait and see” to “Gosh, I’d better make up my mind” because the community’s reaction is being polled - now.

One group of citizens, the Icicle Valley Protection Affiance, submitted a petition with more than 240 signatures to Leavenworth City Council at its May 11 meeting.

“The signatures represent only a portion of those people in our community as well as those who visit Leavenworth and recreate in our valley who are opposed to the [once “National” but now “Deep”] Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory proposal for the Icicle Valley. The signers all realize that this project is not suitable for many reasons for this particular site...We all believe that the negative impacts of such a massive project far outweigh any possible benefits,” states a cover letter from Cot Rice, president of the alliance.

Earlier in the month, Rice, manager of the Cascade Irrigation District, had been scheduled to give a 20-minute presentation to the council at its May study session.

“Since water was the major topic being discussed at the study session, I felt it was important to provide input on the Icicle Creek watershed, to point out the possible impacts and make sure the city is fully aware of its role in maintaining the quality of that site, a major consideration when looking at [DUSEL],” he said.

But, upon returning from a week-long trip, Rice found a message on his answering machine informing him that his presentation had been cancelled. And it was not going to be rescheduled, because the city had decided that public input on the federal project needed to go through the project facilitator.

The facilitator is James Reid of The Falconer Group, recently hired through a committee headed by the Port of Chelan County to “assess, convene, negotiate and present a report by mid-November,” according to Reid’s proposal. The report, funded in part by the state at a cost of some $80,000 - is intended to outline the recommendations of the citizens of the community, more than 80 of whom Reid plans to interview

And, said council members, the city is likely to be under some pressure to take a stand on the project based on that report.

But the alliance is questioning whether handing over such local considerations to the facilitator is appropriate. Although acknowledging that the project is “bigger than Leavenworth,” its most direct impact would be on the environment just up the road from town, they say. And water is one of the most critical issues for which the city has responsibility.

The pre-proposal available at the project’s Web site projects water needs at 8,000 gallons per day during the estimated 16 months of tunnel boring, tapering off to about 5,000 per day once the excavation is done.

Furthermore, neutrino detectors, if installed, could require more than 12 million gallons of water every several years. Gasoline-like hydrocarbons and a variety of other compounds would also be used in the detectors.

In addition, the pre-proposal notes that water draining into the facility due to tunneling would need to be collected, possibly treated and pumped—somewhere-throughout the facility’s duration.

A water service agreement would be needed from the city; plus a new water right or existing one would need to be obtained for the project’s water needs.

And that, says Rice, has direct bearing on the city and should involve local discussion for grappling with all the complex issues raised.

Leavenworth’s current policy, though, is to let Reid handle all public input and then, “have items brought to the agenda for consideration once the report is out,” said City Administrator Scott Hugill.

Rice had asked for time before the council more than six weeks ago, but in the interim the facilitator was hired and a long list of other items came up for study session, Hugill explained. So about a week before the meeting, the mayor and staff decided to take Rice off the agenda.

“It often happens that higher priority items get placed on the agenda,” Hugill said. He encouraged Rice and other citizens to make their voices heard at any of the bimonthly council meetings on Tuesday evenings and by writing to their elected officials.

But at least two council members, Rob Eaton and Keith Tower, said they had no idea Rice had been nixed from the agenda or that public comment on DUSEL was to go through the facilitator.

Eaton, who is on a citizens advisory group looking into the DUSEL issue, said he was surprised to hear that Rice had been left out.

“That decision was made at the administrative level so council members weren’t aware that had happened,” he said. “It’s clear to me that the role of the city needs to be discussed. Do we want to depend on a countywide assessment or do we want to have informational meetings ourselves? If one of our citizens wants to address this issue they should be able to,” Eaton said adding that the city is “an active participant in this process. We’re not just sitting and waiting.. .We do have an opportunity to shape the project though.. .and we have to keep in mind that a project of this type could allow for economic diversity that could insulate us from ebbs and flows of tourism.. .This particular project may not be right for us, but we have an obligation to take an objective look at it to see if it might be a good fit and to develop a process for looking at this or other proposals that might come down the road.”

That appears to be one way the city is viewing DUSEL — as a test case for other major ventures that prompt a well thought out community response, a method for grappling with all the complex issues raised.

But at what point does it stop being a hypothetical situation, labeled “too preliminary" a “pre-proposal,” as the science group is labeling it now, and start being a serious plan of action? The National Science Foundation, according to reports, plans to narrow its choice of locations for the lab down to one or two as early as 2005.

In the meantime, community input is being labeled a consensus-building process by The Falconer Group. Some scoff at that. “Consensus? I think they’re dreaming,” said one City Council member.

“There’s no way they can mitigate for what is essentially industrialization of the Icicle Valley, with who knows what happening after 30 or 40 years when this particular set of experiments have run their course,” said an alliance member.

Yet the project proponents, led by Institute for Nuclear Theory director Wick Haxton, are confident they can “identify potential conflicts so they can be resolved in this initial pre-proposal. Those that cannot be resolved can be addressed through mitigation.”

And proponents may be offering what could be seen as enticing mitigation for the county, city and Port of Chelan County. In the pre-proposal, for example, men-tion is made of “a bridge over the Wenatchee River that would shorten the distance from one of the potential Port sites [for the lab’s administrative or education center] to the lab. Construction of this bridge might be eligible for federal funding as might a parking structure to alleviate traffic congestion in Leavenworth.. ..The project proponents are well aware of the potential such financial support holds for enhancing project goals and competitiveness.”

And they see the “central task, obtaining a special use permit for scientific activities on U.S. Forest Service lands, as one that’s been successfully concluded before by National Science Foundation project proponents.."

Leavenworth/Lake Wenatchee District Ranger Glenn Hoffman, the land manager for Cashmere Mountain, said the Forest Service has had very little communication with the DUSEL proponents to date. “Our position is, we will act on a proposal once we get one.”

And one of the first criteria will be to “determine the need to use national forest lands at all; whether this is an appropriate use of these lands or whether such a project could be located somewhere else,” Hoffman said.

When asked what distinguishes this type of land use from a private mining project, Hoffman said “This is research-oriented, so therefore it falls under special use guidelines. But in many ways, as far as the actual construction part of the project, it certainly involves drilling and extracting... That does remain a key question, and I'm not sure I have the answer at this time.”

That’s also true for how to interpret scientific research in and below wilderness areas, Hoffman said. “How far under the surface does wilderness go? And what type of research was intended when the [Federal Wilderness Act was written? Wick Haxton seems confident of his interpretation, but other groups see it differently.”

Ultimately, the decisions about the project could be “way beyond my authority,” Hoffman said. “Because we manage it, that doesn’t necessarily mean we have much say.”

from March 30, 2004 Rapid City Journal newspaper, South Dakota:

Lab timeline grows; new competition coming

By Bill Harlan, Journal Staff Writer

ARLINGTON, Va. - Top scientists at the National Science Foundation laid out a plan Monday that could lead to construction of a national underground laboratory - at the Homestake gold mine in Lead, S.D., or at another site - but it could be 2009 before experiments begin.

"It will take that much time if we run like the dickens," NSF particle physics program director Eugene Loh told a meeting of nearly 100 other scientists at the agency's headquarters in Arlington.

Supporters of the Homestake site said they would like the process to be faster, but they insisted they were pleased by the meeting.

"It went as good as it possibly could have gone," University of Minnesota physicist Marvin Marshak, who leads a group of scientists who favor Homestake, said.

South Dakota officials also attended the meeting to observe, including Jamie Rounds, director of the Governor's Office of Strategic Initiatives. "Nothing I've heard makes Homestake less valuable as a site," he said.

Monday's meeting was called by Loh's boss, astrophysicist Michael Turner, who heads the NSF's Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate. "Our whole philosophy here is to get the science community working together," Turner said.

Turner, Loh and other NSF scientists explained how the agency proposes to bring order to the search for an underground lab site that began as a brainstorm four years ago, inspired by the announcement on Sept. 11, 2000, that Homestake would close.

Two weeks later, University of Pennsylvania physicist Ken Lande proposed converting Homestake into a national underground laboratory. Scientists use deep labs to shield sensitive experiments from cosmic radiation, and Lande and his colleague, Nobel Prize winner Ray Davis, operated a small neutrino detector at Homestake for decades.

Lande was at the meeting Monday. "It's wonderful to have all this laid out," he said. "It sounds like a recitation of the Homestake proposal. We know the structure of the rock. We know the hydrology. All of this stuff has been done."

However, since Lande first proposed Homestake, six other sites have emerged as contenders for the lab, including two relatively recent entrants. Virginia Polytechnic Institute is proposing a lab in a working limestone mine in southwestern Virginia, and a consortium of universities in Colorado and New York is proposing to use a working molybdenum mine west of Denver.

Other physicists are proposing sites at Icicle Creek in central Washington and under San Jacinto Mountain in southern California. Sites in northern Minnesota and New Mexico also have been proposed.

Dick Gowen of Rapid City, who heads the state's Homestake Laboratory Conversion Project, said after the meeting, "We saw other sites come forward, but you could tell from the discussion that Homestake is ahead of them."

The NSF had already received three unsolicited proposals for underground labs, including a detailed Homestake proposal. Turner returned those in February "without prejudice." On Monday, he announced a series of three NSF "solicitations" for proposals.

The first two solicitations will come almost simultaneously, in May.

The first will focus on science and on the general requirements for experiments, without reference to a site. Turner hopes the scientific community can agree on one general proposal. "Before you tell me what you want me to build, tell me what questions you want to answer," Turner said.

The NSF will also ask for science proposals in modules, designed so they can share infrastructure and so that the lab could be built in stages.

The second solicitation will ask for proposals from individual sites.

The NSF will award $300,000 grants to develop those first two proposals, which would be due in six months. Marshak said Homestake proponents could easily meet that deadline, but advocates for the newer sites in Virginia, Colorado and Washington argued for more time.

Next year, the NSF will narrow the site proposals down to one or maybe two, then ask for a third, more detailed proposal.

Turner emphasized that the series of three solicitations would be only the beginning of the process. Large NSF science projects must survive a process called "Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction." After divisions and directorates in the NSF approve big projects, they go to an MREFC committee. Then, they must be approved by the National Science Board and included in the NSF budget request, which comes from the agency's director. Then, the White House decides whether the project goes into the administration's budget. Then, the project goes to Congress.

Turner said the soonest an underground lab could be funded would be in fiscal 2008, but the project would be competing with other big projects, some of which would be ahead of it in line.

Most scientists at the meeting Monday said they would rather the NSF moved quicker, but most agreed that, given the budget process, Turner's plan was the best they could hope for.

University of Pennsylvania physics professor emeritus Al Mann, an early advocate for underground science who has helped develop the South Dakota proposal, was blunter about the process. "It is too long, it is too slow, it stifles the imagination and creativity," Mann said.

The Homestake lab proposal is further along than others. Scientists have been working on it since late 2000. But a long wait for money poses other problems for a Homestake lab.

For example, the state would have to negotiate a change in its the agreement with Homestake owner Barrick Gold Corp. of Toronto. The company has agreed to donate the mine to the state for use as a lab, but that offer expires in three years.

"We can deal with that," Gowen said.

University of Washington physicist Wick Haxton, who dropped his support for the Homestake proposal in favor of Icicle Creek, also pointed out that Homestake has been flooding since last summer, when Barrick turned off underground pumps. The flooding helped prompt Haxton to abandon the Homestake proposal, and he said a further delay would make it even harder to pump Homestake dry.

Homestake is 8,000 feet deep, and water is now above the 7,400-foot level.

Gowen acknowledged that rising water makes Homestake more expensive, but he said pumping the mine dry would be a relatively small expense in a project that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

University of Maryland physicist Jordan Goodman, who also has supported the Homestake proposal, said after the meeting that Homestake had many advantages that countered the flooding problem - including community and state support and a clear path to getting environmental permits.

"The great thing about Homestake is, you add money, and it works," Goodman said.

from March 5, 2004 editorial page of The Rapid City Journal newspaper, South Dakota:

Early lead in lab race

By The Journal Editorial Board

Next month the National Science Foundation will meet with scientists to discuss guidelines on how to choose the best site for a proposed national underground science laboratory. South Dakota will send a representative to the meeting to present its proposal to place the lab at Lead's Homestake Mine. So will representatives from other states that also hope to win the underground lab prize.

The fact that other states have decided to pitch their underground lab proposals to the NSF shows just how much is at stake. South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds has said bringing the lab to Lead would mean millions of dollars to the region's economy.

Gov. Rounds has made the lab plan one of his administration's highest priorities, spending countless hours in negotiations with Barrick Gold Corp. to make it possible to locate the NSF's proposed National Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory at the closed Homestake Mine. Rounds and his staff were able to negotiate a plan that was agreeable to Barrick, clearing the way for the state to present the mine site to the NSF for its proposed lab.

State lawmakers did their part as well. The first pieces of legislation passed by the Legislature were bills that created an agency to operate the mine property, and $24.3 million in funds for operating costs and insurance.

When the NSF meets next month, South Dakota will be there with a fully-formed, ready-to-go package. Other states will have their plans to pitch as well, but South Dakota will be the only one with a site that can be good to go almost immediately and have experiments up and running within a year or two.

Thanks to the efforts of Gov. Rounds and lawmakers, South Dakota has a leg up on the competition. There's no guarantee that Lead will win the underground lab race, but state officials have taken every step necessary to clear the way. If the NSF is really serious about having a national underground lab, we have a site and start-up funding ready to make it possible. Let's hope the wait doesn't go on too long.

Tue, Feb. 24, 2004

Gowen prepares for NSF talks on Homestake lab

Associated Press

LEAD, S.D. - The National Science Foundation will invite scientists to Washington next month to discuss how the agency will choose the best site for a proposed national underground laboratory, the official in charge of South Dakota's proposal said Monday.

"We'll be ready to submit our proposal in March," Dick Gowen said.

Gowen spoke to nearly 100 people who had gathered here to celebrate the town's fourth annual Neutrino Day, a designation that grew out of a suggestion to turn the abandoned Homestake Gold Mine into the lab.

The Legislature this year enacted laws that could jump-start a lab with $24.3 million.

"The science community recognizes Homestake really is the preferred site," Gowen said.

He did, however, acknowledge, "We've been making the NSF a little uncomfortable, saying we're ready to go."

The NSF also has received proposals for sites in California and Minnesota, but all three proposals were unsolicited.

NSF returned them earlier this month, in effect starting the selection process over - this time with guidelines.

The meeting with NSF officials in Washington next month is to discuss those guidelines.

Gowen said proposals from Washington state and New Mexico also are possible. Gowen said he was optimistic, in part because South Dakota's proposal is far ahead of others.

Information from: Rapid City Journal,

The NSF decision detailed below clearly gives Michael Turner's friend Wick Haxton a better chance of getting NUSEL located in Icicle Canyon...

From the New York Times, February 14, 2004:

South Dakota Is Dealt a Setback After Hanging Hopes on a Science Project

By JAMES GLANZ and KENNETH CHANG

The hard-luck towns in the desolate reaches of western South Dakota have been banking on plans to build a physics laboratory in an abandoned, flooded gold mine called Homestake as their path to economic rebirth.

But a letter from Washington under the letterhead of the National Science Foundation has rained pessimism on all those efforts, which were spelled out at great length by Gov. Mike Rounds in his recent State of the State address.

In the letter, Michael Turner, the foundation's assistant director for mathematical and physical sciences, told scientists proposing the laboratory that they needed to start over. All proposals to create an underground laboratory were being "returned without prejudice," Dr. Turner wrote, so the foundation could clearly define the scientific need for creating one. The letter was sent on Feb. 6 and has begun appearing on physicists' Web sites.

The decision by the foundation came just as legislation pushed through by Mr. Rounds created an agency with the authority to issue some $100 million in bonds to develop the site. The governor, and many residents, say the laboratory could serve as the centerpiece of a high-tech revitalization plan for the western part of the state.

Asked about the letter in a telephone interview yesterday, Mr. Rounds, a Republican, replied, "It would be extremely ironic if the only thing stopping this project from moving forward at this time is the bureaucracy of N.S.F."

The letter cited the decision last year by the mine's owner, the Barrick Gold Corporation of Canada, to stop pumping water from the abandoned mine, citing cost pressures.

South Dakota officials, and some outside physicists, said the flooding did not impair the mine's ability to function as a laboratory in the long term. But Dr. Turner said in his letter that the flooding had "uncertain ramifications for the viability of the site for science."

In an interview, Dr. Turner elaborated on those concerns. "I don't think anyone can tell how that has changed the value of the site," he said of the flooding. "But I can tell you this: it hasn't improved the site."

South Dakota's campaign to snare the underground laboratory has included paying one prestigious physicist — Dr. Jordan Goodman, chairman of the physics department at the University of Maryland — as a consultant. In interviews on Thursday and Friday, Dr. Goodman criticized the letter and said the focus on the water was misguided.

"I think there's been a lot of panic generated about the water, for the most part by people with competing proposals," Dr. Goodman said. "I believe this is going to stall things."

He said the water could simply be pumped out again, without extensive damage to the mine.

That view has found support from several other scientists, including Marvin Marshak, a physicist at the University of Minnesota, who has a long history of working on underground projects.

Dr. Marshak called Dr. Turner's commitment to creating an underground laboratory extremely positive, but added of the letter, "I don't agree with the statements that it makes about the water in Homestake."

"I've been working on underground science for 25 years," Dr. Marshak said, "so I believe I know something about this."

The decision also met with skepticism from Barrick. "I think that's a convenient new twist," said Vincent Borg, a company spokesman. "That's not in accord with what they've told us previously. Before that and after that, that was not a stated concern. I think something else is going on."

Several other influential physicists, including Barry Barish of the California Institute of Technology and John Bahcall of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, said that by distancing the project from its complicated history and starting fresh, the state could actually increase its chances of winning the project.

"For people with something on the table, in a sense, it might look like discouragement," Dr. Barish said. "I think it's good."

Using the mine, which is 8,000 feet deep, would save more than $100 million on the cost of a laboratory deep underground, Dr. Marshak said.

In round numbers, such a laboratory is expected to cost some $300 million over all.

Dr. Turner, a noted cosmologist, also returned proposals from competing sites in Minnesota and California. None of the proposals had been solicited by the National Science Foundation. Partly for that reason, some scientists have said that the state and the federal agency have been talking at cross purposes, a situation Dr. Turner said he would like to bring to an end.

Energetic particles from space called cosmic rays interfere with certain physics experiments that explore rare processes, and a laboratory deep underground would insulate those experiments from cosmic ray showers. For example, physicists would like to set up detectors underground to search for elusive particles that may make up cosmic dark matter, which is believed to account for most of the mass of the universe but has never been seen directly.

Homestake was once the largest underground gold mine in the Western Hemisphere, and Lead, where it is located, was once among the largest cities in South Dakota. As gold mining wound down at Homestake, Lead (pronounced leed) declined, too. Its population dropped to 3,027 residents in 2000 from 3,632 in 1990. The mine laid off 600 of its 850 employees in 1998, and it closed at the end of 2001.

In the late 1960's, Dr. Raymond Davis Jr., then a scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, set up a vat of cleaning liquid and water in Homestake that counted ghostly particles known as neutrinos coming from the sun. That work won Dr. Davis the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002.

"It's a very good site," Dr. Turner said, "and it has a good history of doing science."

When the plans to close the mine were announced, scientists envisioned converting its 300 miles of tunnels into a vast scientific laboratory. South Dakota politicians saw the laboratory as means for revitalizing the Black Hills region.

On Wednesday, Governor Rounds signed five bills intended to help Barrick in donating the mine to the state.

Could this be Mt. Cashmere's future...?

from The Black Hills Pioneer Newspaper, South Dakota:

Homestake lab complex would double as major center for national security

By Bob Mercer, State Capitol Bureau January 21, 2004

PIERRE - A senior research scientist for the National Nuclear Security Administration says that converting the Homestake underground gold mine to a national laboratory "needed badly" and would be a "tremendous boon" to the federal government's efforts to track and measure nuclear weapons development throughout the world because of the mine's extreme depth of 8,000 feet.

Dr. Harry Miley made his remarks as part of a series of presentations by some of the nation's leading physicists Tuesday, during a forum hosted by Gov. Mike Rounds for state legislators on South Dakota's efforts to convert the mine into a national underground science and engineering laboratory.

"If you just read the newspaper, you know there are people with undeclared nuclear weapon programs out there," he said. "Not all of these people are our friends. Finding out what people are doing is the surest way to allow our government to intervene in something before you get to military conflict."

Miley is the program manager of the nuclear explosion monitoring program at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he works in national security for the U.S. Department of Energy, designing new methods to measure ultra-low levels of radioactivity in the environment. He began his Ph.D research at Homestake in 1983.

Miley said Homestake offers opportunities for nuclear detection that are unavailable at any other U.S. site. "We think we can measure things that are a million times more difficult to measure," he said. "If there were space underground we would have things operating in a six to nine month time frame. It's needed right now."

Nuclear monitoring and verification have been mentioned for months in project planning documents as some of the possible purposes for the underground laboratory complex. But most of the past public discussion in South Dakota focused on the mine's potential as a site for pure scientific research into subatomic particles known as neutrinos.

Based on the timelines laid out Tuesday, nuclear monitoring could be the mine's earliest major use. Large-scale experiments in neutrino research would take three to five years to get built and running, according to scientists.

Physicists believe that neutrinos hold some of the answers - and in turn will spark the next level of questions - into how the universe began and how it might end. They also see neutrinos as the key to unlock the door into the world of what is known as "dark" matter that scientists believe exists but so far they can't see.

Perhaps the most easily understood result of neutrino research so far is that scientists have determined how the sun works.

One of the new projects calls for building a neutrino detection device that would use 1 million tons of ultra-pure water split among 10 tanks, each as tall as a 20-story building and as big around as half of a football field. It would be 20 times larger than the Super-K research site in Japan.

Scientists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory would send a beam of neutrinos from a hill on Long Island, New York, through the earth to Homestake half a continent away. Precise measurements would be taken to determine what happens when atoms decay and become other subatomic particles.

The source for the water would be the mine itself. Water naturally collects in the mine, and plans call for it to be captured and treated. Because neutrinos are extremely small and rarely interact with other matter, no holes would need to be drilled for the beam from Brookhaven to Homestake.

"The earth is as transparent to neutrinos as glass is to light. So there's no problem getting through it," said Dr. Ken Lande, a University of Pennsylvania physics professor.

Lande began working on neutrino experiments and related research in the Homestake mine starting in 1972 and continued until the mine was closed in 2002. He was part of the research team led by physicist Ray Davis, who was a co-winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize for the neutrino work at Homestake.

A theme that took shape during the presentations Tuesday was that the U.S. government is ready to proceed with projects in an underground lab.

The federal Department of Energy has neutrino research in its 20-year science plan and is ready to fund a major experiment, according to Dr. John Wilkerson, a professor and member of the Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics at the University of Washington.

"The time scale for this is very, very soon. It's almost immediate," Wilkerson said. "They in their planning are definitely planning to fund at least one of these experiments very soon."

Homestake is the deepest mine in the nation. The U.S. Bureau of Mines recommended it for the Davis research that began in the 1960s. The advantage is that background interference such as cosmic rays generally can't penetrate 8,000 feet of hard crystalline rock.

Dr. Jordan Goodman, chairman of the University of Maryland physics department, explained it two ways Tuesday. He said that at sea level, 100 cosmic ray particles known as muons would strike a small area every second, but at a depth of 8,000 feet there would be 50 muons hitting the same-sized area in an entire year.

"If you look at the sky on a nice clear day, the stars are out there. You can't see them," Goodman said. "This lets us see the rarest phenomenon that we can't see on the surface. This is why we go deep.

"There is a tremendous opportunity at Homestake to do frontier science. This may once again be the frontier but in a different way," he said. "We have the opportunity to build the premier underground laboratory in the world in South Dakota."

Another proposal for Homestake that isn't directly related to neutrino research is the EarthLab project to study life at the harshest edges of the livable environment and to research geology by drilling another 8,000 feet beyond the present bottom of the mine.

It would become "a window into the basement of North America," according to Dr. William Roggenthen, a professor of geological engineering at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. He is the dean of the university's college of earth systems.

The governor described the underground lab as "an opportunity we can't say no to." House Republican leader Bill Peterson of Sioux Falls said the forum was "one of the most extraordinary afternoons in our Legislature's history."

Rounds held the forum to help legislators become more comfortable with the mine project. He is seeking $13.5 million in state funding and several new laws so that a state authority can be established and received the underground property from its owner, Barrick Gold Corp. of Toronto.

"In South Dakota we carve mountains," Dick Gowen, director for the state's conversion effort, said. "Only this mountain is a mile in the underground. The rock and the depth of the Homestake mine provide the ideal location for this science laboratory."