Contract awarded to reopen Homestake

By Bill Harlan, Journal Staff Writer
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LEAD -- A Canadian company has been awarded a $4.8 million contract to reopen the Homestake gold mine in Lead as an underground laboratory - that is, if the National Science Foundation picks Homestake from among four finalist sites.

The NSF is expected to announce its preferred site for a national underground science lab in the next few weeks.

Workers could be underground at Homestake as soon as June 15.

Homestake supporters hope the NSF announces its decision before then. "We're right on track with our strategy," South Dakota Science and Technology Authority director Dave Snyder said.

Monday morning the state science authority board - meeting in Lead, Rapid City, Pierre and Sioux Falls by teleconference -- awarded the mine re-entry contract to Dynatec Corporation, an engineering firm based in Toronto.

"I think this is a very important step," board member Pat Lebrun of Rapid City said.

Mining stopped at Homestake in 2001. Underground pumps were turned off and the mine was sealed shut in 2004. Ever since, the mine has been slowly filling with water, which has risen from the lowest level - 8,000 feet underground - to its current level just above 5,600 feet underground.

Homestake supporters want to prevent the water from reaching a major level in the mine that is 4,850 feet underground. That's where scientists hope to open an "interim" underground lab where experiments could begin as early as next year

The interim lab could operate while the NSF, the White House and Congress decide whether to build a deeper, more elaborate Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory that would be 7,400 feet underground at Homestake.

If Dynatec crews re-enter the mine in June, Snyder said, they could begin pumping water out by fall.

However, the NSF also is considering proposals from Colorado, Washington and Minnesota.

Science authority board chairman Dave Bozied of Sioux Falls acknowledged it was risky awarding the re-entry contract before an NSF decision, which was originally expected by April.

"What we're doing today is necessary," Bozied said. "I'm confident, without being arrogant, that we're number one."

In fact, the science authority already has spent $2 million on the surface at Homestake - renovating a hoist at the Ross Shaft, installing a 28-ton electrical transformer and installing two 150-horsepower electric exhaust fans that will suck fresh air into the mine.

Bozied said the science authority also needed to order critical supplies such as electrical cable, to stay on schedule.

If the NSF selects another site, the Homestake project likely would have to stop. But Homestake has been the first choice in previous scientific reviews. Scientists use deep underground labs to protect experiments from cosmic rays, and Homestake is the deepest site by far.

"We need to make this move to stay on track," science authority board member Casey Peterson of Rapid City said.

The Homestake proposal comes from a team of scientists from throughout the nation, led by physicist Kevin Lesko of the University of California at Berkeley. If the NSF picks Homestake, Lesko's team will get up to $5 million a year for up to three years to developed a detailed plan for a lab that would take years to fund and equip.

In fact, South Dakota already has put together a package of $116 million to kick-start the lab - including a $70 million donation from Sioux Falls philanthropist T. Denny Sanford and $46 million in state-controlled funds.

The $2 million for the surface projects and the $4.8 million to re-enter the mine are actually coming from federal funds - a $10 million Community Development Block Grant engineered by Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., five years ago.

The science authority board probably will not meet again until the NSF makes a decision. All four sites have submitted 250-page proposals. NSF evaluators have visited all four sites. Supporters of the sites have all made presentations in Washington, D.C.

"Now, it's up to the NSF," Bozied said.

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