Scientists Say Flooding of Old Mine Will Derail Plan for South Dakota R&D Lab

Scientists behind a proposal to turn a former gold mine in South Dakota into a vast underground laboratory said yesterday that they would abandon their proposal if the mine was allowed to flood.

By KENNETH CHANG NY Times

That would effectively derail the project, which South Dakota leaders have hoped would spur an economic and scientific renaissance for the state. The 300 miles of tunnels at the Homestake Mine in Lead would be ideal for experiments studying geology, deep-earth microbes and subatomic particles known as neutrinos.

The owner of Homestake, the Barrick Gold Corporation of Toronto, says that next week it will turn off the pumps that remove 500 gallons a minute of water from the 8,000-foot-deep mine.

In a statement released yesterday, scientists led by Dr. Wick C. Haxton, a professor of physics at the University of Washington, said that allowing the mine to flood would delay the laboratory project by several years, potentially damage the structural integrity of the tunnels and contaminate any possible microbe studies.

"Worse," the scientists wrote, "we do not feel we can make a reasoned argument for tens of millions of additional funding for dewatering, when the condition of the mine after dewatering and even access to the site are currently matters of speculation."

Just last Friday, the National Science Foundation released a report from mining geologists and engineers that concluded Homestake was the best site for an underground laboratory compared to competing proposals for Soudan Mine in northeastern Minnesota and a tunnel into Mount San Jacinto near Palm Springs, Calif. The panel also urged Barrick to keep the pumps running.

The scientists said that if they withdrew their proposal, they would then put their efforts to building an underground laboratory elsewhere. "Our commitment to the science demands that we do so," they said.

Barrick has said it is willing to donate the mine to the state, but is not willing to remain liable for accidents or environmental problems at a future laboratory. The company has also argued that it is more economical to allow the mine to flood now and empty it later, especially since the National Science Foundation has not yet committed to building an underground laboratory. The earliest any money could be available for construction of a laboratory is late 2005, as part of the federal budget for the 2006 fiscal year.

Vincent Borg, a spokesman for Barrick, called the scientists’ threats an "11th hour red herring" and "regrettable gamesmanship." He said that the scientists did not raise concerns until a few weeks ago and that the science foundation panel declined Barrick’s offer to provide information about the mine’s antiquated infrastructure.

Barrick is spending about $250,000 a month to run the pumps, but much more expensive upgrades to the aging equipment would be needed if the pumping was to continue, Mr. Borg said.

The federal government has provided South Dakota with $10 million to preserve the site for a laboratory, but Barrick has refused to accept any of it, saying it does not want to be seen as taking corporate welfare.