Black Hills Pioneer

LEAD — From officially dedicating the Sanford Lab at the 4,850-foot level, to celebrating additional awards from the National Science Foundation for the DUSEL design, 2009 was a year of milestones and celebrations for both the project to build a state-run laboratory at the former Homestake gold mine and the proposal to build a deep underground science and engineering laboratory.

Throughout the year Sanford Lab Executive Director Ron Wheeler said the lab dropped the water level in the mine by about 400 feet.

The most significant milestone of the year occurred at about 11 a.m. May 13, when officials at the Sanford Lab stepped on to a dry 4,850-foot level. The massive level in the former gold mine will house the Sanford Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory, a state-run interim lab that is being constructed as part of the state’s strategy to secure federal approval for a nearly $550 million deep underground science and engineering laboratory. The milestone was met with much enthusiasm. After crews thoroughly investigated the level for safety hazards, the Sanford Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory was officially dedicated on June 22. The event saw a small contingent of state and federal officials, DUSEL team members, Sioux Falls philanthropist T. Denny Sanford, key staff of the Sanford Lab, and media gathering near the Davis Cavern at the 4,850-level for the dedication. Afterward, a large crowd of state and federal dignitaries, community members and others gathered for a celebration on the surface.

“The gold may not be here anymore, at least not in mining amounts,” said Gov. Mike Rounds. “But I think there are more Nobel Prizes to be won here.”

Sanford, who made his inaugural trip underground to see what would be his namesake laboratory, said he was impressed with the progress and the vision to de-water the former gold mine for science. The lab was named for Sanford after he donated a total of $70 million that was earmarked for various aspects of the project.

“This is a joyous moment for everyone here,” Sanford said. “We are so grateful to have this developed into one of the greatest science laboratories in the world. I thank you all. I am just absolutely thrilled to be here and see what has really transpired. It’s a lot different than I ever envisioned.”

First blast at Homestake

Immediately after reaching the 4,850-foot level, Sanford Lab crews began inspecting the many miles of drifts for safety hazards, as well as removing old utilities and getting the space ready to house science. On Sept. 23, lab officials celebrated their next major milestone when they had their first blast since mining operations ceased in 2001. The blast was the first of many that would expand the drifts leading to the Davis Cavern, where the Large Underground Xenon detector (a major dark matter experiment) will be set up. Additionally, crews would spend the rest of the year excavating a secondary egress drift from the Davis Cavern, as well as clean room space for scientists and a space for the Majorana experiment — a much smaller, but very important experiment that will study the properties of neutrinos. The excavation is expected to last through March of 2010. Afterward, crews plan to outfit the mine with electrical components, heating, air conditioning, floors and any other special equipment required for the early experiments.

The entire construction project is scheduled for completion by July 2010.

“I never thought that a pile of rock could look as beautiful as it did this afternoon,” said William McElroy, engineering project manager at the Sanford Lab. “The goal of this is to have a very smooth rock surface that limits the amount of ground control that you’ll need, and it just has a very good appearance. This is our first lab and it is very important that it looks good. We’re going to have people from all over the world visiting this site and we want this to be the benchmark, or the standard for the other labs that will be built here.”

The actual blast, which removed 15 to 20 tons of rock, was small compared to those that occurred at the mine during Homestake’s hey day, but it was still very significant as it marked the first construction phase for the lab.

More money for DUSEL

Following a very favorable January review by some of the nation’s top scientists serving on the DUSEL review team for the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, the agencies officially endorsed the project, giving its principal players very positive feedback about the overall project. That feedback was echoed in October, when the NSF announced that it would grant the DUSEL team an additional $29 million to be used to refine plans for the deep underground science and engineering laboratory proposal that was due to be submitted in the spring of 2011. The funding is in addition to the original award of $15 million, which the NSF granted the DUSEL team when it selected Homestake as its preferred site to construct what could be the deepest underground laboratory in the world.

Members of the DUSEL team said they needed the extra funding to continue contracts that would ensure the final design proposal would be as thorough as possible. Additionally, the announcement of more federal funding for the lab at the former Homestake gold mine served as a reassurance to local residents that the federal government is enthusiastic and supportive of the proposal to build a deep underground science and engineering laboratory in Lead.

Lisa-Joy Zgorski, a spokeswoman for the NSF said, “it’s a large award for us so it’s particularly important. We only give the awards to solid projects. It’s certainly considered worthwhile because we are devoting the money.”

The announcement came as more than 300 scientists gathered in Lead to discuss their experiments that would be housed in the DUSEL lab. The meeting was necessary as it provided the opportunity for scientists who had received nearly $21 million from the NSF to further refine their project designs to come together with DUSEL team members to communicate their needs. The cooperation between the scientists and the lab planners, as well as the additional federal funding, ensures that the deep underground science and engineering laboratory designs will be construction ready and the facility will be tailored to the needs of the scientists.

Yates Shaft reaches 4,850-level

After working for nearly a year, RCS Construction of Rapid City announced that its crews had reached the 4,850-foot level of the former Homestake Gold Mine from the Yates Shaft on Nov. 5. The milestone marked an opportunity for a secondary egress from the level where crews are constructing the Sanford Lab, as well as another shaft for crews to use in moving equipment down to 4,850 feet underground.

"This is a significant step forward toward creating the Sanford Underground Laboratory," South Dakota Science and Technology Authority Executive Director Ron Wheeler said.

"Now we have direct secondary egress from the 4,850 Level."

Until the Yates Shaft reached the 4,850-foot level the only access to that main part of the lab was via the Ross Shaft, or from a series of staircases and underground ramps. Rapid City’s RCS Construction — operating with a $7 million contract from the S.D. Science and Technology Authority — reached the milestone, riding the Yates Shaft down to the 4,850-foot level for the first time since the shaft was sealed shut in 2003 during Homestake Gold Mine reclamation and closure.

"We're pretty proud of our crew," said RCS president Bob Scull. "Best of all, we didn't have a single accident because we hired the best guys to do the job."

Safety record

One of Wheeler’s most noteworthy achievements in 2009 did not come from infrastructure or dewatering, but rather came from the employees themselves, as Wheeler reported that the year went by without any lost time injuries on the job. As of November 2009, Wheeler said 106 employees worked an estimated total of 137,414 hours. In that time, he said, there was only one non-lost time injury and two first aid cases.

A lost-time injury, Wheeler explained, is an injury which prohibits an employee from doing his or her assigned job for a period of time.

LUX experiment

Capping off a year of milestones and demonstrating their eagerness to start doing science at Homestake, scientists began assembling their Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter detector on the surface of the Sanford Lab in December.

The week of Dec. 7 Dr. Rick Gaitskell of Brown University in Rhode Island and Dr. Tom Schutt of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio — lead scientists for the LUX project — were in town assembling their detector in a warehouse on the surface of the Sanford Lab. The scientists and their collaboration planned to test the dark matter detector, and work out any bugs in it before deploying it to the Davis Cavern, 4,850 feet underground in the Sanford Lab. The Large Underground Xenon detector, a massive vat filed with liquid Xenon and surrounded by an even larger shield of water, will be the first major physics experiment to be installed in the lab.

The detector is fashioned to use light sensors and liquid xenon to search for dark matter, a substance which has no illumination but that scientists believe makes up more than 90 percent of the universe. While the LUX detector was on the surface, scientists conducted their research in the same manner as they would underground, making sure the detector would operate as it is intended when it is assembled underground.

Overall, Sanford Lab officials said it has been an eventful year. But the work is not over yet, Wheeler said, as lab officials must prepare the former gold mine for the possible future construction of the deep underground science and engineering laboratory. The proposal for that facility, which will be the deepest underground laboratory in the world, will be submitted to the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy by the end of 2010, with consideration coming by 2011. If Congress approves funding for the project, construction could start as early as 2013. The deep underground science and engineering laboratory will house experiments that will span all disciplines of science and that will be located as deep as 8,000 feet.