NPR Morning Edition

SHOW: Morning Edition (11:00 AM AM ET) - NPR

HEADLINE: South Dakota mining town site of unlikely battle between scientists and a Canadian mining company

ANCHORS: BOB EDWARDS

REPORTERS: JOSHUA WELSH

BODY:
BOB EDWARDS, host:

The small mining town of Lead, South Dakota, is the site of an unlikely battle between a small group of scientists and a Canadian mining company. The town is home to one of the deepest and most extensive underground gold mines in the world, the now defunct Homestake gold mine. The mining company wants to take one of the last steps in decommissioning the mine, perhaps as early as today, but scientists and local residents say that could destroy a plan to convert it into a national underground science lab. South Dakota Public Broadcasting's Joshua Welsh reports.

JOSHUA WELSH reporting:

There are certain types of scientific experiments that can only be done deep, deep underground. For example, in the 1960s the world's first solar neutrino telescope was built almost 5,000 feet into the Earth in the Homestake gold mine. Being inside a hole that deep shields sensitive detectors and instruments from the background radiation that constantly barrages the surface of the Earth. So when Homestake announced that it would stop mining gold there, scientists from all over the country were quick to propose an underground lab among its more than 200 miles of shafts and tunnels. They say the mine's established depth makes it an ideal site for such a lab. South Dakotans hoped the project would bring an economic and intellectual boost to the state.

Governor MIKE ROUNDS (Republican, South Dakota): I most certainly want to see if there isn't any way at all that we can convince them that there's a whole lot of scientists out there that strongly believe that the pumps should remain on. But we'll try to move forward because I still think this is the best place to have the underground facility, and I'm not going to give up on that mine just because there's water in the bottom of it.

WELSH: Meanwhile, South Dakota's congressional delegation has also been urging Barrick not to shut off the pumps and is looking for money to keep them going. But the Canadian mining company says far too much attention has been focused on the water and not enough on the big picture of what it would take to build the lab. The National Science Foundation estimates that that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take more than a decade to complete.