Issue Position: Historic Opportunities

Issue Position

In my years in the House of Representatives, I have been able to participate in and witness some great opportunities for the State of South Dakota.

South Dakota, you have created some unique, historic opportunities--significant private investment in health care and science research; emergence of the biotech industries (food, health, ethanol);numerous renewable energy projects; continued progress of Hyperion; strong emergence of the firearm industry; financial services; communications; computer IT and data centers; plus some great stories of entrepreneurial small business. You are all part of this!

One of those opportunities that has really captured the fascination of the entire State is the choice by the National Science Foundation of Homestake as the location for the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Lab (DUSEL). Log on to: sanfordlabathomestake.org to watch the progress of this incredible investment. This website will take you underground with some great videos, pictures, and information about the science in this century-old mine.

Your state and federal tax dollars are helping to fund the future of science at the Sanford Laboratory at Homestake through--

* $10 million HUD grant (awarded 2002).
* $40 million from your state tax dollars (2004, 2005, 2010).
* $70 million donation from T. Denny Sanford (2006) $50 M is making the interim lab possible, $20 M dedicated to education and outreach
* Barrick Gold donated Homestake mine to South Dakota (2006). (sanfordlabathomestake.org)

In 2007 The National Science Foundation awarded $15 million to the University of California-Berkeley (over three years) to write a DUSEL preliminary design for some location and in the Fall of 2009 authorized $29 M for the University of California, Berkeley, to create a preliminary plan to turn Homestake into the world's deepest lab.

It is a remarkable coalition of state, federal and private dollars ($120 Million of non-NSF funding) that is preparing this unique site for future generations of scientists and scientific discovery The Sanford Lab at 4850 feet allows the federal government and the world scientific community the ability to see the promise, the possibilities, and the absolute necessity of the DUSEL at 7400-8000 feet underground... (sanfordlabathomestake.org)

To fully comprehend the possible scientific, economic, and educational opportunities of the Sanford Deep Underground Lab at Homestake, we need only look in our own backyard at the significant local and global contributions of EROS, the National Center for Earth Resources & Science.

Source