Philanthropist pledges $70 m to Homestake Underground Lab
At the official dedication of the Homestake Underground Laboratory on 26 June, South Dakota resident, banker and philanthropist T Denny Sanford created a stir by pledging $70 m to help develop the multidisciplinary laboratory in the former Homestake gold mine. The mine is one of two finalists for the US National Science Foundation effort to establish a Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL), which will be a national laboratory for underground experimentation in nuclear and particle physics, astrophysics, earth sciences, engineering, biology and education. Planned physics experiments include searches for neutrinoless double-beta decay, searches for dark matter, long-baseline neutrino studies, nuclear astrophysics, low-energy solar neutrinos, proton-decay, supernovae neutrinos and geoneutrinos.
Sanford's gift will be in three installments. The first installment of $35 m, in 2007 and 2008, is specifically targeted for developing infrastructure at 4850 ft (a depth of about 4200 m water equivalent). In November 2005 the Homestake Collaboration issued a call for letters of interest from scientific collaborations that were interested in using the interim facility. The 85 letters received comprised 60% proposals from earth science and 25% from physics, with the remainder for engineering and other uses.
The second installment of $20 m by 2009 will create the Sanford Center for Science Education – a 50,000 ft2 facility in the historic mine buildings. The centre is intended for elementary-school through university students, as well as for developing new methods of teaching science and engineering. The third installment of $15 m provides funding to drain the facility completely, to expand Homestake down to 8000 ft and develop a laboratory at 7400 ft. These developments will permit Homestake to host a full programme of research in physics, earth science and engineering, as well as a world-class education programme.
Sanford has a history of philanthropic donation in South Dakota, including major contributions to a children's hospital centred at the University of South Dakota, and other educational and child-oriented endeavours. His gift expands the alliance supporting the Sanford Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory at Homestake (SUSEL), joining the State of South Dakota, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) through its competitive site selection process, the Homestake Scientific Collaboration and the international scientific community. The gift anticipates continued support from the state, the NSF and the scientific community.
• Homestake invites enquiries from potential users in the international scientific community. Additional information can be obtained from www.lbl.gov/nsd/homestake or by contacting the Homestake principal investigator, Kevin Lesko (e-mail ktlesko@lbl.gov">ktlesko@lbl.gov), or the executive-director of the South Dakota Science Technology Authority, Dave Snyder (e-mail David.Snyder@state.sd.us).