Underground contract for Homestake a big step for mine
BY WENDY PITLICK, Black Hills Pioneer
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18372224&BRD=1300&PAG=461&dept_id=156925&rfi=6
LEAD - Members of the S.D. Science and Technology Authority celebrated a milestone Monday morning when they took the next steps toward dewatering the Homestake Mine and opening it up for inspection and tours.
Authority board members started Monday morning out with good news as they awarded Dynatec Corporation, a Canadian-based mining and engineering firm, a more than $4 million contract to do the design/build portion of the underground work in Homestake. The work is the second phase of a project to open the Ross Shaft and re-enter the mine for scientific experiments.
Dynatec officials expect to start working in mid-June. Underground work will include inspecting the mine's levels and re-installing the refurbished water pumps that will contain the mine water at the 5,300-foot level. A brand-new submersible pump will also be installed to pump water out.
Preventing the water from rising higher than the 5,300-foot level will allow for mechanical failures so the 4,850-foot level - the proposed level for a state-run interim science laboratory - will be kept dry.
"I feel this is a pretty monumental day," Authority Chairman Dave Bozied said of approving the contract. "It would have been nice to have the downselect (the NSF decision about the lab) before we awarded the contract, but I am confident without being arrogant that we are doing the right thing.
"We just have one more hill to climb," Bozied continued about the re-commissioning process.
"It's not a hill Dave, we're going underground," S.D. Science and Technology Authority Executive Director Dave Snyder said with a smile.
Plans to go underground are being made as residents nationwide anxiously await a decision from the National Science Foundation about where it proposes to build a Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory. After years of investigating various sites, the federally funded organization expects to announce its decision this June.
The contract award came after Snyder told the board that surface work to open the Ross Shaft is nearly completed. This work, estimated at about $900,000, included purchasing safety equipment, conducting detailed engineering of the Ross Shaft, getting permits for water treatment, re-establishing power to the mine, re-constituting the water treatment facility and re-commissioning the Ross Hoist.
While Authority board members said they had hoped to wait to award the contract for underground work until after the National Science Foundation announced its choice for the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory - all board members agreed that the work needs to be done as soon as possible. Once the pumps are installed and the dewatering program has begun, the Authority can start actively making plans for the interim laboratory at the 4,850-foot level. If Homestake is chosen for the DUSEL, funding from the NSF and from T. Denny Sanford's $70 million pledge, will help finance dewatering at the 7,400-foot level for the federal facility.
Dynatec Corporation is an international mining company and a leading provider of mining technology services. Established in 1980, the company has interests in various mining and drilling operations including coal-bed methane and nickel.
In addition to approving the contract for underground work, members of the board also authorized Snyder to increase the Authority's general liability insurance policy from $10 million to $30 million. The increase will allow contractors and members of the Authority and the Homestake Collaboration to go underground for tours and to refurbish existing infrastructure in the mine. If Homestake is selected for the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory the Authority will extend that policy once again to $75 million, which will allow new infrastructure and science experiments to be built in the mine.
The $30 million policy will cost $120,000 per year, $60,000 more than the Authority's former policy.
While the S.D. Science and Technology Authority did not set a date for their next regularly scheduled meeting, stating only that they would not likely meet in June, board members expressed optimism that the next meeting would be full of more good news.
"I am hopeful the next meeting will be a celebratory meeting," said board member Pat LeBrun, as she referred to the NSF's looming decision about the DUSEL site.