Dr. David Newquist’s concise political history of the transformation of the Homestake Mine into the Sanford Underground Research Facility contends that governors Mike Rounds and Dennis Daugaard have hamstrung the project with their single-minded focus on economic development and (Republican?) cluelessness about science.
After succumbing to Homestake owner Barrick Gold’s demands that the state take over liability for the environmental hazards left at Homestake by mining, Governor Rounds appointed all businesspeople and no scientists to oversee the project. Scientists around the country, as intelligent observers, recognized that the Rounds Administration was making bad choices:
It was very difficult to get any kind of official information on what was going on between the NSF, the Sanford Lab, and those who were running it. University faculty in South Dakota were clueless, largely because scientists from the state’s higher education system were not included as advisors or participants in the efforts to develop the lab. A professor or two from South Dakota institutions had their names mentioned, but did not have any role in the development proceedings. There was quite a different situation between science faculty and lab proponents in Colorado who worked on the Henderson proposal. At the time that the competition for national lab designation was between the Homestake mine in South Dakota and the Henderson mine in Colorado, members of the Colorado higher education community were vocal about why they thought the designation of the Homestake mine would be a disaster for scientific research. At this time, I was involved in some work in Colorado and had discussions with Colorado professors. South Dakotans have little understanding of why some people hold such disdain for their state. One Colorado professor who had been associated with the national underground laboratory proposal and was an early proponent for Homestake, stated the attitude bluntly: “How can you have a functional lab run by a bunch of dummies who don’t know the difference between a science laboratory and a f—ing hamburger stand franchise?” [David Newquist, “Sanford Lab Taking the Nuclear Option. Perhaps,” Northern Valley Beacon, 2015.09.04]
Rounds appointed one scientist to the Science and Technology Authority, five years after it started. Yet with businessman Ron Wheeler in charge at that time, the National Science Foundation lost confidence and pulled its funding in 2010. Governor Daugaard just appointed a second scientist to the board. Two scientists on a six-member science board in eleven years doesn’t signal an embrace of the value of science. But even if our leaders commit to an even split between scientists and non-scientists on the board, Newquist says science and business worldviews inherently conflict:
Science is the business of generating, verifying, and refining knowledge. At one time business was regarded as supplying needs to the human community, of which it tried to be a member, and receiving compensation for doing so. American capitalism has focused on the compensation part, and exploiting the human community in any means possible to obtain profits is the sole objective. When companies close or move their operations, throwing masses of people out of work, the explanation is always that it’s a business decision. Sometimes companies have to close or move, and survival requires firing employees. But those business never consider the damage done to communities and workers.
The business of creating and acting as stewards of knowledge, whether science or the humanities or the arts, cannot operate on the principle that business does. Knowledge is created to sustain the human community and provide for its progress, not to exploit humanity to satisfy the greed of a few [Newquist, 2015.09.04].
Science can definitely boost the Lead-Deadwood-Black Hills economy. But it’s like education: even though teachers are key to South Dakota’s economy, we don’t put the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors in charge of our teacher preparation programs. We have to put scientists in charge of science, invest in their work, and let the economic side benefits naturally accrue and flow from our labs and universities.
I’ve looked at their meeting minutes. What an eff-ing joke!!!! Everything they do is hidden by some loophole in open meeting and open records law, mostly contract and personnel “exceptions.” Yeah, you can make everything a contract and personnel exception, so forget about finding out the truth from this so-called “authority.” Authority is about right. Real science is supposed to be open and honest. These guys are nothing but toadies and posers.
My own feeling is these are the guys Daugaard is running his nuclear waste stuff through. Heather Wilson, “the queen of nuclear crime,” was put on this “authority.”
It’s highly likely that SD’s mis-management will run the underground lab into the ground, or at least widely miss achieving the lab’s potential, because the state runs the lab in the hands of political hacks instead of scientists.
If SD had a legislature worthy of governance — a real legislature would remove the lab’s governance from partisanship. The lab’s governance should be primarily done by scientists, non-partisan, and out-of-partisan meddling or appointments.
The law establishing the South Dakota Science and Technology authority merely states, “Not all voting members of the board may be of the same political party.” It makes no specifications or suggestions as to appropriate qualifications. However, it does establish that the Authority reports to the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. This law was submitted by the Committee on State Affairs at the Governor’s request an in its entire legislative process received only two dissenting votes by members of the House.
Mr. Pay makes a pertinent point concerning the minutes. There is no substantive reporting or discussion on anything dealing with primary function of the lab. It is like some time ago when I was president of the Tacoma Park Association, which is a business corporation, and had to delve into the records of transactions concerning a legal matter. As a very small enterprise, the only record of decisions and transactions is in the minutes of the board and shareholder meetings. One of the attorneys involved asked if anyone had ever informed the recording secretaries that they were not taking the minutes for a bridge club. The Authority minutes are of the same quality.
As Mr. Pay points out, the only significant actions that the Authority takes are done in executive session and state law permits any discussions of personnel and contracts to be done in secret. Of course, significant business always involves personnel and contracts, so the only record of transactions is the smarmy making-nice and self-congratulatory remarks of the board, and an occasional approval or disapproval of something that requires budgetary action, matters that science-oriented people would take of with dispatch so that they can get on with science.
Mike Headley has been operating as both Authority executive director and director of the laboratory. There seems to be a conflict in that dual role in a contract for a joint expert;meant with the Fermilab in Batavia, Ill. The Authority has authorized the hiring of a lab director. Mr. Headley’s talents seem to be that he is a very adept liaison between scientists and administrators. The only practicing scientist to direct the lab was Dr. Jose Alonso. However, lab operations are directed by Dr. Kevin Lesko from the Berkeley National Laboratory through a kind of adjunct arrangement, which seems to be responsible for the actual science taking place in the lab.
Dr. Newquist’s excellent essay ends with putting the DUSEL story into context with the other moving parts running parallel, namely, the fleecing of the federal EB-5 program to fill the pockets of other GOP gravy train riders. I remember Ron Wheeler from his days at Telelect in Watertown. He charmed the pants off Bill Janklow and built a fiefdom on the gravy train in the second Janklow regime. This reminded me of another pants charmer from Watertown, Dick Benda, who followed a similar path on the Pierre gravy train but died tragically and mysteriously, revealing how the racketeers in Pierre really operate.
I hope the national scientitic community can prevail in this fight to preserve integrity in the research project, but I wouldn’t bet on it. The tenaciousness and absolute control of the Pierre power clique has proved there is no law in the state or federal system that can hold lawlessness accountable.
It’s poetic justice the mine is located next door to Deadwood, South Dakota’s last hold out for institutional prostitution. For the NSF, all they really need to know who they’ve been dealing with can be found on that HBO series. They’d be better served and cutting their losses and putting some serious money into Colorado where they’re sure to have much more serious results.
Institutional prostitution sums up exactly the current state of affairs regarding Daugaard’s pimping that was taught by his boss of bosses, EB-5 Rounds. Add Marty as the consigliere and you have the echelon of the crime family.
Don’t know how the word ‘experiment’ got so garbled above. It’s more characteristic of what the Dell Microsoft does than the Airbook it was written on.
Executive sessions are abused by every committee of every kind. Open meeting laws are butchered to pieces this way. Transparency is apparently a near sin in South Dakota and prosecutors are apparently loath to enforce open meeting laws.
I told all of you when this idea was proposed, that it would be this way.
It is a hole in the ground that will never turn a profit of any kind for the state.
The Blindman
perhaps a no-bid contract by a state administrator who has the governor reduce his/her salary below $50,000, could solely earn all eventual profits engendered by the high energy particle lab and take the records home, as private.
Albuquerque-based Valero Energy gave Tike Mike Rounds $10,000 last cycle: one of Wilson’s favorite benefactors.
http://www.lcv.org/media/press-releases/LCV-Defenders-Action-Committee-Launch-New-TV-Ad-Campaign-Against-Heather-Wilson.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/
Rounds is a serial criminal.
Recall that Wilson has repeatedly called for autonomy for the labs from other projects so it could hide funding sources.
Not long after the September 11 attacks and the anthrax hysteria, during an interview on SDPB Radio with then-governor Bill Janklow, a caller asked whether survivable space might be considered for the former Homestake Mine. After a familiar, but brief, tirade, BJ the DJ said, “I can’t talk about that.”
In 2003, Barrick announced the surplus of several properties. I led a group of investors to the Ross Compressor Plant, a magnificent architectural masterpiece that housed the three leviathan compressors that had provided most of the pneumatic needs for the mine. They drove hundreds of miles of line lovingly and meticulously maintained by union workers for at least seven decades. The winning proposal for the property would win ownership of these massive machines.
Having realized that these machines could slow water filling the mine, I attempted multiple contacts with the Rounds administration. Calls and emails to Jamie Rounds went unreturned. We presented our proposal to purchase that would have moved the compressors to a mining museum, preferably local. The winning bidder sold them for scrap.
http://madvilletimes.com/2014/12/mines-brings-skunk-works-chief-wilson-donor-for-graduation-speech/
Didn’t EB-5 Rounds say he needed 9 million to fight off Bosworth, Pressler and Weiland http://archive.argusleader.com/article/20130613/NEWS/306130029/Video-photos-Mike-Rounds-aims-raise-9-million, so a measly 10 grand from Wilson’s cartel would have been appreciated. I wonder why he needed so much dough when David Brat beat Cantor with the same amount of money Cantor spent at the steakhouse’s he frequented. This is South Dakota, so why so much moolah?
Jerry, Rounds may have been overestimating (nothing new) or bluffing when he said “$9 million.” I think he fell well short of that fundraising amount… although I can’t check it, since the FEC website isn’t cooperating with me at the moment. Grrr!
donald and david-i see rounds tweets he is EPW chair WASTE/SUPERFUND subcommittee; how may that play w/ deep borehole/shale burial of radioactive waste in SD?