Perry: Underground lab can bring SD into world economy

Landing a national underground science laboratory for the closed Homestake gold mine in the Black Hills will help bring South Dakota into the world economy, according to Tad Perry, executive director of the South Dakota Board of Regents.

"The economy of today and tomorrow is not an agricultural economy or driven by manufacturing," Perry said at a meeting of the Hughes County Republicans on Tuesday. "It is going to be driven by the application of knowledge in a variety of ways."

Perry called it a "research culture" and said South Dakota and the United States as a whole are not part of that culture yet.

Last month, the National Science Foundation picked the Homestake mine over sites in three other states to house a federally funded physics lab that would study the history and makeup of the universe. The lab, at Lead, would be the largest and deepest of its kind in the world, the NSF has said.

The state stands to gain about $300 million in federal funding and the potential for millions of dollars more in scientific grants to participating universities if the project is funded.

Perry said South Dakota has the fewest scientists and engineers in the nation and ranks 47th in the number of science and engineering graduate students. "We're starting with a pretty low base as far as having a research culture."

South Dakota spends the lowest amount of money on research and development in the area, with $67 million in 2005, he said. By comparison, Minnesota spent almost $560 million.

Perry said 60 cents of each dollar of the research economy will be spent in the state and that each dollar circulates 2.4 times in the South Dakota economy.

"The lab will give a lot to the state of South Dakota," Perry said. "It will put us on the map in research.

"The lab will give us the ability to assist other educational endeavors we already do. It will allow us to do things that are important to South Dakota and South Dakota students," he said.

It also will spur improvements at the labs in South Dakota's universities, Perry said, likening them to those common in other states 50 years ago.

"Frankly, I'm embarrassed about them," he said.

The lab also will attract people from other states, Perry said.

"Talent is the gold of the new economy and we're going to develop it better than we have. We're going to do everything we can to develop it so we can go in and work in the new world economy."

Information from: Pierre Capital Journal, http://www.capjournal.com