South Dakota Offers Lower Costs in Atom Smasher Race

South Dakota may be better known for Mt. Rushmore and its desolate Badlands than for its contributions to science. But if Gov. George S. Mickelson has his way, a depressed corner of the state now populated mainly by ducks and cattle will become a Mecca for the world of high-energy physics in the 1990s.

With a brashness befitting its dark-horse status, South Dakota has joined the list of more than 30 states competing for the federal government’s proposed Superconducting Super Collider, the world’s largest atom smasher.

South Dakota’s main selling point, Mickelson says, is the promise of a billion-dollar reduction in the supercollider’s construction and eventual operating costs.

Endorsed earlier this year by President Reagan as a means for maintaining world leadership in a hotly competitive area of basic research, the supercollider--a particle accelerator 52 miles in circumference--would be the largest and most expensive scientific instrument ever built. It carries a price tag of $4.4 billion in current dollars or $5.3 billion by its scheduled completion in 1996.

Contest Closes Aug. 3

Although Congress has yet to authorize its construction, the supercollider and its promise of jobs, prestige and a steady flow of federal research dollars has lured nearly every state large enough to accommodate it to submit an entry in a national site selection contest that closes Aug. 3.

The prize, as South Dakota calculates it, is 7,000 permanent jobs in a depressed farming area, an annual economic benefit to the state of $860 million a year and a major boost to regional universities and public schools. The Energy Department estimates that the accelerator facility itself will employ 2,500 people and have an annual operating budget of $270 million.

The DOE, aided by the National Academy of Sciences, will chose a candidate site by the end of the year, with a final decision to be made next July.

The heavyweight contenders are California, Colorado, Illinois and Texas, which boast the advantages of strong universities, existing centers of basic research and all the amenities of major urban areas.

States Form Alliances

Not to be deterred, however, some of the smaller states are forming alliances with their neighbors, whose collective attractions and congressional clout, they hope, will give them a fighting chance. South Dakota, for example, has joined forces with North Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa and is negotiating with Nebraska to form a consortium of Northern Great Plains universities to support its bid for the collider.

“We are a dark horse candidate,” Mickelson said in a conversation Wednesday in Washington. “There are pluses and minuses in a rural setting. We’re emphasizing our strengths and compensating for our weaknesses by cooperating with neighboring states.”

Mickelson has summoned a special session of the state Legislature for July 16 to approve a $7.7-million appropriation to acquire a 16,000-acre site, compensate three counties for loss of property tax revenues and set up a $1-million research and development fund for the project.

Mickelson, a 46-year-old attorney who was elected governor last November, said he was skeptical at first that South Dakota had a chance at the prize. But a review of the state’s advantages convinced him, he says, that “it is not an impossible mission.”

Flat Terrain a Plus

South Dakota’s site, he said, presents none of the seismic problems found in California. Its geologic features--notably its flatness--means that the accelerator’s 52-mile, race track-shaped tunnel can be dug and covered, rather than bored, at an estimated saving of $250 million in construction costs.

In addition, he said, a regional surplus of 5,000 megawatts in electrical generating capacity promises relatively cheap electric power that could save as much as $910 million in operating costs over the supercollider’s 30-year life span.

For those who wonder if the elite of the physics world look forward to life in the Badlands, Mickelson has a ready answer: It isn’t just cheapness that South Dakota has to offer. It has superior public schools, an efficient health care system and “nice people.”