Texas Site Is Official Choice for Collider

The Energy Department on Wednesday officially crowned Texas the winner of a multi-state battle to host a proposed $5.9-billion superconducting super collider.

At a formal ceremony attended by Texas Gov. Bill Clements, John S. Herrington, the energy secretary, signed an official “record of decision” to build the massive physics installation around the city of Waxahachie, about 25 miles south of Dallas.

California had been initially considered a leading contender for the collider, but was not a finalist. It had been eliminated due to concern about the geological stability of sites promoted by the state.

The collider is envisioned as a 53-mile underground ring that would use 10,000 magnets to whirl beams of protons into each other at energy levels 20 times what is possible in today’s machines.

Scientists will use the facility to explore the nature of matter and energy. It is to be called the Ronald Reagan Center for High-Energy Physics, although it remains uncertain whether Congress will give the go-ahead to begin construction.

Last year, Congress agreed to spend $100 million on the collider, but it decreed that none of the money be spent on construction. In his budget proposal for the coming fiscal year, President Reagan requested $250 million for the collider, including $90 million for research and development and $160 million for construction.

Herrington had declared last Nov. 10 that Texas was the “preferred site” for the project, but a waiting period was required before the choice was made official.