By Wendy Pitlick
Black Hills Pioneer

LEAD — From the scientists who have taken up residence in Lawrence County for several months and the local students who are gaining valuable experience working alongside them in the lab, to the former Homestake miners who are working underground again, the Sanford Underground Research Facility has impacted many local residents.
“I live here in Lead,” said Robyn Varland, who works as a custodian in the Davis Campus 4,850 feet underground at the lab. Just like every job with the Sanford Lab, Varland’s is integral to the success of highly sensitive physics experiments being conducted underground. She works diligently every day, except on her day off on Wednesdays, to ensure that everything that passes through the Davis Campus is sanitized to the highest level possible, in order to avoid contaminating the experiments with naturally occurring radioactive elements.

This picture, taken during Wendy Pitlick’s trip to the 4,550-foot level in January of 2009, shows the red dirt and rough conditions in the lab at that time. It was later that summer when officials stood on the 4,850-foot level and dedicated it for science. Photo courtesy of Bill Harlan/Sanford Lab

By Wendy Pitlick

Black Hills Pioneer

LEAD - Every single time I go underground at the Sanford Lab I am terrified. 

No, it’s not the depth. I am not claustrophobic. 

It’s the importance of the story. The knowledge that when I go underground I have one shot at showing Pioneer readers the scene. I have one chance to show them just how incredible it is down there. I have one chance to try and explain the massive scope of the project underway to build an underground laboratory in the U.S. that will house some of the most innovative experiments of our time. I have one chance to really show people, who can’t see for themselves, why they should care about this project that has such a profound impact on the economy, educational opportunities, new technology development and global competitiveness for future generations we will never even know.

By Wendy Pitlick
Black Hills Pioneer

LEAD - The purest copper in the world is being formed at the Sanford Underground Laboratory.
Scientists with the Majorana Demonstrator are using that copper to machine even the tiniest nuts and bolts of their equipment, as well as for a shield with the vacuum-sealed cryostat that will hold the enriched germanium detectors, they are taking great care to ensure the highest level of purity for an experiment that seeks to detect neutrinoless double beta decay, one of the rarest radioactive decays to ever be seen in a laboratory.