Assessment begins on proposed U. cosmic ray project

The University of Utah has applied for a right-of-way to authorize its building a proposed Telescope Array Cosmic Ray Project on Bureau of Land Management property in Millard County.

The effort to get a right-of-way apparently is leading to preparation of an environmental assessment, if not a full-blown environmental impact statement.

The university says the cosmic ray observatory will measure particles from space as they enter earth's atmosphere, which could improve scientists' understanding of the nature of the particles and the universe itself.

The project has already begun, with one building up and construction starting on another. But much more remains to be done on the $12 million to $18 million observatory, which is to be built with the help of Japanese scientific institutions.

Eventually, the facility would have an array of 576 scintillation detectors, plus other features, spread out over 207,000 acres. The vast majority of that is under BLM control, but 21,100 acres are Utah school trust lands; 300 acres are under the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources; and 20,100 acres are private property.

While the observatory will be extensive in terms of sprawl, land actually occupied will be just under 25 acres, including road grading.

According to the university, scintillation detectors will sample particles coming from space and hitting a plastic sheet, while three florescence detectors in buildings will observe glows from the particles striking the atmosphere.

"All work on the FDs (the fluorescence detectors) would be performed by subcontractors under the direction of Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding of Japan, the primary contractor for the project, and Utah Commercial Constriction of Salt Lake City, the local subcontractor," says the project's plan of development. "The contractor would be under the direction of the University of Utah and Japanese colleagues."

The plan says the Delta area "is very suitable for this kind of experiment because of its relatively flat terrain, dry atmosphere and clear desert skies." The document is posted on the Internet at www.physics.utah.edu/~kai/TA/POD/POD.html.

In addition to these detectors, the project would have five communications towers, a central laser facility to calibrate the fluorescence detectors, 27 staging areas and a data processing center in Delta.

Construction should be completed by the end of next year, project backers hope. "We hope to run the observatory for 10 to 20 years, take data with it," U. researcher Robert Cady said.