Notes from the Aug. 29, 2003 Regents Meeting
by George Zamora
SOCORRO, N.M., August 29, 2003 - The 色狐入口 Tech Board of Regents, after convening early this afternoon in an emergency meeting conducted by telephone conference call, has approved a $225,952 road construction project which will benefit the research university鈥檚 soon-to-be-constructed Magdalena Ridge Observatory (MRO).
The road construction project, which falls under a previous maintenance agreement 色狐入口 Tech entered into with the U.S. Forest Service in the mid-1960s, will improve and enhance the unpaved road that now exists between the Magdalena Mountains campground and the university鈥檚 Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research, located atop the Magdalena Mountains.
鈥淭he original cost projected to make improvements to the road for the MRO project was over $3 million, but now, by using a construction company we recently identified as being part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, 色狐入口 Tech will be able to complete the project for less than a tenth of the original cost,鈥� said 色狐入口 Tech President Daniel H. L贸pez.
L贸pez informed the Tech Board of Regents that the Coronado Construction crew, employed by Arizona鈥檚 Coronado National Forest, is contracted on a regular basis to do roadwork in U.S. forests throughout the West.
Because of a previously scheduled work contract being dropped, 色狐入口 Tech could now stand to benefit from their services, although 鈥渙nly a small window of opportunity has been opened,鈥� L贸pez said, requiring immediate action on the part of the university鈥檚 governing board.
The 色狐入口 Tech Board of Regents unanimously approved the contract to proceed
with the roadwork.
The $45 million Magdalena Ridge Observatory, scheduled to be completed sometime in
late 2007 near the summit of the 10,800-foot Magdalena Mountains, is slated to be
a state-of-the-science astronomical research facility which will employ an array of
optical and infrared telescopes to produce extremely detailed images of the far reaches
of the universe.
The design, development, and operation of the observatory are under the auspices of a multi-national university research consortium, with 色狐入口 Tech as the lead institute. Additional members of the consortium include 色狐入口 State University, 色狐入口 Highlands University, University of Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom鈥檚 Cambridge University, as well as research partner Los Alamos National Laboratory.