By Tom Schneider for the Current-Argus
CARLSBAD — The National Cave and Karst Research Institute made a big step forward in its second full year as an independent, nonprofit institute with a ceremony Monday breaking ground at the site of its headquarters building at the Cascades.The building will house a visitor’s center, a library and other research and educational facilities dedicated to cave conservation, utilization and management.
“Understanding how to manage these landscapes is essential,” said institute Executive Director George Veni. “We have people from around the country and around the world waiting to work in partnership with this institute.”
“Partnership” is a key word with respect to the institute. Its existence is the result of numerous partnerships on several levels, beginning at the highest levels of government and working down.
“When you think of this institute, you have to think of that full range of partnerships,” said Carol McCoy of the National Parks Service. “From Congress, through the National Parks and down to the city of Carlsbad, there has been a commitment to achieving a common goal for the common good.”
That goal, she said, was to enhance the understanding of cave resources.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., introduced legislation in Congress to establish the institute in 1997, and plans to back legislation scheduled for the next Congress, said Lynn Ditto, a Bingaman aide.
“Cave and Karst science is extremely important,” she said, noting that research, education and management programs “provide necessary tools to discover the wealth of knowledge in caves.”
State Rep. John Heaton, D-Carlsbad, is a longtime supporter of the institute.
“We’ve been working on this since 1992, which is not unusual for Carlsbad,” he said, noting other long-term projects that have brought lasting benefits to the region such as Guadalupe National Park, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and Brantley Dam.
“This brings another dimension of science to our community,” he said.
Builders estimate construction of the facility will take about one year, Veni said, with a realistic move-in date possibly 18 months to two years away. In the meantime, he said, the institute is continuing fundraising efforts to equip its laboratories, library and other needed facilities.
“We are about to have a beautiful building, but we do not have the contents for the building,” said Dr. Penelope Boston, associate director of academics for the institute and a professor in the Cave and Karst Program at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, which operates the institute as a nonprofit corporation.
The institute has a complete fundraising contribution menu, she said, allowing individuals, organizations and corporate sponsors to contribute toward everything from its significant exhibits to its laboratory equipment.
Donations could go toward sponsoring a single bat in the bat roost or purchasing equipment for an entire laboratory, she said.