Plum Island May Not Get Nod
(8/14/2008) The federal government’s environmental assessment of whether or not Plum Island Animal Disease Center is a suitable site for a planned new facility devoted to the study of biological terrorism — specifically, diseases communicable to both animals and humans — was vetted on Tuesday night in Greenport. However, Department of Homeland Security representatives said in interviews that while the island is a candidate, it is not likely to be chosen.
Elected officials have requested that Plum Island be allowed to continue its current research after the new biological terrorism facility is built, but it does not appear that Homeland Security will take those requests seriously.
“Do we think it’s a good option” for the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility? “Not really,” said John Verrico, a science and technology spokesman for the department.
Eugene Cole, a Homeland Security architect who is overseeing the design and construction process, said the additional cost of building the facility on Plum Island, $750 million versus $500 million for other sites under consideration, and the remoteness of the island in general were strong factors against it. Still, Mr. Cole noted, “Every site has its challenges.”
Plum Island is being examined along with proposed sites in Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas. The planned new facility would — along with examining those diseases already studied at Plum Island, including foot-and-mouth disease and swine fever — study additional disease with a Biosafety Level 3 rating, including African swine fever, Rift Valley fever, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, and Japanese encephalitis. Of those, Rift Valley fever and Japanese encephalitis can affect humans. With its higher Biosafety Level 4 rating, however, the new facility would also conduct research into life-threatening diseases that can be transferred to humans for which there is no known cure. These include nipah and hendra viruses.
Biosafety Level 4 is the highest security rating a lab can be granted. The study of level-4 diseases necessitates increased precautions, including restricted access and placement of the labs in a strictly controlled and isolated inner area within another building.
Mr. Verrico said that the outer building in which a level-4 building is housed must be rated level 3, and that maintaining two facilities with that rating for large-animal study would be costly and redundant, which is why Plum Island (which already is certified level 3) would be decommissioned once the new facility was built.
Representative Tim Bishop said that the “public confirmation that Plum Island is not an attractive or reasonable site for the N.B.A.F., something that we had been reassured privately, is a good thing.” He noted that he, along with Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, have made it clear to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and his predecessor, Tom Ridge, that a level-4 lab on Plum Island is not something the community wants.
“As to whether Plum Island will cease to exist once a new facility is completed,” the congressman said, “I take that to be the position of this administration. Five months from now there will be a new administration, and we will take it up with them that Plum Island has a role to play.” The senators, he said, were in agreement.
At Plum Island, a mile and a half off Orient Point, foot-and-mouth (the most contagious animal disease known) has been studied for 50 years. There are 7 types and 80 subtypes, making vaccination difficult. Foot-and-mouth affects cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, deer, pigs, and sheep. Plum Island is the only facility in the United States currently certified to work with live foot-and-mouth virus. The research center’s island location, and the fact there there are only small populations of livestock in the area, account for this distinction.
Plum Island’s setting is a key element in its favor as officials survey possible locations for the new bioterrorism research center. The federal government’s environmental study noted that while level-4 labs are isolated within secure outer buildings, even under the best of circumstances systems can fail.
The study cited three very recent failures including the infection of workers with brucella bacteria at one of Texas A&M University’s level-3 laboratories in 2006. Last year, a one-hour power outage at the new level-4 facility of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta caused both the main and backup power systems to fail and the negative air-pressure system, which is a major component of pathogen biocontainment, to shut down. (That lab had not yet begun its work with pathogens.) In 2007 there was also a release of foot-and-mouth disease in England due to a damaged and leaking drainage system at a research facility.
Some livestock-industry groups have urged Homeland Security not to move such a facility onto the mainland. In other countries where foot-and-mouth disease is studied, new facilities have been placed or continue to be operated offshore.
The final selection will occur within 30 days after the final environmental report is completed in the late fall. Mr. Cole noted that several factors will be weighed: cost of construction and operation, location near other research facilities, location near livestock, and the support of the area community. However, he said, which of these elements would hold most sway had not yet been determined.
Almost everyone who spoke at Thursday’s hearing was opposed to the new facility coming to Plum Island. Some, including the elected officials and their representatives, advocated for continuing Plum Island’s current research. Most speakers, however, were suspicious and unsupportive of any of the infectious-disease work being done there.
State Assemblyman Marc Alessi said many of the public’s worries stem from a lack of trust in the facility, after years of secrecy and bad press. “I applaud your recent efforts for outreach,” he said, but, he cautioned, “understand why the community needs to build trust with you.”
Concerns cited at the hearing included security, effects on the environment, and the danger so close to home of pathogens communicable to humans. That Plum Island might be an attractive target among those planning acts of terrorism was apparently confirmed by the arrest of Aafia Siddique in Afghanistan last month. It has been alleged that she had maps and a list of potential targets that included the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, the New York subway system, and Plum Island, according to ABC News.
The island is not currently in a no-fly zone. It can be viewed on satellite maps on the Internet. Speakers at the hearing noted that there were minimal security cameras and guards on the island’s perimeter and that boaters could go up to the beach, and there was no fencing or signs discouraging them.
Similar issues and debates are playing out in the other locations up for consideration. In North Carolina, the county government that has jurisdiction over Butner, the proposed site not far from Chapel Hill and Raleigh, has asked the consortium that put its nomination forward to the Department of Homeland Security to withdraw its request. The consortium respectfully declined.
Municipal and county governments of surrounding areas in North Carolina have also opposed the plan or withdrawn their support. Brad Miller, a congressman who represents the district, said in a statement that “sober, serious” concerns expressed by different branches of government had not been “satisfied.” He added that his community simply does not want the facility.
There has also been resistance in Athens, Ga., another of the proposed sites, even though the Centers for Disease Control, which studies far deadlier pathogens, is located in Atlanta, some 70 miles away.
Officials at the Plum Island hearing confirmed, however, that the reception in Kansas, Mississippi, and Texas had been positive, with backers arguing that the facility could generate millions of dollars in new jobs, construction work, and taxes.
The comment period on the draft environmental report will end August 25. The report and more information about the hearings can be found at www.dhs. gov/xres/labs/editorial_0803.shtm