Natural Occurrences and National Security
Posted by StormWarning on 21 Sep 2005 at 10:11 pm | Tagged as: Opinions
"Back in the days" our National Research facilities were located purposely in lightly populated areas. Places like Oak Ridge National Laboratory (outside of Knoxville, Tn.), Idaho National Laboratory (near Idaho Falls, Idaho) or Los Alamos National Laboratory north of Albuquerque/west of Santa Fe in NM), even today, aren’t all that easy to get to.
Saraswati on TMF raised an intriguing question today (9/21/05). Why would the government place a Bio-Safety Level Four facility near Galveston Texas, a place that is all too obviously in the path of hurricanes?
Caretakers for sensitive biological and nuclear materials at facilities along the upper Texas coast say they are prepared for anything Hurricane Rita might bring their way.
The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston has one of a handful of certified U.S. labs handling the world’s most infectious, lethal viruses, a biosafety-level 4 facility. The campus is less than a mile from the Galveston seawall.
The lab’s director, Michael R. Holbrook, said workers have already destroyed lab cultures in which viruses were growing and will begin packing the lab up today, putting remaining viruses in sealed and locked freezers. Then, if Rita still threatens Thursday, the lab will be fumigated with formaldehyde.
"Four hours later, the lab is rendered completely safe," Holbrook said.
The BSL-4 lab sits on the second floor of a secure building on UTMB’s campus, 31 feet above sea level. Its 10-inch-thick concrete walls are rated to handle powerful tornadoes, which have stronger winds than the worst hurricanes, Holbrook said.
If power to backup generators is lost, the samples are already encased in large liquid nitrogen refrigerators, with enough supply of the freezing chemical to support the refrigerators for three or more weeks, he said.
"We won’t go back into the lab until we have electricity," Holbrook said…
OK. They’ve made preparations and destroyed the viruses. But why is the lab there?
The same question could be raised about the Dept. of Agriculture’s Plum Island Laboratory at the far east end of Long Island.
USDA and DHS Working Together
At the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has an important job.We work to protect farm animals, farmers and ranchers, the nation’s farm economy and export markets… and your food supply.
Plum Island is located off the northeastern tip of New York’s Long Island. USDA activities at Plum Island are carried out by scientists and veterinarians with the department’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).
We’re proud of our role as America’s first line of defense against foreign animal diseases.
We’re equally proud of our safety record. Not once in our nearly 50 years of operation has an animal pathogen escaped from the island.
In 2003 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) joined us on the island, taking responsibility for the safety and security of the facility.
The danger that Long Island might lose the Plum Island Animal Disease Center is very different from the threat to the 106th Rescue Wing, another important federal installation here: The wing saves lives and serves as a major East End employer. Plum Island performs a vital function and provides jobs, too, but its germ-probing mission makes some folks nervous. Suffolk County must work hard to make sure every angle of this issue gets examined closely.
We must also be careful what we wish for: If Plum Island stays open, there’s at least a chance that the Department of Homeland Security might expand its mission to include Level 4 research on far nastier pathogens than the diseases, such as foot-and-mouth, that the lab now studies.
Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Tim Bishop (D-Southampton) in person that his department would invest in updating the center, but would not need it for Level 4 research. (Clinton and Bishop oppose Level 4 here.) So both were mightily miffed when the first notification they got of a possible closure was the release of a department "fact sheet" last week announcing a "requirements analysis process" to identify a facility to replace Plum Island. Under the Department of Agriculture and now under Homeland Security, the lab has never been great at communication…
Its all OK, and it may not be a very big deal. I know that these labs have to be somewhere. And this isn’t a NIMBY argument. Its just a question. One for which there may not be an immediate or obvious answer. But Oak Ridge and Los Alamos were placed away from people for a reason…
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