posted
Here's a recent article on Plum Island's likely biowarfare & tick work being relocated. We all might want to be politically active in assuring it isn't built near us...
WASHINGTON -- Plum Island, a government facility off Long Island where dangerous animal diseases have been studied since the 1950s, will not be rebuilt, according to a list of possible replacement sites released Wednesday by the government.
The Department of Homeland Security said 18 locations are now under consideration for a new, $450 million, 400-employee replacement of Plum Island. But the New York site did not make the list.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rep. Timothy Bishop, both Democrats, have lobbied to keep Plum Island open, without adding new work with diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans.
DHS officials said that the desire to keep the facility from expanding to more dangerous, human-borne diseases kept Plum Island out of the running for the new research site. The agency does not say it specifically intends to close Plum Island, but the new planned facility is regularly referred to as a "replacement."
Bishop and Clinton want to see new efforts made to modernize the aging facilities at the laboratory, which had been the scene of a protracted battle between management and a maintenance workers' union.
A spokesman for Bishop said Wednesday he still hoped the announcement would not mean the complete closure of Plum Island.
DHS spokesman Jarrod Agen said the new facility probably won't be completed for years, and in the meantime $35 million is being spent on infrastructure, equipment and security upgrades to Plum Island.
"We anticipate shifting some responsibilities from Plum Island to the new facility but that's another seven years down the line. What we are going to do soon is a full study examining Plum Island" and its possible future uses, Agen said.
A 2003 congressional study found security flaws at the site but Homeland Security officials have since said those concerns have been addressed.
On the tiny, porkchop-shaped piece of land off the eastern tip of Long Island's north fork, scientists have studied contagious animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease and African swine fever for decades. The former Army base is the only facility in the country that has vaccines for those diseases, making it a potential target for terrorists.
The finalists for the lab announced Wednesday are in California, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin. DHS aims to narrow down the list of 18 sites by the end of this year.
Posts: 193 | From Virginia | Registered: Oct 2002
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NP40
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
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posted
Guess they left out the part about their experiments with Bb bacteria in an attempt to manipulate it into a biowarfare agent.
I'm sure it's pure coincidence that Old Lyme, CT. is the closest town to Plum Island and that the head cheerleaders of "hard to catch, easy to treat" are all heavily involved in biowarfare research.
Nothing to see here, move along.Posts: 1632 | From Northern Wisconsin | Registered: Jan 2005
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