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Report: Plum Island lab least costly site for leak risk

BY BILL BLEYER | bill.bleyer@newsday.com; This story was suppl

June 21, 2008

A Department of Homeland Security analysis of potential locations for a laboratory to replace the Plum Island Animal Disease Center says the cost of escaping pathogens to the national economy would be greater at five mainland sites than a leak from a new facility on Plum Island.

The 1,005-page draft environmental impact statement for the $450-million National Bio-and Agro-Defense Facility analyzes the potential impacts and benefits of building the lab on Plum Island or at the other finalist sites: Athens, Ga.; Manhattan, Kan.; Butner, N.C.; San Antonio; and Flora, Miss.

While some findings of the study might bolster the case for building the new lab on Plum Island, it is still considered unlikely because the region's elected officials strongly oppose it.

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said the draft "does not change the assurances that we have been given by the Department of Homeland Security and others that Plum Island is not suitable" for the new lab.

DHS said the chances of an outbreak from foot and mouth disease or other pathogens that escape the new lab would be "extremely low" if the facility was built to government safety standards. But the economic cost of an outbreak could surpass $4 billion if the lab were built near livestock in Kansas or Texas. That would be nearly $1 billion higher than the cost of an outbreak on Plum Island off the end of the North Fork. Economic losses in an outbreak would exceed $3.3 billion for a lab in Georgia, North Carolina or Mississippi.

The report lists impacts of a new lab on Plum Island as negligible for health and safety, minor for water quality and moderate for air quality. There could be adverse traffic impact in Georgia and Texas, it says. DHS is scheduled to issue its final environmental impact statement and recommended site by late fall.

This story was supplemented with wire reports.