Greenport public hearing May 20 on Plum Island sale

The federal government has scheduled a May 20 public meeting in Greenport on the proposed sale of Plum Island.

The meeting is sponsored by the General Services Administration and the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, slated to close after a new laboratory opens in Kansas.

The meeting will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Greenport Public School Gymnasium at 720 Front St. Public comment is sought on the issues to be addressed in an environmental impact statement being prepared on the island's sale to the highest bidder following the lab's closure in 2015.

More information is available from Phil Youngberg at phil.youngberg@gsa.gov.

The GSA plans to sell the 840-acre island and a 9.5-acre support facility on Orient Point. Members of the New York congressional delegation, as well as officials from other states that competed for the new lab, have been trying to delay the transfer of Plum Island operations to the planned $450-million laboratory in Kansas.

The Plum Island lab has operated on the island off Orient Point since 1954. It is a Biosafety Level 3 lab that studies foot-and-mouth disease and other foreign diseases that cannot be transferred to humans.

The Kansas facility will be a Biosafety Level 4 lab, the highest level, and will be able to study diseases transferable to humans. Construction is due to be completed by the end of 2014.