The Plum Island debateBlumenthal: Impact statement regarding Plum Island seriously flawed

DHS has been looking for a suitable location for a new $450 million national biolab in which research into the deadliest diseases for man and animal would be conducted. There are now five finalists competing for the lab. DHS is looking to build a new lab becasue the current lab, locate on Plum Island off the eastern tip of Long Island, is old and showing its age. A recent DHS’s draft environmental impact statement argues that it would be a good idea to build the new, Level-4 BioLab on Plum Island, next to the current Level-3 lab, becasue an accidental release of pathogens would cause less damage and loss if released from a lab located on a relatively isolated island compared to such a release from a mainland-based lab.

Neihboring Connecticut takes exception — stong exception. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut attorney general writes in the Hartford Courant that “The draft environmental impact statement is profoundly flawed — factually deficient, and legally insufficient — mis-assessing the monstrous risks of siting a proposed national bio- and agro-defense facility on Plum Island.” Blumenthal writes that although Plum Island “has long hosted research into animal disease, the new facility would take the public health threat to a new level. The environmental security risks are intolerable in an area so densely populated, heavily traveled and environmentally valued.” He argues that the threat of accident or attack is hardly hypothetical or speculative, as recent experience has taught. “These dangers are real and substantial, and have not been adequately considered. While the nation will no doubt benefit from the scientific research, there are far safer and sounder locations than Plum Island. The danger here is unacceptable — to health and safety as well as the environment.”

Blumenthal lists what he says are the many key failings in the impact statement, especially as it fails to consider the following:

• The proximity of Plum Island to New York City, one of the nation’s most populous cities and a repeated target of terrorist attacks.
• The fact that 20 million people live within 50 miles of long Island Sound.
• The proximity of Plum Island to a nuclear submarine base, a nuclear submarine construction facility, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and a major nuclear power plant.
• The special security risks of protecting and providing emergency response services to an island.
• The risks of disease transmission to and through birds and wild mammals, particularly seals, a growing presence in Long Island Sound.
• The risks to an island