DHS helps with Plum Island upgrade
While DHS is looking for new site for the $450 million National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility — there are five finalists competing for the contract — it is upgrading the aging Plum Island facility
DHS on Monday awarded the initial segment of a $24 million contract for upgrading the Plum Island Animal Disease Center. The project is part of a federally funded $35 million overhaul for the lab off Orient Point. This first stage would provide space and equipment for expanded Bio-Safety Level 3 research while the agency searches for a site for a new lab that will study more dangerous BSL-4 diseases. DHS told Senator Hillary Clinton (D-New York) and Representative Tim Bishop (D-New York) that a $203,000 contract would be awarded to Whiting-Turner Contracting of Baltimore for engineering and design work.
The department is scheduled to pick a site for a $450 million National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility by next fall. It has identified five locations as finalists for the BSL-4 facility that would study toxins such as the Ebola and anthrax viruses. Plum Island also is being considered despite not being a finalist.
