BiolabsGroundbreaking for new Biosafety Level 4 lab in Kansas
Officials on Wednesday broke ground for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF), a $1.25 billion animal research facility near the campus of Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. NBAF will be the U.S. only Level 4 biosafety lab – a designation which means that the lab is secure enough to handle, and conduct research on, pathogens that do not currently have treatments or countermeasures. Critics argue that locating the lab on the campus of KSU — in the heart of cattle country and the middle of Tornado Alley – would not be a good idea. NBAF will replace the aging biolab in Plum Island, New York.
Officials on Wednesday broke ground for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF), a $1.25 billion animal research facility near the campus of Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and Kansas governor Sam Brownback were among the many state and federal officials who attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the project, which will be the U.S. most secure animal disease research lab.
“NBAF addresses a serious vulnerability, that biological or agricultural threats could have a substantial effect on the food supply of this nation and have serious public health consequences,” Johnson said.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that the facility is located in the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor, a span from Manhattan, Kansas, to Columbia, Missouri, which has the largest concentration of animal health companies in the world, according to DHS.
The Kansas site for NBAF was selected, not without controversy, after a heated competition among several states which presented themselves as the ideal location for the Biosafety Level 4 lab. One of the main arguments against locating the lab on the campus of KSU was that it would not be a good idea to have such a lab situated in the heart of cattle country and the middle of Tornado Alley.
A 2010 report by the National Research Council agreed that these were serious safety concerns.
NBAF, which will replace the aging biolab in Plum Island, New York, will conduct research on deadly plant and animal diseases, including foot-and-mouth disease, which was eradicated from the United States in 1929. Research on the disease has been kept off the mainland – Plum Island is an island — since.
NBAF will be the U.S. only Level 4 biosafety lab – a designation which means that the lab is secure enough to handle, and conduct research on, pathogens that do not currently have treatments or countermeasures.
In 2008, when the decision was made to replace the Plum Island lab, the cost of NBAF was estimated to be $451 million, but the price tag more than doubled since.
DHS said that the substantial cost increase is the result of substantial changes to the lab’s design to make the possibility of releasing deadly pathogens even less likely.
“NBAF was a big fish to hook and a bigger one to land,” said Brownback, who noted the state’s commitment to provide 25 percent of the facility’s funding came well before the cost surpassed $1 billion. Last year, the state insisted on a $307 million cap on its investment as a condition of issuing $231 million in bonds for the project.
The lab construction will offer roughly 1,000 construction jobs, and once completed the NBAF will employ about 400 people.
The lab was supposed to open by 2015, but the facility is now scheduled to become operational by 2022.
