Exactly a week before the Department of Homeland Security's scheduled public hearing in Greenport on the draft environmental impact statement for its planned National Bio- and Agri-Defense Facility, Supervisor Scott Russell will host a meeting at Southold Town Hall on the subject of Plum Island.
Plum Island Animal Disease Center director Larry Barrett, the facility's director of operations Doug Ports and several other Plum Island officials will be on hand to answer questions about the existing operations on the island.
Mr. Russell said he is calling the meeting to get answers to questions like what diseases are currently being studied there, how is wastewater managed on the island, what plans are in place to respond to an incident in the event of a pathogen release, what plans exist for the evacuation of residents on the North Fork in the event of an emergency and what safeguards are in place to protect the public.
"I'd also like some information about the economic benefits [of the facility] to Southold Town," said the supervisor this week. "How many Southold residents really work there? How many local contractors and vendors does the facility use? To what extent," Mr. Russell asked, "is Plum Island still an economic engine for the town?" Mr. Russell said he believes much of the business done by Plum Island today goes to Connecticut, where, he said, the majority of the facility's employees live.
The supervisor said the informational meetings held by the Department of Homeland Security about its plans for the future of Plum Island raised more questions than they answered.
"Questions that were being asked by residents weren't answered -- legitimate questions, whether the NBAF is ultimately approved or whether Plum Island remains in operation as is," Mr. Russell said.
The federal government has operated an animal disease research center on Plum Island, an 840-acre island off the tip of Orient Point, since 1954. Operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and, since 2003, the Department of Homeland Security, labs on the island conduct research, including vaccine development, into livestock diseases, especially the highly contagious and deadly (to cloven-hoofed animals) foot and mouth disease. It is the only place in the United States where foot and mouth disease research is conducted.
The Plum Island research center has operated without any known major incidents, though there were at least seven releases of foot and mouth disease virus on the island between 1971 and 2004, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report issued in May. Six of those releases occurred inside the facility. One release, caused by "human error" in 1978, escaped the lab and infected "clean animals being held outside the laboratory" for future research, according to the GAO report.
In January 2004, President George W. Bush issued an executive order requiring the construction of a National Bio- and Agri-Defense Facililty to help "defend the agriculture and food system against terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies." The NBAF will include a bio-safety level four lab capable of handling diseases that are transmissible from animals to humans.
Plum Island currently has BSL-3 and BSL-2 rated laboratories. The research center is aging and outmoded, according to DHS, and should be replaced rather than upgraded. DHS plans to replace the current Plum Island facility with a new BSL-4 facility to be constructed either on Plum Island or at one of five mainland sites now under evaluation. The draft environmental impact statement issued by DHS last month assesses each of the possible locations for the new facility.
Mr. Russell believes that "one way or another" the Plum Island facility will be in operation for some time. The public has a right to get its questions answered. The informational meeting held by DHS in Southold April 15 was "a pre-scripted presentation," Mr. Russell said. "They didn't get off-script and it wasn't satisfactory to the public."
The Aug. 5 meeting won't go into the NBAF plan in depth, Mr. Russell said. That will be the subject of the hearing on Tuesday, Aug. 12. That hearing, to take place from 6 to 10 p.m. at Greenport School, conflicts with a Town Board meeting that evening, Mr. Russell noted. He said he advised DHS of the conflict and asked the federal agency to change the date, but it refused. The supervisor said he doesn't think it's a good idea to change the Town Board meeting date or time to resolve the scheduling conflict. "We've changed too many meeting times as it is," he said. But he lamented that the conflict might prevent the town's elected officials from attending the NBAF hearing.