US nuclear lab slows plans for biowarfare center
Date: 20-Dec-01
Country: USA
Author: Zelie Pollon
Because of a storm of concerned comment since a public meeting last
month at which the lab presented its plan to its neighbors, the nation's
leading nuclear weapons research facility said it was extending the
period for feedback by about a month to Jan. 15.
Local critics say the government-owned and university-run lab, which
sprawls across a mountain plateau next to the small town of Los Alamos,
is exposing neighbors to potential harm and could violate an
international treaty banning biological arms.
But lab officials say they need a so-called Biosafety Level 3 facility
to handle live agents like anthrax as part of the nation's growing
concern with defense against biological attack.
"We're just upgrading our facility and going to the next level. It's an
extension of the research Los Alamos has already been doing," said Tracy
Loughead, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Energy in
Albuquerque, New Mexico. The department owns Los Alamos, which is
operated by the University of California, and will decide about building
the new facility based on public comment and a possible environmental
impact statement.
MAINTAINS NUCLEAR STOCKPILE
The national laboratory's main mission is maintaining and preserving the
nation's nuclear weapons stockpile. But it has branched out into related
research fields, including some work on detecting biological weapons
like the anthrax spores mailed in the United States after the Sept. 11
hijack attacks.
There are already hundreds of Biosafety Level 3 laboratories around the
country, mostly at universities and private corporations, but this would
be the first housed at a nuclear weapons research lab.
Los Alamos' proposed Level 3 lab would be a step up from an already
existing Level 2 facility, which can handle noninfectious strands of DNA
from biowarfare agents but not the live agents themselves. At Level 3,
federally mandated precautions, including air locks and protective
suits, are meant to keep bacteria and viruses from escaping.
Local critics of the project argue that putting a biowarfare research
lab next to a nuclear weapons program is likely to lead to work on
creating biological weapons rather than on ways to defend against them.
"There are also safety considerations because this lab does not operate
itself safely and has endemic management problems," said Greg Mello,
executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a citizen watchdog
organization that which has monitored the national laboratory since
1992.
QUESTION ABOUT ARMS CONVENTION
Mello said that without stringent oversight, the national laboratory
could be in defiance of the International Biological Weapons Convention,
which forbids the development of biological weapons. The convention was
signed into law by former President George Bush in 1989.
Lab officials deny there would be any treaty violation. "We do not make
biological weapons," said the Department of Energy's Loughead, adding
that the aim of the new lab would be to research the properties of
bioweapons rather than to create any.
Officials are also planning to locate the biolab outside the secure
nuclear areas that are closed to the public, allowing public access and
monitoring of the lab's work.
John-Olav Johnsen, a senior technical adviser for the bioscience
division of the Energy Department, said there were three potential sites
for the 3,000-square-foot (280-square-metre) structure.
"There's not classified work going on. People will be welcome to come
and get a tour," Johnsen said.
The building itself - projected to cost less than $5 million - could be
completed by 2003 and in full operation by the following year, he said.
