Old Fears, New Technologies

Some citizens around Frederick, Maryland, are beginning to worry about the National Interagency Biodefense Campus that is springing up into existence. It's only been in the plans for five years, but maybe all the recent biolab scares have caused some resurfacing of old fears of biocontagion outbreaks.

"When these laboratories arrived here, Frederick was a Podunk little town," said Beth Willis, a former federal contractor who has lived here since 1975. "We're a big city now. At what point do you re-evaluate should this be in a different location?"

With 7,900 people working there, Fort Detrick already is Frederick County's largest employer. With the biodefense campus and expansion of another base tenant, the National Cancer Institute, the work force is projected to grow by 1,425 in the next few years.

Studies have been prepared over the past four years of the environmental impact of each of the three research centers, which will be grouped on about 200 acres of the 1,200-acre installation on the northern end of the city.

Despite those studies, and the public meetings held as part of them, some residents remain uneasy.

"Exactly what are they going to be doing?" asked Fran Locke, 57, a retired Hood College administrator who lives with her husband in a neat rancher just outside the base fence. "How well is security going to be maintained? What are their provisions for in case of an episode?"

Her husband, Ray Locke, 66, said he used to work at Detrick for a contractor that sterilized the waste generated in the biosafety labs. Looking across his backyard to the base from his kitchen window, he said they occasionally get whiffs of superheated, sterilized grain that is fed to the research animals on base. He wondered whether that means their house would be downwind if a disease organism does leak out.

"It's the wrong location, in the middle of things," Ray Locke said of the new biodefense lab.

I'm not as concerned as these Luddites. People tend to fear high technology projects, especially when the feds are in charge and not their local community. Detrick has a pretty good record of safety, and they are pouring a great deal of money into the effort, which includes considerable safety measures. On the other hand, certainly the federal government could introduce some measures of transparency to demonstrate what is being tested and that the center is following stringent safety practices. So far, they haven't committed to that.

Comments

[Alex]

"What are their provisions for in case of an episode?"

What a sentence.

[ry]

Sounds like MCAS El Toro all over again, J. BUild the base there, run it for 50 years, during that time people decide to move in close to the base and force it to close because of their 'concerns'. Sigh. Heh. With The Wife finishing her Ph.D. in the next couple of years if they all move we might be able to get cheaper homes near there(well, if I can talk her into working for the Army.). ;)