DHS Issues Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Proposed National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility

DHS Issues Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Proposed National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility

"The proposed [National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility] would enable us to meet the challenges posed by the intentional or unintentional introduction of a foreign animal or zoonotic disease that could threaten the U.S. livestock industry, food supply and public health,"

Note: A zoonotic disease is a disease of animals, such as rabies... that can be transmitted to humans.
Source: "zoonotic." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 20 Jun. 2008. .

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate today issued the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility Draft Environmental Impact Statement for public review and comment.

"The proposed [National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility] would enable us to meet the challenges posed by the intentional or unintentional introduction of a foreign animal or zoonotic disease that could threaten the U.S. livestock industry, food supply and public health," said Homeland Security Under Secretary for Science and Technology Jay Cohen. "By expanding and modernizing our ability to develop advanced test and evaluation capabilities and vaccine countermeasures for these types of diseases, we protect not only our nation's security, but also the vibrancy of our agriculture system."

The proposed National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility is a joint effort with the Department of Agriculture that would establish a state-of the-art, high-security laboratory facility to study both foreign animal diseases and diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans.

The proposed facility would be designed to replace the existing facilities at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York, which is currently the only facility in the U.S. that studies the live virus that causes Foot-and-Mouth disease, according to the DHS. The department said the current facility is too small to meet new research needs and has an outdated physical structure that makes it unsuitable for research into diseases that humans can contract from animals. Research into such diseases must be conducted at the highest level of biosafety, BSL-4 and there is no laboratory facility in the U.S. for BSL-4 research on livestock.

No decision has been made yet on where, or even if, the facility would be built. The Science and Technology Directorate is undergoing this extensive review process to thoroughly evaluate each option, with the feedback of all interested parties, before any decision is made.

The draft environmental impact statement analyzes the proposal to design, construct and operate the the proposed research facility including risk assessments, for each of the six proposed locations: Athens, Ga.; Manhattan, Kan.; Madison County, Miss.; Granville County, N.C.; San Antonio, Texas and Plum Island, N.Y. The Draft EIS also analyzes a no-action alternative, in which a new facility is not built.

A Notice of Availability will be published in the <I>Federal Register</I>, and DHS will host public meetings in the vicinity of each proposed site later this summer. The text of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility Draft Environmental Impact Statement as well as information on submitting comments during the 60-day comment period, will also be available online. The final environmental impact statement is expected in late fall 2008, and a Record of Decision on if, and where, the facility would be constructed will be published no less than 30 days after the completion of the final environmental impact statement.