-
- If the federal government said it wanted to study chemical
warfare agents - such as anthrax, an invisible killer that can pack more
than 100 million lethal doses in a single gram - a mile and a half from
your home, you'd be concerned, right?
-
- Well, that's a possibility residents, farmers and fisherman
along the North Fork of Long Island are facing.
-
- The Clinton administration is considering beefing up
security at the 45-year-old Animal Disease Center on Plum Island - an 840-acre,
lamb-chop-shaped piece of land a little more than a mile off the tip of
the North Fork - so scientists can study anthrax and other potentially
devastating diseases, such as screw worm and mad-cow disease.
-
- Though, for this story, The Post wasn't allowed on Plum
Island, where several labs house scientists currently studying animal killers
such as foot-and-mouth disease, we spent the day out on the bucolic North
Fork.
-
- From Orient Point, at the tip of Long Island, Plum Island
looks innocent enough, just a blob on the water. (It's actually 3 miles
long and a mile wide.)
-
- The place is shrouded in mystery. It's not just the barbed
wire and the "No Trespassing" signs circling the boat-launch
off Orient Point - where boats ferry workers to and from Plum Island twice
daily - that give the place an eerie atmosphere. The island itself is patrolled
by sea and air and is monitored by electric sensors.
-
- Just looking at it, you can easily see why Nelson Demille
set his novel "Plum Island" here - a thriller about two scientists
working on the island who mysteriously die.
-
- Indeed, the potential upgrade of the island is the stuff
of science fiction.
-
- The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which
is responsible for running the island, is reportedly seeking $215 million
over three years to upgrade the Biosafety Level 3 facility to Biosafety
Level 4, the most dangerous. There are currently just four Level 4 facilities
in the entire country.
-
- At Level 4, workers in designated areas must wear seamless
pressurized suits - a la the virus-scare film "Outbreak" - complete
with internal life-support systems. And of course, sealed labs equipped
with the highest-tech safety equipment would be built to prevent any particle,
however tiny, from getting out.
-
- But local leaders say they haven't gotten any kind of
briefing about this from the federal government. Greenport Mayor David
Kapell - who says he wants the upgrade because it would bring an infusion
of federal dollars to town - admits he's nonetheless a bit miffed he hasn't
yet gotten any official word.
-
- "I've only known about this since it was disclosed
[a month ago] in the newspaper," he said in his office in the tiny,
countrified town right on the North Fork's Peconic Bay.
-
- "At this point it's important to point out that
this is very much not a done deal," says USDA spokesman Andy Solomon.
"[USDA] Secretary [Dan] Glickman has made clear his intention that
if the decision is made to seek an upgrade, he will insist on opportunities
for public input in the process."
-
- Shelter Island Supervisor Gerard Siller has also been
kept in the dark, but unlike Kapell, he sees no benefit in having deadly
diseases studied so close to his island, which sits between the North and
South forks.
-
- "We don't want it, period," he says. "Our
evacuation problem is twofold. One, getting off the island" - the
tranquil island's 2,300 year-round population swells past 10,000 in the
summer, but the two ferries running between the island and the mainland
can transport only about 15 cars every 15 minutes. "Two, the problem
of getting off the East End," Siller says. "The roads can't handle
it." Indeed, the North Fork is serviced by rural two-lane routes,
dotted with wineries, pumpkin patches and farms. His fears are echoed by
many of his constituents.
-
- "Why can't they do it any in the middle of Kansas
or something, where there's no one around?" asks Harvey Katz, a Shelter
Island resident and owner of Harvey Claudio's Wines and Liquors in Greenport.
"Stuff could escape and nobody would know."
-
- Fears about diseases escaping are nothing new.
-
- There was a great hue and cry from East Enders in the
early 1950s, when the feds first announced plans to study livestock diseases
like foot-and-mouth and other exotic animal diseases on the island, named
for the beach plums that grew along its shores. (It's currently the only
location in the United States where infectious foreign animal disease agents
can legally be studied.)
-
- Back then, the eight dairies in Southold - worried a
wayward, windblown microbe would decimate their herds - went on record
as opposing it. Oyster growers were scared that even if their harvests
were lucky enough to survive any diseases, the public's fear about possible
taint would wipe out their $6 million annual business - and they bitterly
opposed the plans at two federal hearings. And local politicians banded
together to protest, arguing the risk could cause "a serious threat
to the county's future" and kill its reputation as burgeoning tourism
spot.
-
- The government pretty much ignored all this hubbub went
ahead with its plans, which some residents say accounts for the current
lack of organized protest against the latest reports. "It doesn't
matter what I think; I don't see anything stopping the government,"
says Bruce Bollman, from behind the hunks of cheese and freshly baked fruit
pies at Bruce's Cheese Emporium in Greenport.
-
- Despite the fears, there haven't been any major disasters,
yet.
-
- The stringent safety measures, so far, appear to be working:
Hunts are regularly organized to track down and kill deer, in case they
swim to the mainland and spread contagious diseases. Workers leaving a
building containing hazardous materials must shower, shampoo, scrub their
fingernails and change clothes to ensure no deadly microbes leave with
them. (Some busy workers have bragged about having to take more than 20
showers a day.) Special air filters ensure no air leaves the buildings,
and all waste is incinerated at very high temperatures.
-
- It should be noted, however, that in 1993 the federal
Occupational Safety and Health Administration charged the center with 25
"serious violations" for infractions such as improperly disposing
of needles and other sharp objects used in research. And in 1995, the Agriculture
Department was fined $111,000 for illegally storing hazardous materials.
-
- And one seaman who five years ago worked on the boats
that carried the workers to and from the island says his experience has
given him little confidence in the place's safety.
-
- "They took two of us [seamen] and told us they needed
us to rip up the concrete floor of a holding facility that had penned an
animal," says the 27-year-old man who didn't want his name printed.
"I found out they had been studying Japanese encephalitis in there.
The floor was concrete, and the dust was flying everywhere.
-
- "I freaked out. I was a boat guy. By no means was
I qualified or briefed about the facility. I didn't know how to get out
in an emergency." He ended up leaving walking off the job that afternoon.
-
- Still, some locals see a bright side to Plum Island and
to the upgrade. "Plum Island is an important socio-econonic asset
for the North Fork, specifically Greenport," says Kapell, the Greenport
mayor. He's a transplanted Upper East Sider who runs real estate and antiques
businesses in Greenpoint.
-
- "It employs 200 to 300 people in a broad spectrum
of levels, from the lowest end up to scientists. There's barely a family
from here that doesn't have a member who's been employed at Plum Island
. . . The scientists who live here add a dimension to Greenport, which
is traditionally blue-collar, that it wouldn't have otherwise."
-
- Kapell doesn't like the other most obvious options for
bringing money into town - construction and tourism - because they would
change the character of the area. "It's rural, agricultural. We want
some [development and tourism], but we want bulkheads. We like the blue-collar
mix . . . Plum Island has a good 50-year record, which tells me we should
not react in a reactionary way to this thing that may be scary on the surface."
-
- __________
-
- Comment
-
- From Dean Costello <costello@earthlink.net
10-20-99
-
- IF the federal government said it wanted to study chemical
warfare agents - such as anthrax, an invisible killer that can pack more
than 100 million lethal doses in a single gram - a mile and a half from
your home, you'd be concerned, right?
-
- DS: I was much more concerned when the ebola monkey
facility melted down, and that was about 10 miles from the apartment.
-
- Though, for this story, The Post wasn't allowed on Plum
Island, where several labs house scientists currently studying animal killers
such as foot-and-mouth disease, we spent the day out on the bucolic North
Fork.
-
- DS: Imagine that: A research facility not really too
crazy about having a tabloid, a tabloid that ran the (admittedly cool)
headline of "HEADLESS BODY FOUND IN TOPLESS BAR!", wandering
about. Hmm...
-
- From Orient Point, at the tip of Long Island, Plum Island
looks innocent enough, just a blob on the water. (It's actually 3 miles
long and a mile wide.)
-
- DS: It's more than that. From the Orient Point ferry
port, Plum Island fills the better part of the horizon. It's close enough
to see structures and the water tower.
-
- The place is shrouded in mystery. It's not just the barbed
wire and the "No Trespassing" signs circling the boat-launch
off Orient Point
-
- DS: Fence, yes. Just like around Air Force Bases, Army
facilities, Navy bases, DOE facilities, and just about every other government
facility, with the red, white, and blue shield that says, "U.S. Government
Facility". I don't remember any barbed wire.
-
- - where boats ferry workers to and from Plum Island twice
daily - that give the place an eerie atmosphere.
-
- DS: Actually two ferry ports go to Plum Island: The
one at Orient Point, and another at Old Saybrook, CT. There are about
a dozen crossings each day from Orient, but I don't remember the schedule.
-
- The island itself is patrolled by sea and air
-
- DS: Hmm, I didn't see anything like that. There is
a helipad on the island, though, in case of a severe injury that requires
someone to be evacuated to the mainland, but I never saw it used. The
only ships that are docked at the island are the three ferry boats for
moving personnel and equipiment.
-
- and is monitored by electric sensors.
-
- DS: Heavens, not the dreaded "electric sensors"...
-
- Just looking at it, you can easily see why Nelson Demille
set his novel "Plum Island" here - a thriller about two scientists
working on the island who mysteriously die.
-
- DS: Pretty sucky book, I might add.
-
- The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which
is responsible for running the island, is reportedly seeking $215 million
over three years to upgrade the Biosafety Level 3 facility to Biosafety
Level 4, the most dangerous. There are currently just four Level 4 facilities
in the entire country.
-
- DS: CDC Atlanta, Ft. Detrick, Dugway, and ?
-
- Shelter Island Supervisor Gerard Siller has also been
kept in the dark, but unlike Kapell, he sees no benefit in having deadly
diseases studied so close to his island, which sits between the North and
South forks.
-
- DS: Oh, that's rich. The supervisor of Shelter Island
whining about dieases, when his own island has the highest amount of Lyme's
Disease on the planet. There is a Nature Conservancy reserve on the island
which is so laden with Lyme's disease ticks that it is not recommended
to visit it.
-
- "Why can't they do it any in the middle of Kansas
or something, where there's no one around?" asks Harvey Katz, a Shelter
Island resident and owner of Harvey Claudio's Wines and Liquors in Greenport.
"Stuff could escape and nobody would know."
-
- DS: Godawful expensive liquor store.
-
- Despite the fears, there haven't been any major disasters,
yet.
-
- <Ominous music in the background.
-
- The stringent safety measures, so far, appear to be working:
Hunts are regularly organized to track down and kill deer, in case they
swim to the mainland and spread contagious diseases. Workers leaving a
building containing hazardous materials must shower, shampoo, scrub their
fingernails and change clothes to ensure no deadly microbes leave with
them.
-
- DS: Umm, no. That is done is anyone enters the containment
facility, where the experiments are run. It is not a function of hazardous
materials.
-
- "They took two of us [seamen] and told us they needed
us to rip up the concrete floor of a holding facility that had penned an
animal," says the 27-year-old man who didn't want his name printed.
"I found out they had been studying Japanese encephalitis in there.
The floor was concrete, and the dust was flying everywhere.
-
- "I freaked out. I was a boat guy. By no means was
I qualified or briefed about the facility. I didn't know how to get out
in an emergency." He ended up leaving walking off the job that afternoon.
-
- DS: Uh huh. They have a special staff for handling
construction/demolition projects, and more often than not they get mainland
contractors to handle those kind of events.
-
- Dean Costello costello@earthlink.net
|
