Post by Karstscience on Feb 22, 2006 8:43:08 GMT -5
Though the following is not directly related to caves per se, it could affect a karst region.
This facility would be located on Buck Creek near the I-66 Somerset Bypass. Anyone have more information or interested in looking into this more? I used to party and camp at the site they mention many moons ago. It is a beautiful site and does have karst features...please forward this to others that may be interested.
-----------------------
Kentucky vies for bioterrorism lab
State joins forces with Tennessee to put facility in Pulaski
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITERS
FRANKFORT - Political and academic leaders in Kentucky and Tennessee will jointly compete against other states for a $451 million federal bioterrorism research lab in rural Pulaski County, U.S. Rep. Harold Rogers announced yesterday.
About 400 workers, including more than 200 highly paid scientists, would study some of the world's most dangerous pathogens in the planned 500,000-square-foot lab, said Rogers, a Somerset Republican.
"This is an effort that could literally change the economic landscape of the region," Rogers said in a morning news conference attended by political and academic leaders, including Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen.
With a Biosafety Level 4 designation -- the nation's highest -- the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility will join a handful of other labs equipped to research bioterrorist threats, foreign animal diseases and other emerging public health threats.
Such facilities have been controversial in other parts of the country, where opponents have questioned the safety to both humans and animals should any of the diseases being studied escape from the laboratories.
While officials say there has never been an accident at such a facility, watchdog groups disagree, alleging that the government does not report them to the public.
The lab will not develop offensive bioweapons, said Rogers, who chairs the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee.
Rather, researchers will work to create vaccines and treatments for viruses that might be unleashed, purposefully or by accident, on the nation through its food supply. Such pathogens include Ebola, foot and mouth disease and the Hendra virus. (See glossary at right.)
The average salary of workers at the proposed 150-acre compound would be about $74,000, which would create $1.5 million in state income tax revenue each year, said Stan Cave, chief of staff for an ailing Gov. Ernie Fletcher, who was in the hospital and couldn't attend the announcement.
Rogers said the lab would be a magnet for scientists and technicians from around the world.
The proposed site, owned by real estate appraiser Brook Ping, sits in the sparsely populated Mark-Welborn community about 12 miles northeast of Somerset, off a narrow road named Fish Trap.
The Somerset-Pulaski County Development Foundation has an option to buy the land for $2,600 an acre, or $390,000, said Carroll Estes, executive director of the group.
Ping said he had signed an option to buy the proposed lab site before the local economic-development authority approached him about possibly selling it.
Local officials, who were briefed by Rogers on Friday, promised yesterday to marshal support for the project through a series of public meetings.
Nearby dairy farmer Steve Wall, 34, will need some convincing. His Milky Way Dairy is less than a mile from the proposed site.
Wall said Pulaski County needs more good paying jobs, but he worries that the facility might have harmful effects on his family or dairy herd.
"I've got my concerns just like any normal human being would. We've all got our little herds, and we don't want anything to happen to them."
Stiff competition
Other locations across the nation are expected to make bids for the lab, which would be built by the Department of Homeland Security.
"The competition for this lab will be stiff," Rogers said. "I would be surprised if we're not competing with some of the nation's premier research sites."
By combining the research capability of the University of Kentucky's College of Agriculture and the University of Tennessee's College of Veterinary Medicine, the two states can "make a powerful case" for the lab, Bredesen said.
If the partners win the federal lab, it would be a feather in Rogers' cap. Although he is in a position to exert political pressure on the Department of Homeland Security, he pledged yesterday that the final location decision would be made by scientists.
The lab would replace at least a portion of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in Plum Island, N.Y. Built in the 1950s, Plum Island is capable of handling large animals, such as cattle, in a Biosafety Level 3 setting, but may be shut down.
Currently, the nation doesn't have the ability to study how viruses that require Biosafety Level 4 security affect large animals.
Although the lab would potentially house devastating diseases, such as foot-and-mouth disease, extensive safety and security measures should put neighbors at ease, officials said.
"I would not be afraid if this facility were located in my back yard," said Michael Blackwell, dean of UT's College of Veterinary Medicine, who noted that the facility would have its own waste-water treatment facility and that all air would be filtered before leaving the facility.
There are no recorded incidences of a virus or other toxin being accidentally released from a Biosafety Level 4 lab, said William Hacker, Commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Public Health.
Unreported 'mistakes'
Lab opponents dispute that information. While there is no public record of accidents or security breaches at such facilities, the Council for Responsible Genetics has compiled a list of more than two dozen "mistakes" -- environmental releases, containment and security failures, missing samples, and exposures and infections of personnel -- at labs since 1985.
Those mistakes, documented in the news media, include the disappearance of anthrax and Ebola viruses from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., in the 1990s.
The FBI suspects, but has not proved, that the 2001 anthrax attacks were caused by a scientist with access to a government laboratory.
Hammond, director of The Sunshine Project, said there are no requirements to plug reporting loopholes.
"All the incentives in the system are against reporting because you endanger your funding and you look like a fool if you report," Hammond said. "So the answer is, nobody knows how many accidents there have been."
State agriculture leaders do not appear to share Hammond's concerns.
"I think it will be good for the whole state and for agriculture as a whole," said Dave Maples, executive vice president of the Lexington-based Kentucky Beef Cattlemen's Association.
At 1.1 million head, Kentucky has the largest number of beef cattle east of the Mississippi River, according to the association.
Representatives of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association and the Kentucky Farm Bureau also spoke favorably of the project.
Those who live near the proposed facility were more skittish.
William David Bingham, who raises beef cattle and quarter horses in Pulaski County, said he favors research into diseases, but he wants to know more specifics about this proposal.
"I'm sure with all the government regulations, it's going to be safe," Bingham said. "But it's just like putting a prison next door to your house. You don't know what kind of effect it's going to have."
Members of the consortium formed to attract the project include Rogers, U.S. Rep. Jim Duncan, R-Tenn., Fletcher, Bredesen, UK, the University of Louisville, UT and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.
UK President Lee Todd said winning the project would boost his university's effort to reach Top 20 status among research universities.
"It will be a place for our graduates to go, a place for our interns to go, and it will bring related grants," Todd said.
Reach John Stamper at (859) 231-1305, 1-800-950-6397 ext. 1305 or jstamper@herald-leader.com.
This facility would be located on Buck Creek near the I-66 Somerset Bypass. Anyone have more information or interested in looking into this more? I used to party and camp at the site they mention many moons ago. It is a beautiful site and does have karst features...please forward this to others that may be interested.
-----------------------
Kentucky vies for bioterrorism lab
State joins forces with Tennessee to put facility in Pulaski
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITERS
FRANKFORT - Political and academic leaders in Kentucky and Tennessee will jointly compete against other states for a $451 million federal bioterrorism research lab in rural Pulaski County, U.S. Rep. Harold Rogers announced yesterday.
About 400 workers, including more than 200 highly paid scientists, would study some of the world's most dangerous pathogens in the planned 500,000-square-foot lab, said Rogers, a Somerset Republican.
"This is an effort that could literally change the economic landscape of the region," Rogers said in a morning news conference attended by political and academic leaders, including Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen.
With a Biosafety Level 4 designation -- the nation's highest -- the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility will join a handful of other labs equipped to research bioterrorist threats, foreign animal diseases and other emerging public health threats.
Such facilities have been controversial in other parts of the country, where opponents have questioned the safety to both humans and animals should any of the diseases being studied escape from the laboratories.
While officials say there has never been an accident at such a facility, watchdog groups disagree, alleging that the government does not report them to the public.
The lab will not develop offensive bioweapons, said Rogers, who chairs the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee.
Rather, researchers will work to create vaccines and treatments for viruses that might be unleashed, purposefully or by accident, on the nation through its food supply. Such pathogens include Ebola, foot and mouth disease and the Hendra virus. (See glossary at right.)
The average salary of workers at the proposed 150-acre compound would be about $74,000, which would create $1.5 million in state income tax revenue each year, said Stan Cave, chief of staff for an ailing Gov. Ernie Fletcher, who was in the hospital and couldn't attend the announcement.
Rogers said the lab would be a magnet for scientists and technicians from around the world.
The proposed site, owned by real estate appraiser Brook Ping, sits in the sparsely populated Mark-Welborn community about 12 miles northeast of Somerset, off a narrow road named Fish Trap.
The Somerset-Pulaski County Development Foundation has an option to buy the land for $2,600 an acre, or $390,000, said Carroll Estes, executive director of the group.
Ping said he had signed an option to buy the proposed lab site before the local economic-development authority approached him about possibly selling it.
Local officials, who were briefed by Rogers on Friday, promised yesterday to marshal support for the project through a series of public meetings.
Nearby dairy farmer Steve Wall, 34, will need some convincing. His Milky Way Dairy is less than a mile from the proposed site.
Wall said Pulaski County needs more good paying jobs, but he worries that the facility might have harmful effects on his family or dairy herd.
"I've got my concerns just like any normal human being would. We've all got our little herds, and we don't want anything to happen to them."
Stiff competition
Other locations across the nation are expected to make bids for the lab, which would be built by the Department of Homeland Security.
"The competition for this lab will be stiff," Rogers said. "I would be surprised if we're not competing with some of the nation's premier research sites."
By combining the research capability of the University of Kentucky's College of Agriculture and the University of Tennessee's College of Veterinary Medicine, the two states can "make a powerful case" for the lab, Bredesen said.
If the partners win the federal lab, it would be a feather in Rogers' cap. Although he is in a position to exert political pressure on the Department of Homeland Security, he pledged yesterday that the final location decision would be made by scientists.
The lab would replace at least a portion of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in Plum Island, N.Y. Built in the 1950s, Plum Island is capable of handling large animals, such as cattle, in a Biosafety Level 3 setting, but may be shut down.
Currently, the nation doesn't have the ability to study how viruses that require Biosafety Level 4 security affect large animals.
Although the lab would potentially house devastating diseases, such as foot-and-mouth disease, extensive safety and security measures should put neighbors at ease, officials said.
"I would not be afraid if this facility were located in my back yard," said Michael Blackwell, dean of UT's College of Veterinary Medicine, who noted that the facility would have its own waste-water treatment facility and that all air would be filtered before leaving the facility.
There are no recorded incidences of a virus or other toxin being accidentally released from a Biosafety Level 4 lab, said William Hacker, Commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Public Health.
Unreported 'mistakes'
Lab opponents dispute that information. While there is no public record of accidents or security breaches at such facilities, the Council for Responsible Genetics has compiled a list of more than two dozen "mistakes" -- environmental releases, containment and security failures, missing samples, and exposures and infections of personnel -- at labs since 1985.
Those mistakes, documented in the news media, include the disappearance of anthrax and Ebola viruses from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., in the 1990s.
The FBI suspects, but has not proved, that the 2001 anthrax attacks were caused by a scientist with access to a government laboratory.
Hammond, director of The Sunshine Project, said there are no requirements to plug reporting loopholes.
"All the incentives in the system are against reporting because you endanger your funding and you look like a fool if you report," Hammond said. "So the answer is, nobody knows how many accidents there have been."
State agriculture leaders do not appear to share Hammond's concerns.
"I think it will be good for the whole state and for agriculture as a whole," said Dave Maples, executive vice president of the Lexington-based Kentucky Beef Cattlemen's Association.
At 1.1 million head, Kentucky has the largest number of beef cattle east of the Mississippi River, according to the association.
Representatives of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association and the Kentucky Farm Bureau also spoke favorably of the project.
Those who live near the proposed facility were more skittish.
William David Bingham, who raises beef cattle and quarter horses in Pulaski County, said he favors research into diseases, but he wants to know more specifics about this proposal.
"I'm sure with all the government regulations, it's going to be safe," Bingham said. "But it's just like putting a prison next door to your house. You don't know what kind of effect it's going to have."
Members of the consortium formed to attract the project include Rogers, U.S. Rep. Jim Duncan, R-Tenn., Fletcher, Bredesen, UK, the University of Louisville, UT and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.
UK President Lee Todd said winning the project would boost his university's effort to reach Top 20 status among research universities.
"It will be a place for our graduates to go, a place for our interns to go, and it will bring related grants," Todd said.
Reach John Stamper at (859) 231-1305, 1-800-950-6397 ext. 1305 or jstamper@herald-leader.com.