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Plans to construct a new facility in the Utah
desert to test defenses against biological warfare agents have run
into a buzz saw of local opposition. As a result, the Army is facing a
tough fight to gain approval for the facility and is looking into
alternatives.
The planned facility would be a maximum containment lab at the Army's
Dugway Proving Ground, 70 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. One of
only about a half-dozen facilities in the country with the highest
biosafety level, known as BL4, it would be used to generate aerosols
of highly infectious agents that could potentially be used as
biological weapons. These will include the organisms that cause
tularemia, anthrax, Q fever, and encephalitis, according to published
documents.
The chief purpose of the facility would be to test the degree to which
the agents would penetrate materials and filters that might be used
for protection against an attack with biological weapons. It would
also be used to develop sensitive monitors capable of detecting minute
amounts of specific agents to provide warning that an attack is under
way.
Plans for the facility first came to public attention in 1984, when
the Army sought congressional approval to build the lab with funds
that were originally appropriated for other activities. The proposal,
which involved a transfer of $1.4 million, was buried in a stack of
routine reprogramming requests and almost slipped through unnoticed.
When it was brought to light by Senate aides, it sparked a furor that
culminated in a lawsuit filed by Jeremy Rifkin, a leading critic of
biotechnology, designed to block the facility. As a result, the Army
was ordered by a federal court to produce a comprehensive analysis of
any conceivable detrimental effects the lab may have on the
environment and public health before going ahead with the facility.
A draft environmental report was published by the Army in February.
Although it concluded that the proposed lab would pose virtually no
danger to the surrounding community, the report has focused renewed
attention on the project and appears to have provided a catalyst for
local objections to the lab. Opposition groups have been formed in
Utah, a petition expressing concern about the Army's plans attracted
54 signatures in 1 day from biologists and physicians at the
University of Utah, and public hearings held last month in Salt Lake
City drew large numbers of objectors. Rifkin has also announced that
he intends to go back to court to block the project.
The disquiet has reached the state's top politicians. So far, the
governor, Norm Bangerter (R); Senator Orrin Hatch, a conservative
Republican; and Representative Wayne Owens (D), who represents Salt
Lake City, have all announced their opposition to the facility. Hatch,
in a statement released by his office on 25 March, called it "reckless
endangerment" to build the lab in Utah. He suggested that it be
constructed instead on Johnson Atoll, a remote island in the Pacific.
Owens is arranging for hearings to be held jointly by three House
subcommittees next month.
All this spells potential doom for the lab. The Army must obtain
permits from the state before it can build the facility, and Congress
must come up with the money.
As a result, the Army is looking into alternatives, including building
the facility elsewhere or constructing a facility at Dugway capable of
handling potentially less pathogenic organisms. Army spokesman
Lieutenant Colonel John Chapla says these alternatives are being
studied as part of the court-ordered environmental assessment process
and the Army is currently still planning to produce a final version of
its environmental report on the Dugway lab later this year.
As for the suggestion that the lab be built on Johnson Atoll, the
draft environmental report gave the idea short shrift. "While this
location offers exceptional control of access for ensuring security
and safety, it presents unacceptable logistics difficulties, and its
operation would be uneconomical," the report states.
The alternative of building a less sophisticated facility at Dugway
could have the ironic result of permitting the Army to do virtually
all the testing it currently has in mind, but in a less secure
facility. None of the organisms that the Army has listed as candidates
for the proposed facility actually requires a maximum containment lab.
All could be handled in a less secure BL3-level facility.
The Army has said that it wants to build the lab with maximum
containment features simply to have the option of being able to work
with more hazardous pathogens if the need arises. For now, "BL4
organisms or techniques, including areas of research involving genetic
engineering, will not be used in the new facility," the Army stated in
its draft environmental report.
Some critics of the proposed facility have argued that there is no
need to use pathogenic organisms at all for the purposes the Army has
outlined. Protective materials and filters could be tested against
harmless organisms, they suggest. "There's no reason why simulants
cannot be used," says Naomi Franklin, a geneticist at the University
of Utah who helped circulate the petition critical of the Army's
plans. The Army contends that it must use potential biological warfare
agents in order to develop detectors capable of sensing minute
quantities of specific organisms.
Rifkin is already predicting victory in his fight against the lab. but
he sees this as a skirmish in a larger campaign. In 1985, he also
filed suit against the Army's entire biological warfare program, as a
result of which the Army has agreed to produce a comprehensive
assessment of the potential environmental and public health
implications of all the biological weapons-related activities it
supports.
According to Army spokesman Chapla, a draft of that assessment is
scheduled to be published on 12 May. Like the draft environmental
report on the Dugway lab, it is expected to focus renewed public
attention on the biological warfare research program
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