Rocky Mountain Laboratories: Concern of contamination tops citizen comment

A panel of officials got an earful Monday from citizens concerned about Rocky
Mountain Laboratories’ planned construction of a highly secure biological
laboratory in Hamilton.

by JENNY JOHNSON Ravalli Republic Staff Reporter

More that 50 people showed up at the event.

And that’s what the meeting was for, reiterated Tom Samuels of Higgins
Development Partners, a Chicago-based firm hired as developer of the project.

Comments, concerns and questions raised at Monday’s meeting became part of
the formal record and will be included in an environmental assessment prepared
by a Missoula Environmental Research Group. Many concerns centered on the
safety of housing dangerous pathogens at the Hamilton campus.

A highly secure lab is to be built at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories campus in
the next couple of years. Part of the public process of constructing the estimated
$66 million lab – a biosafety level 4 facility that can house the most dangerous
pathogens such as Ebola, hantavirus or smallpox – includes gathering public
input about the lab’s construction and effects on the environment.

"The (environmental assessment) will address your concerns," Samuels said.
"The more questions and concerns we gather the better the (environmental
assessment) will be."

A draft document is scheduled to be completed by Aug. 16, and public comment
will be accepted on it for 14 days. Ultimately, the National Institutes of Health,
the parent organization of the lab, will decide how to resolve safety,
transportation and other concerns. The organization was directed by President
Bush to expand its research of possible agents used in bioterrorism.

Concerns about safety and containment of pathogens and waste were voiced by
many people at Monday’s meeting, attended by community members and city
officials. One woman asked about evacuation plans in the event of accidental
contamination of the air or water in the community, while another asked how the
design of the building would protect against fire or explosion.

Although the concerns were recorded and will be addressed in the environmental
assessment, officials were not able to answer most of the questions at Monday’s
meeting.

"The environmental assessment is a disclosure document," said Greg Kennett of
Ecosystem Research Group. "So you’ll get an idea of the physical,
socio-economical, cultural and economical effects of the construction and
operation of the (biosafety level 4) lab."

Kennett said the document will be used to look at quality-of-life issues – how the
proposed lab may affect the surrounding area’s livability, property values, safety
and character.

Besides using public comment to develop a list of possible impacts the lab could
have on the community, there is a set of built-in assessments in the National
Environmental Protection Act, such as completing a threat analysis and flow
analysis of effluent water.

Jack Barnings of Hamilton asked if there were similar labs built inside a
community like this one is proposed to be, and others asked what plans were to
dispose of waste, including water, and what kind of pathogens were going to be
housed at the new facility.

With members of the architect and design team on hand, the crowd learned that
the 76,000-square-foot facility will contain its own treatment facility for effluent
water, and all materials entering or leaving the facility would go though a system
of decontamination.

Besides having state-of-the-art security, said Les Gartner, the facility would
basically be a "box within a box" and based on a system of redundancies that
doesn’t leave room for failure of security measures. The building will be at the
center of the 33-acre campus, adjacent to the recently constructed biosafety
level 3 lab, which will share some components with the proposed facility. A
project coordinator for the architect and engineering firm CUH2A Smith Carter in
Atlanta, Ga., Gartner has worked on three other biosafety level 4 labs.

While nobody knows what kind of pathogens the proposed level 4 lab might
house, the lab currently researches pathogens that are dangerous to humans but
don’t require the type of containment provided by a biosafety level 4 lab.

"We’ve got the best in the world working on this," said Tom Schwan, RML
scientist. "What we do know is that a level 4 lab will be built somewhere. To be
an effective laboratory, we need a community of scientists."

Scientist Marshall Bloom said his research on viruses would likely expand with
the development of a biosafety level 4 lab at the facility.

National Institutes of Health officials chose the Hamilton site for the proposed
lab, in part because of the successful community of scientists already working at
Rocky Mountain Laboratories. The lab’s expansion would add an expected 65
scientists to the community, and a handful of support jobs would be needed.

Two people suggested that a biosafety level 4 lab be constructed in a different
location – not in a community. One woman was concerned about the potential
threat of terrorist attacks at the Hamilton campus, which would pose a threat of
contamination to the community, and of accidental contamination, she said. She
wasn’t alone. A majority of the audience raised their hand when she asked how
many had "grave concerns" about the lab’s construction and operation.

"I’d like to be convinced that we should put the lab here," one man said. "I could
be convinced, but I’m not right now."

Other concerns centered on the readiness of public services in the event of
contamination. One woman asked if Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital would be
involved in the planning or given funds to become better equipped. Lab officials
said they plan on meeting with local organizations that may be affected by the
lab, including the fire department, city and county officials and medical
personnel.

Although many officials from the city of Hamilton were at the meeting, county
agencies were not represented.

Chief administrator of RML Pat Stewart said that more meetings to address
safety issues will be scheduled.

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