FREDERICK, Md. — U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski said yesterday that she will seek a health and safety review of the Army’s planned biodefense laboratory expansion at Fort Detrick, an installation virtually surrounded by homes and businesses.
“While we continue to build the technology to keep us safe from new challenges and new threats from predators, we must also remember that public safety must be our top priority,” said Miss Mikulski, Maryland Democrat.
She issued the statement shortly after the Frederick Board of County Commissioners voted 4-1 to ask her to request a National Research Council review of the project’s public health and safety risks.
Expansion critics who had pushed for the review expressed hope that the NRC, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, will thoroughly and objectively assess the risk of deadly pathogens escaping from the lab.
Critic Sally Familton, a marketing consultant and fundraiser, acknowledged the economic importance of the lab. Known as the U.S. Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, it would be staffed by 1,300 people — up from about 750 currently — once the expansion is complete.
The lab anchors a multi-agency biodefense campus under construction at Fort Detrick and is part of a biomedical industry along the 30-mile Interstate-270 corridor between Frederick and the District.
“It’s the hugest thing in Frederick. It’s the economic engine, which is wonderful, but that doesn’t mean we don’t look at it as thoroughly as we ought to,” Miss Familton said.
A leader of the Fort Detrick Alliance, a citizens support group, said the review will add needless costs and delays to the $150 million project.
“I think the person who initiated this whole process is anti-military,” said Al Edwards, a retired executive.
The project would create a 1.3-million-square-foot home for the Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, with expanded biosafety level 3 and 4 laboratories for working with deadly germs such as the Ebola virus.
Critics of the project contend that an Environmental Impact Statement completed by the Army in February doesn’t fully address the threat of terrorist attacks, the potential acts of disgruntled workers and the risk of contaminated wastewater.
Army officials have said they are committed to the safety of the institute’s workers and the surrounding community, and the environmental assessment was thorough.
Critics pushed for the review after the National Research Council concluded in November that a federal study of a proposed Boston University bioterrorism lab failed to fully consider the dangers of a release of deadly viruses and bacteria into the surrounding neighborhood.
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