Considering Reality at KSU NBAF

BRI/NBAF Site across from KSU Stadium (right click for full image)

K-State Bio-Lab;

photos of vector animals across the street… downwind.

Kansas wind can carry aerosolized Foot and Mouth virus 30 miles. An infected hog can exhale 400 million viruses a day. It takes as few as 10 virus particles to infect an animal. Just a reality check, attached are seven pictures showing large numbers of vector animals within a  mile of  KSU’s NBAF site.

Imagine what would happen if an accidental release coincided with perhaps All University Open House or a KSU/Nebraska football game? How would you quarantine the surrounding area? An accident doesn’t have to happen on the hour but within the period of days before the release is recognized. With sheep that could be 10 to 15 days.

The KSU sheep pastures, used as overflow parking on game days, are just cattycorner from the proposed site. One of the several accidental FMD disease releases at Pirbright BSL-4 lab started when a tree root caused a leak in a lab sewer pipe and a truck carried contaminated mud to neighboring farms. KSU already has a $250 million backlog of deferred maintenance.

A tornado or for that matter, severe straight line winds don’t have to cause structural damage to disrupt the air pressure balance inside the lab. It only has to overwhelm the rubber air lock gaskets, or air filter seals around garage-size doors needed to bring in hay or other feed. Improbable as it may be, the prospect of an earthquake has the Corps of Engineers spending millions of dollars stabilizing Tuttle Creek Dam, a geologically insignificant distance from NBAF (Humboldt Fault Line <http://www.nwk.usace.army.mil/projects/tcdam/documents/ks-legislature-report.pdf>

Ranchers in Riley and adjacent counties own about 450,000 livestock. Now picture the sheep pasture “parking lot” emptying, with KSU and Nebraska fans driving in all directions …back to their farms.

Government funded Project Crimson calculated that a release would reach 35 states in 10 days.

Bill Dorsett

1715 Leavenworth

Manhattan, KS

785/564-2583

KSU sheep pastures in football overflow cattycorner from NBAF (right click for full image)

KSU Beef Cattle Research Center, 1.5 miles from NBAF site (right click for full image)

KSU beef, swine and dairy research 1.5 miles downwind from NBAF site  (right click for full image)

Protest NBAF Germ Lab at Dept Homeland Security Sec Napolitano Visit

This Tuesday, Feb. 10th, Secretary Napolitano of the Dept of Homeland Security will be visiting KSU’s Pat Roberts Hall talking about the importance of food security. We need to show that Manhattan’s support for the NBAF Germ Lab is not unanimous. We will gather at the entrance of Pat Roberts Hall across from the REC Center at 3:00 PM, expecting Gov Sebelious and Sec Napolitano to speak at 5:00 PM. Bring signs and banners expressing your disaproval.”

Is a Germ Lab a Good Neighbor?

The Bigger Picture of Biosecurity

Understanding Biodefense, Bioweapons Research

An Interview with Edward Hammond, Director of the U.S. Office of The Sunshine Project, an organization focusing on oversight of research involving biological weapons agents.

http://butnerblogspot.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/understanding-biodefense-bioweapons-research/

Sunshine Project Website: As of 1 February 2008, the Sunshine Project suspended its operations. Although their website is no longer updated, it remains online as an archive of their activities and publications from 2000 through 2008.

 

Sunshine Project: Welcome

Who wants this thing anyway?

It is hard to sit through hours of public commentary on a draft environmental impact statement, as I learned back in July when the DHS road show came to town. It’s even harder when most of the people speaking are just spouting boosterish rah-rah rhetoric.

To stave off boredom, I decided to keep a tally sheet, counting the number of speakers for and against. I also counted how many on each side were local and how they were dressed. The numbers should not be terribly surprising:

• Speakers in favor: 32
• Speakers opposed: 10

Of the 32 for:

• From elsewhere: 19
• Local: 13

The 32 for were dressed:

• Suits: 31
• Casual: 1

Of the 10 against, seven were local and nine of ten were dressed casually. From this casual sample (this was the afternoon session), I would draw the following conclusions. Large business interests from other Kansas cities want to make money, and the fact that they wear suits means they probably have an office job in a tower somewhere. People opposed nearly always come from the area (the three who were not local all live within 30-40 miles and own animals) and tend not to wear suits when they have something important to say.

Do we really want a facility that a bunch of suit-wearing CEOs and professional lobbyists think is a swell idea? When has that ever been a good idea?

I would also conclude from these numbers that the claim that this process has gone on largely under the radar is a correct assumption. Clearly, business interests have been contacted and made part of the process, but average citizens are still pretty much in the dark about what’s going on and their right to speak up. It was also not lost on me that the comment sessions were held in a K-State facility; even worse, a facility that has no proximal parking whatsoever. This was not coincidental, and amounts to bad faith or perhaps even an attempt at intimidation on the part of one of the NBAF’s biggest boosters, namely, the K-State administration. What employee in their right mind other than a tenured faculty member would stand in a university room and speak against the powers that be?