Plum Island

[TreasonousBastard]

It was pretty much forgotten until the Spanish American War and we thought Spain might invade Connecticut. It didn't, but we have remnants of the fortifications.

It now has the the Animal Disease Laboratory studying foot and mouth disease and swine flu. The lab is moving to the Midwest in a few years and being upgraded from Class 3 to Class 4. Upgrading it where it is makes little sense when a whole new lab is being built and it can be included.

Here's the thing, though-- years ago when this was all being planned, the sale of plum Island, which is 880 acres of largely pristine land, was included in the law to pay for the move. Since then, the move has received other funding, but the law of the sale is still on the books.

Normally, when a government agency has some land it doesn't need, it checks with other agencies which might be able to use it, and signs it over. If it can't find anyone to give it to, it might try states, private organizations, or whatever, or might then sell it cheap. This is an odd situation.

Tonight I was at a meeting sponsored by Save the Sound, a Connecticut organization us Long Islanders support, about the future of Plum Island.

We all wanted to keep it pristine, all two hundred of us who showed up.
Our Congressman, a Trump-sucking sumbitch, pledged on his black heart to save it. Our two Senators are for saving it. The Governor is almost for saving it.
A dozen other organizations were there in support.
Town and county leaders were there supporting it. The Town of Southold Supervisor was involved when this first started getting its zoning altered so it couldn't be developed.

We did hear that a Trump employee called when it first started ,asking about building a golf course there. He was solidly discouraged from the idea.

At any rate, there is solid support for NOT developing Plum Island, but this all seem like just a holding pattern, since the law to sell is there and slowly marching on. There is a bill on the floor to delete the measure and stop the sale, but it has three weeks to pass both houses.

And, just to make it more interesting, there are 400 very good jobs for mostly Long Island, but some Connecticut, residents at stake.

[TheBlackAdder]

1. Man, that is one toxic island with a biohazard research facility. They might unearth bubonic.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Nah. It's been gone over and Level 3 facilities aren't supposed to dump their trash in the back yard

It is a natural wonderland, with several hundred species, several threatened, living there. No hints of toxic dieoffs.

[TheBlackAdder]

3. Not according to the GSA sales material and building/land repurposing sheets, inc. property passes

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Huh? There are trashpiles there, but from other operations, mostly construction.

[TheBlackAdder]

6. The is a wealth of info out there...

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http://shelterislandreporter.timesreview.com/2015/10/11/suffolk-close-up-fighting-for-the-future-of-plum-island/

Calamity is a strong word, but appropriate considering that for more than 60 years, research involving extremely dangerous disease agents, several of which can carry over to humans, has been going on at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center.

As for areas of toxic waste, for decades no waste was removed from the island, including animal remains, but along with other waste was buried or incinerated on site.

Through the years the DEC has brought charges involving Plum Island waste. And in 2013, in the wake of the federal government’s decision to sell the island for private development, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) criticized the General Services Administration (GSA) — in charge of the island’s sale — for failing to detail contamination.

Before selling it for development, the EPA said, the GSA’s environmental impact statement should have included “a discussion of the long-term potential health implications for future residents.”

The GSA should also have explained how a clean-up “will ensure the safety of future potential inhabitants of the island.”

The federal government had been seeking to sell the island to offset the cost of what it is calling “the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility” it plans to build in Manhattan, Kansas.

===


http://suffolktimes.timesreview.com/2014/08/51255/so-whats-plum-island-really-like-one-reporters-inside-tour/

Security is tight, to put it mildly, with visitors required to provide information to the Department of Homeland Security before being allowed to take any Plum Island tour. Armed guards follow everywhere and a guard in a separate vehicle followed our bus, always on high alert. What struck my partner initially about the armed guards was feeling like a prisoner, transported from place to place.

But the guards generally showed themselves to be as friendly and gracious as our guide.

The average visitor doesn’t get to tour the laboratory where work occurs. Lab workers must wear special garb and take five-minute showers before leaving the premises. Eyeglasses must be soaked in a special solution for 15 minutes to ensure no bacteria is being released from the lab. There are occasional places where you will be asked not to take pictures, but those are rare.

By 2013, with plans still on the books to decommission Plum Island, the Southold Town Board implemented zoning restrictions that would affect any future uses, including the possibility of a developer putting large houses there or Donald Trump developing a golf resort on the island. Shelter Islander Bill

Smith has suggested that Plum Island could be an ideal site for alternative energy.

For the moment, the existing laboratory at Plum Island will continue to function.

Meanwhile, Governor Andrew Cuomo has secured state funding for a year-long biological study of Plum Island by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation set to begin next January. Its purpose is to determine what uses could safely be considered for the island once it is decommissioned.

The GSA is the best place though.


.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. There's a lot more than that...

Haven't even started on the motions, and possible lawsuit, by several Native American tribes to start archeological scans of the place for burial and other historic sites. And no one has yet bothered to deal with the military waste.

However, for a toxic dump to have such such a healthy and varied biology is highly unusual. 500 species of birds alone on that little island. And one of the largest seal populations in the Northeast.

[Jersey Devil]

5. Isn't Plum Island where Hannibal Lector wanted to go in Silence of the Lambs?

or was that the sequel, "Hannibal Lector"?

[TreasonousBastard]

7. I'm not sure if he actully wanted to go there, but it did come up, and...

in some dreadful fanfic Clarice married him and had a summer place on Plum Island where he retired to.

[SMC22307]

9. Clarice/the FBI offered him a getaway there in exchange for info, but...

he sarcastically replied that it was an animal disease research center, and knew their overall offer was BS. This all went down when he was in the Baltimore institution, IIRC.