Bio Lab in Galveston Raises Concerns

[groovedaddy]

GALVESTON, Tex. — Much of the University of Texas medical school on this island suffered flood damage during Hurricane Ike, except for one gleaming new building, a national biological defense laboratory that will soon house some of the most deadly diseases in the world.

How a laboratory where scientists plan to study viruses like Ebola and Marburg ended up on a barrier island where hurricanes regularly wreak havoc puzzles some environmentalists and community leaders.

“It’s crazy, in my mind,” said Jim Blackburn, an environmental lawyer in Houston. “I just find an amazing willingness among the people on the Texas coast to accept risks that a lot of people in the country would not accept.”

Officials at the laboratory and at the National Institutes of Health, which along with the university is helping to pay for the $174 million building, say it can withstand any storm the Atlantic hurls at it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/us/29lab.html?th&emc=th

[Poll_Blind]

1. Don't like 1/3 of all Stephen King stories start in situations like this?!?

PB

[Ian David]

2. What's wrong with putting a bio lab on a sandbar? n/t

[phantom power]

3. A rather short distance away, there is actual *land* to build on.

As opposed to geologically transient sand bar. But that's just me.

[vinylsolution]

4. Florida built a nuclear power plant....

.... on a sand bar called Hutchinson Island.

How dumb was that?