Fort Detrick Neighbors Jittery Over Expansion

[MountainLaurel]

Stepping up biological warfare, are we?

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the circulation of letters laced with the anthrax bacteria a few weeks later, the Bush administration moved to strengthen the nation's defenses against bioterrorism and began planning a major expansion at Fort Detrick.

But the project at the Army installation in Frederick is being challenged by some residents who live in the base's shadow, who say their community is not the place to build a major biodefense facility that would handle some of the world's most dangerous pathogens.

The opponents said that they understand they face steep odds in stopping the federal government's planned $10 billion National Interagency Biodefense Campus but that they're going to try anyway. When the Army called what it thought would be the first of a series of routine hearings on the environmental impact of the facility, about 30 people -- mostly opponents -- showed up.

"I realize people like you don't agree with people like us and would much rather not have to go through the motions of listening to people like us," Jason Kray, 26, of Frederick told Army officials at Wednesday's hearing. "I also realize that if people like you had listened to people like us, Detrick would not have spent so much time and money developing biological weapons during the Cold War. . . . If people like you had listened to people like us, soldiers on both sides of the current war would not be dying or losing limbs."

Several warned that the campus makes an inviting terrorist target and questioned its location in a densely populated area. They also questioned the government's claim that the research would be limited to finding cures for deadly diseases, suggesting that the facility's work could also be used to create bioweapons.

The rest is available at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/26/AR2006022601423.html