Homeland Security Gets Clear Message at Meeting.... Go Away By Harry Coleman - Editor
It’s going to be a tough battle....and in my opinion you’ll lose,” Harold Jenkins told Homeland Security officials at the conclusion of nearly eight hours of meetings in Butner held following the release of a draft Environmental Impact statement which studied the feasibility of putting a National Bio-Agro Facility to study some of the most dangerous viruses in the world at one of six potential sites in the United States including a site in Butner. Jenkins was an original organizer of The Granville Non-Violent Action Team (GNAT) and its first spokesman. G.N.A.T. was successful under Jenkins leadership in defeating a state sponsored attempt in 1990 to put a hazardous waste incinerator in Granville County. If it had been built, the proposed incinerator would have burned the hazardous waste in a seven state area the emissions from which would have been released into the air in Butner, North Carolina. Many of those in the audience cheered as Jenkins stepped up to the microphone to explain the history of G.N.A.T. and to make the prediction that the community would not stop it’s resistance to the Proposal to put the disease lab in Butner even if they were named as the “recommended” site in the final Environmental Impact Statement. Jenkins told the group of federal officials in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting that GNAT’s locked arm in arm and surrounded the drilling crew at the Hazardous Waste Incinerator site in Butner in 1990 while scores of Highway Patrol men dressed in full riot gear had assembled nearby to arrest them. He informed Homeland Security that 2,000 people had marched in the streets that year. Jenkins predicted that,” If Homeland Security proceeds with building the Butner site “there will be thousands more in the streets to oppose that decision.” The public meeting in Butner Tuesday was held in two sessions one from 12:30-4:30 pm and another from 6 to 10 pm.
Approximately 200 people attended the afternoon session with about twice that number coming to the Tuesday night meeting.
During the time allo¬cated for public comments not one speaker expressed support for the lab. Speakers in both sessions expressed opposition in numerous ways and for numerous reasons. A recurring sentiment which was expressed by numerous speakers was the fear that an unintended accident at the lab could have a devastating effect on the health and safety of the local community and beyond. Another concern which was expressed many times and is unique to the Butner Community is the fragile institutionalized population in the state institutions at Murdoch Center and the Central Regional Hospital in Butner. The NBAF Draft EIS public meeting included a one hour open house which was mostly an opportunity to meet and great those in attendance, a one hour presentation by the Department of Homeland Defense and their contractors and a two hour public comment period. Warwick Arden, who is the Dean of the Veterinary School at North Carolina State and a leader of the North Carolina Consortium, said that the Consortium had made the decision not to speak at the meeting.
“I believe that this should be the local citizen’s opportunity to make their feelings known,” Dean Arden stated before the meeting began. Arden did say that he thought the program was needed somewhere in the United States but that he said he did not think that locating it in Butner was a “do at all costs measure.” The opponents in the audience ranged from those making dramatic statements with elaborate props to soft spoken grandmothers expressing their fears for their families and their community including patients institutionalized in Butner. Speakers Comments A speaker asked the following question at the Tuesday meeting. “What would happen if an airplane carrying a dangerous disease on its way to the Bio-lab were to crash and it’s contents were released into the surrounding countryside?”
The government official said that he could not respond to this question beyond informing the speaker that Homeland Security had a National Risk Assessment Team that was charged with the responsibility of minimizing the affects on any unexpected disaster. Another speaker pointed out that the projected 1.6 billion positive economic input for the project could easily be offset by the estimated 3.5 billion cost of an unexpected accident. Site Considered The sites being considered in addition to Butner are Athens, Georgia, Manhattan, Kansas, Flora, Mississippi, San Antonio, Texas, with Plum Island being also included as a fall back location. Promise Issued GNAT spokesman Bill McKellar promised Homeland Security Administrator Jamie Johnson that if Homeland Security chooses the Butner site further action would be forthcoming.
“If the NBAF is located at Butner, then DHS will be taken to court.”
“Whatever we have to do, that is what we will do,” McKellar concluded.
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