[NukeNet] 3 articles on Livermore Lab bio-warfare research

[Marylia Kelley]

Hi, I don't think I sent these before. Below are 3 news articles covering
our response to the Dept. of Energy starting up bio-warfare agent research
at Livermore Lab.

I particularly like DOE's quote in the San Francisco Chronicle article,
below, trying to explain how and why they had the bio-warfare agent
research up and running before they even posted the agency decision to go
forward with it on the web. There was no public notice of the decision, or
ability to comment on it, which we believe is a legal violation.

And, for the record, a couple of details in the San Francisco Chronicle
article are imprecise. For example, DOE did NOT do an environmental impact
statement as stated in the article. The agency chose to undertake only a
lower-level review, which is called an environmental assessment. An
environmental impact statement is what we have been calling FOR. Further,
while correct that litigation is in the works, the Chronicle article gets
out in front of things a bit and thus sounds too definitive about a filing
date. Those things said, the Chronicle article has important information
and quotes from DOE that are worthy of your attention. Similarly, the Media
News article and the Daily Californian also have some interesting points.
Read on...

1.	Top-secret Livermore germ lab opens

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
February 2, 2008

A high-security laboratory where deadly microbes are being grown by
scientists seeking defenses against terrorist attacks began operating in
Livermore last week without public announcement, and opponents said Friday
that they will go to federal court in an effort to close the facility down.

Built inside the closed campus of the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory, the facility has been controversial ever since it was first
proposed by homeland security officials more than five years ago.
Tri-Valley CARES, the East Bay watchdog group that has long fought nuclear
weapons research there, has led the fight against it with protests and
legal actions.

The facility is known as a Biosafety-level 3 laboratory where highly
trained workers, high-tech airlocks and extremely rigorous safety measures
are required by federal rules in order to contain any of more than 40
potentially lethal disease-causing bacteria, viruses and fungi stored
inside.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, an agency of the Energy
Department, which oversees the Livermore site, announced Monday only that
it had "granted approval" for Livermore to begin operating its new
biosafety laboratory.

But the announcement did not disclose that the facility had already opened
and that its scientists had begun working there the previous Friday - a
fact that immediately outraged the lab's opponents.

Robert Schwartz, the staff attorney for Tri-Valley CARES, said he will file
suit in federal District Court next week to shut down the facility on the
grounds that the final environmental impact statement published by the
lab's oversight agency was inadequate and that another supporting document
was released without public hearings in violation of the Energy
Department's own rules.

In October, the Ninth District Court of Appeals in San Francisco had
overruled an earlier federal court decision in support of the operation of
the Livermore facility. The appeals court required officials to prepare a
new environmental statement, including an assessment of the possibility
that a suicide attack by terrorists could breach the facility's walls and
allow killer germs to spread beyond the lab.

In response, the security agency filed a document that said such an attack
would be "highly unlikely," and that it "found no significant impact" on
the public or the environment from operations at the germ research facility.

A spokesman for the Energy Department's nuclear security agency at
Livermore told The Chronicle that its office manager approved the final
revised environmental documents on Jan. 25, and that scientists began work
at the lab the same day.

Asked why the press release on Monday did not disclose that the facility
was already operating, the spokesman said "because we needed the time to
physically copy the documents and place them in the public reading rooms as
well as post them on the Web."

Eric Gard, director of the new facility, said Friday his staff is now
growing live cultures of many disease-causing organisms that could be used
by terrorists in enemy biological warfare attacks and for which laboratory
scientists will seek to develop countermeasures. Understanding the
phenomenon of resistance to antibiotics is a high priority, he said.

Among the microbes held in the laboratory are bacteria that cause such
highly dangerous and often deadly diseases as bubonic plague, anthrax,
Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Q fever, tularemia and brucellosis or
undulant fever, Gard said.

But scientists in his lab will also be researching other microbes unlikely
to be used in terror attacks and that pose such major public health
problems as tuberculosis, flu, and SARS, the severe acute respiratory
syndrome that proved so deadly among elderly people in China, he said.

The scientists are barred by federal rules from conducting any research
using germs for "potentially offensive use or purposes," nor for the
production of any bio-warfare weapons, according to the Energy Department.

Continuing its opposition to the Livermore facility by Tri-Valley CAREs,
Marylia Kelley, the organization's executive director, charged in a
statement Friday that the lab and its sponsors "are jeopardizing the health
and safety of the local community and the surrounding Bay Area." Live
anthrax germs grown in the lab and released into the air from the facility,
even if it were only "lightly damaged" in a terrorist attack, for example,
"could result in up to 9,000 deaths, depending on wind patterns," Kelley
maintained.

E-mail David Perlman at dperlman at sfchronicle.com.


2.	Testing for deadly pathogens to begin in Livermore

By Betsy Mason, STAFF WRITER
Inside Bay Area (Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times, Tri-Valley Herald,
Valley Times, other affiliate newspapers) 01/29/2008

A newly constructed laboratory equipped to handle deadly airborne pathogens
such as anthrax, bird flu and West Nile virus began operating Friday at
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The new Biosafety Level 3 lab allows scientists to test detection devices
being developed at the lab against the pathogens they are designed to
detect. Previously, testing had to be done elsewhere, or with less
dangerous strains of the microorganisms.

"Having all the capabilities in one place speeds up the process by many,
many months if not years," said biochemist Eric Gard, who oversees work on
pathogens at Livermore Lab.

Studies on deadly viruses such as HIV and tuberculosis can also be done in
the new facility, as well as research into antibiotic resistance.
Researchers will also use the new lab to study how the various pathogens
attack animals such as mice in order to develop interventions and
treatments for humans.

"It's not trivial to figure this out," said Livermore Lab microbiologist
Paul Jackson. "It's a very complex process."

The Biosafety "level" distinctions are made by the Centers for Disease
Control. Livermore Lab has had a Biosafety Level 2 lab running for seven
years, where scientists do research on bacteria and viruses that can cause
disease in humans, but for which there are treatments or vaccines.

Level 3 labs can handle pathogens that can be deadly if inhaled, but have
treatments or vaccines such as SARS and yersinia pestis, which was
responsible for the Black Death.

Livermore Lab's Site 300 near Tracy was being considered by the Department
of Homeland Security for a Level 4 lab, which can handle deadly biological
agents that have no treatment or vaccine, but was not selected.

The CDC requires certain safety procedures and equipment at Level 3 labs,
including a double-door entry way and air flow that goes from the least
contaminated areas to those with the highest potential contamination and is
not recirculated into the building.

The Department of Energy has taken safety several steps further with the
Livermore facility, which is the first Level 3 lab for the department. Air
passes through two high-efficiency (or HEPA) filters before leaving the
building, and workers are required to wear hoods with HEPA-filtered air
flowing into them.

Every six months, the lab will be flushed with vaporous hydrogen peroxide
to sterilize it, and all equipment will be re-certified. The CDC requires
this be done annually.

Including the gate to Livermore Lab, there are four security badge checks
to get into any one of the three lab rooms inside the building.

In addition to the 20 training courses workers must complete before gaining
access to the lab, Livermore is adding physical and psychological
examinations as well as random drug testing. Currently only six people have
access to the lab.

"The security is way beyond anything that most universities would have,"
Jackson said.

The DOE released its final environmental impact assessment for the
Biosafety Level 3 lab Monday, which found there was no significant impact.

But Marylia Kelley of the lab watchdog group Tri-Valley Communities Against
a Radioactive Environment (CARE) isn't convinced.

"I'm convinced that this laboratory poses a serious threat to health and
safety," she said.

In 2006, in response to a suit filed by her organization, the Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals ordered the DOE to assess the potential for terrorist
attacks. But the DOE decided there was no significant threat.

"They are dead wrong," Kelley said.

Kelley argues that the pathogens should stay at the CDC, and scientists
should fly there to study them rather than sending the pathogens to
Livermore.

Tri-Valley CARE plans to file suit again. In addition to [analyzing] the
threat from a terrorist attack, the DOE is required by its own rules to
have a comment period after releasing its finding of no significant
environmental impact, she said.

Betsy Mason covers science and the national laboratories. Reach her at
925-952-5026 or bmason at bayareanewsgroup.com.

3.	Livermore Laboratory Opens High-Security Research Facility
Community Group Worries About Dangers of Newly Approved Pathogen Research Lab

By ANGELICA DONGALLO
Daily Californian Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory opened a research facility to study
pathogens on Monday after a report deemed it safe to study anthrax and
other infectious diseases.

The facility, which is partly managed by the university, will operate at
the highest security level seen by the lab due to the nature of research.
The security level is set by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.

"The U.S. Department of Energy has determined the probability of a
successful terrorist attack on the Biosafety Level 3 facility is extremely
low," Livermore Site Office Manager Camille Yuan-Soo Hoo said in a
statement.

Yet Tri-Valley CAREs, an anti-nuclear development community group based in
Livermore, has scrutinized the department for what they said was a safety
hazard for the lab's surrounding communities, including Berkeley.

"My biggest concern is the health and safety of the community surrounding
Livermore Lab," said Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley
CAREs. "In the event of an accident, leak, spill or terrorist attack, this
facility puts our lives at risk."

The university was the sole manager of the lab until Oct. 1, when the
security group Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC-which includes the
university-took over as manager.

Tri-Valley CAREs sued the department in August 2003, and the case was heard
in 2006 by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ordered the
department to reassess the facility's safety.

The laboratory was fined in September 2007 by the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services for releasing anthrax during a shipment in September
2005, among other alleged violations.

Tri-Valley CAREs officials said they plan to seek an injunction against the
department to postpone operations at the research facility.

Officials at the national lab and the department could not be reached for
comment on the issue.

A final assessment of the facility was approved and released on Monday,
according to a statement by the department's National Nuclear Security
Administration.

Kelley said that although the materials outlining the impact of the
facility were released this week, the department opened the site without
hearing public comment on the revised documents.

"It's so wrong to do something potentially deadly with such a poor process
with little public input," she said.

Angelica Dongallo covers higher education. Contact her at
adongallo at dailycal.org.



Marylia Kelley,
Executive Director

Tri-Valley CAREs
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA  94551

Ph: (925) 443-7148
Fx: (925) 443-0177
Web: www.trivalleycares.org
Email: marylia at trivalleycares.org or marylia at earthlink.net