Operation: Crimson Sky II

Bush administration to introduce a devastating livestock virus to the U.S. mainland

Plum Island, the US Department of Agriculture boasted in 1995, “was the only place in the United States where (foot-and-mouth disease) can be studied.”

The USDA called the 840-acre Plum Island, home to its disease research center, “Alcatraz for Animal Disease,” due to the 1.5 miles of choppy water between it and densely populated areas in two states.

Now Homeland Security, which took over Plum Island from the USDA post-9/11, wants to bring foot-and-mouth to the mainland.

The risk of an accidental release of the livestock illness–which would devastate the U.S. food supply–is substantial.

And US military forces are apparently unprepared to contain one, the AP reports (paraphrased by me):

Dangerous Animal Virus on US Mainland

“It was a mess,” said a Kansas senator, speaking of a 2002 contain exercise, Crimson Sky, in which the National Guard ran out of bullets.

Even so, the Kansas senator, Pat Roberts, wants the lab in his state. “It will mean jobs” and spur research and development, he says in the AP piece.

Homeland Security’s National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility will go to Kansas, or Georgia, or North Carolina, or Mississippi. That decision will come as early as next year.

Just designing the place will cost $45 million. It is expect to open in 2015.

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