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Science 8 October 2004:
Vol. 306. no. 5694, p. 209
DOI: 10.1126/science.306.5694.209c
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ScienceScope

Groups opposing a federal biodefense laboratory in Montana have agreed to a plan that may let the project proceed.

The National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, plans to build a biosafety level 4 facility for studying the most dangerous pathogens, such as Ebola virus. Three citizen groups sued NIH in August, charging that its environmental impact statement was inadequate (Science, 20 August, p. 1088). After a federal judge ordered mediation, the two sides signed a settlement last week agreeing to added safeguards. The lab will distribute a list of pathogens being studied to local doctors, for example, and has agreed not to weaponize pathogens. NIH also agreed to get public comment on a draft emergency plan before the lab opens in 2007. With the judge's approval, the August suit will be dismissed.

"They put a lot of mechanisms in place that we thought were important," says Alexandra Gorman of Women's Voices for the Earth in Missoula, one of the groups that sued. Construction should begin soon, a lab spokesperson says.




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