Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research
Southwest Research Institute
Univ. of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio
University of Texas at San Antonio
Brooks Development Authority and Brooks City-Base Foundation
Texas Research and Technology Foundation

Nacho Most Transparent Crowd: SFBR conducts classified biodefense research and holds DOD secret facility clearances. SFBR already operates a BSL-4 lab and has a large primate collection. SFBR and colleagues are also participants in the NIAID "regional center of excellence" for biodefense headed by UTMB. Still, they want more... Should NIH-sponsored BSL-4 biodefense research and that of the DOD and DHS so freely mix? Technically, this group submitted three "Expressions of Interest". The members are, however, cooperating and for most purposes can be considered as the same bidder.

The corrals and elongated "chicken houses" in the SFBR satellite view are for baboons and other primates. Downtown San Antonio is to the E.

Talladega Labs: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby Sonny Perdue (or, "The Dukes of Hazards"?): Recently spurned by the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Georgia has now set its sights on a BSL-4 lab. The University of Georgia already has a BSL-3 and is building more lab space in the ruins of a structurally flawed BSL-3 lab abandoned some years ago. Emory has extensive labs and tight connections with CDC. The favored site is beside an existing USDA/UGA BSL-3AG. Governor Sonny Perdue, up for re-election in 2006, is a graduate of the UGA veterinary school.

Athens is the urbanized area NW of the site indicated in the satellite view.

URL: http://www.gov.state.ga.us/press/2006/press1070.shtml

or

Manhattan, KS

A Captive Audience: KC Life Sciences Institute is a trade group with funding including $300,000 from Bayer. Spooky Midwest Research Institute is based in Kansas City, where it has a very large bioaerosol chamber.

The Leavenworth site on Coffin Road (no joke) is next door to the infamous US Army Ft. Leavenworth "Disciplinary Barracks" (jail). The barracks are for military prisoners who have committed national security crimes. The prison is also the site of the US Army's death row. In other words, a place with a concentration of the kind of people that might have an interest in bioweapons and have nothing left to lose. We hope NBAF doesn't participate in any work-release programs.

On the other hand, spies can just be taken across the street and, well let's be honest, the local residents aren't really in a position to object to the lab ... they might even volunteer for experiments in return for opportunity to get out and stretch their legs.

Unqualified Connections: Battelle, based in Ohio, conducts classified research at its West Jefferson (OH) lab. Battelle also operates national labs, including Oak Ridge (TN), and Pacific Northwest (WA). Mississippi has little to offer in the way of expertise. Battelle has an insatiable appetite for federal dollars and may appreciate weak partners in Mississippi's educational institutions. This proposal features the crack political team of Gov. Haley Barbour (Chair of George Bush's 2000 Presidential Campaign Advisory Committee) and Penrose "Parney" Albright, until recently a top DHS official. Between them, just about any relevant ear can be bent.

URL: http://www.governorbarbour.com/NABF.html

North Carolina State University
State of North Carolina
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Duke University
North Carolina Central University
Wake Forest University
East Carolina University

Satellite view is centered between two proposed sites on NCSU's Umstead Research Farm. One is near the south shore of Lake Butner, and the other approximately one mile southwest. Pan south to see Durham, NC and southeast for Raleigh, NC.

URL:http://www.ncsu.edu/news/press_releases/06_03/059.htm

Texas A&M University
University of Texas Medical Branch
Merck-Merial Animal Health

The most interesting read of all of the expressions of interest. Submitted by Robert Gates, then President of Texas A&M, now the US Secretary of Defense. Includes support from University of Texas Medical Branch and Merck-Merial Animal Health - the possible authors of the 2007 Foot & Mouth Disease outbreak in the UK.

URL:http://nbaf.tamu.edu/

Another biolab??? This one would be built at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC), a major USDA facility northeast of Washington, DC. It is difficult to imagine the region quietly receiving yet another spooky biodefense facility, particularly considering the mounting citizen concern in Frederick, MD, where the US government is on an unprecedented (and unbelievably expensive) high containment building spree.

Mixing Bugs and Bombs: Once defeated by citizen opposition in a bid for a BSL-4 at its campus in Davis, the University of California is trying again, this time at Lawrence Livermore National Lab (which UC operates for DOE). Livermore, a nuclear weapons lab, is involved in a federal court dispute with local NGOs trying to prevent opening of its BSL-3 facility in Livermore itself. (Look here for more info.)

UC proposes locating NBAF at Site 300, a DOE-owned test range a few miles east of the main lab. Structures visible to the north and west of the roadside cluster of buildings include active bomb manufacturing and test facilities. The area is a federal "superfund" site due to radioactive and chemical contamination from previous weapons tests. Drag NE for the City of Tracy, drag WNW for the City of Livermore.

Suburban Sprawl: University of Missouri-Columbia already has a new NIAID-funded regional biocontainment lab under construction. The proposed site is at a University-owned farm on the edge of Columbia (pop. 91,000), a city that bills itself as "Mid-Missouri's cultural and entertainment center, featuring a diversity of restaurants, bars, live music, and independent films." Now, with the arguably unique suburban sprawl of a secretive DHS BSL-4 large animal lab possibly going up not too far from "new urban" single family housing developments, Columbia may soon be able to bill itself as Mid-America's Bioweapons Agent Research Center ... in addition to the independent films and Missouri (?) cowpoke bands.

Cheeseheads coming back for more: More than sixty years ago in the 1940s, the UW Madison Microbiology Department gave rise the the US offensive biological weapons program. This lab would be located at the Kegonsa Research Campus in the town of Dunn, 12 miles south of Madison near Kegonsa Lake.

Initlal satellite view encompasses Madison - site can be zoomed in more closely.

University of Alabama - Birmingham
Auburn University
Southern Research Institute (SRI)
Jackson State University
Tuskegee University

Arkansas State University
University of Arkansas - Pine Bluff
National Center for Toxicology Research