Boston Herald<\/p>\n
September 7, 2007<\/p>\n
By Wayne Woodlief<\/p>\n
Even if the Supreme Judicial Court closes the curtain at the state level on opposition to the high-security biological research lab Boston University is building in the South End, the residents and groups who have resisted it should be proud of their fight.<\/p>\n
These residents of a dense urban area and the attorneys from the Conservation Law Foundation and Boston Lawyers\u2019 Committee for Civil Rights assisting them are not alarmists, but serious people with deep concerns. It\u2019s only natural that they worry about potential risks: Sabotage by the very terrorists the lab hopes to thwart. The possibility of contagious infection by workers. Traffic accidents that could release pathogens such as ebola and anthrax if they are moved from lab to lab.<\/p>\n
Angela Francis, one of the residents, told me after Wednesday\u2019s SJC hearing, \u201cThey\u2019re building this thing on an earthquake fault line.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Mel King – a South Ender, former mayoral contender and longtime warrior for equal rights and poor peoples\u2019 rights – said, \u201cThis is a Level 4 facility with some of the deadliest pathogens in the world. With all our modern technology and computer communications that link people around the world, why do they have to build this thing smack in the middle of a populous area with many peoples\u2019 lives at stake to communicate with other researchers? They could build it in a rural area or out on a Boston Harbor island.\u201d<\/p>\n
But face-to-face contact is always better than total reliance on computers; especially for researchers who so often need to work out theories with each other. And you can\u2019t have a good working lunch over the Internet.<\/p>\n
I confess to some trepidation as I stood at the biolab site just off Albany Street and witnessed how close it is to apartments, homeless shelters, the sprawling Boston Floral Market and a humming business district. It\u2019s within a Tom Brady [stats] Hail Mary pass to the Southeast Expressway ramps. And Andrew Rainier, an attorney involved in a separate federal case seeking a more thorough environmental assessment of the biolab, said, \u201cIt\u2019s in the densest urban area of any Level 4 lab that\u2019s been built.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet BU makes a good case for allowing biolab construction – started after previous clearances by environmental officials and the National Institutes of Health – to be completed. Attorney Douglas Wilkins said that in the 500,000 hours – or 20,000 days – that all other Level 4 labs have been in operation, \u201cthere has not been one infection.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chief Justice Margaret Marshall said, \u201cIt sounds in the context of this case rather like a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) case.\u201d The remark angered and disheartened activists who feared it might portend the SJC\u2019s potential dismissal of their case – though Marshall and Justice Robert Cordy grilled attorneys for both sides.<\/p>\n
BU spokeswoman Ellen Berlin told me that though a few accidents and leaks have occurred at Level 3 facilities, \u201cthe greater risk of Level 4 also means greater safeguards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opponents concede that safeguards are in place, but that worst-case scenarios aren\u2019t given sufficient weight: What if that earthquake did occur? What if a worker became infected and spread a disease? The risk is low. But it could happen, the resisters contend.<\/p>\n
Though I admire their zeal, if we were all guided by risk avoidance and worst-case scenarios in our daily lives we\u2019d be semi-paralyzed. We\u2019d never drive.We\u2019d stop going to the Cape for fear of rip tides. We\u2019d shun Sox games for fear of getting hit by a foul ball.<\/p>\n
We can\u2019t let far-fetched fears keep us from living.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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