SAN FRANCISCO – A federal appeals judge said yesterday she was troubled by a Bush administration plan to test lethal agents including plague and anthrax in the densely populated San Francisco Bay Area.
But a Justice Department lawyer told the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that research showed a biodefense lab at Lawrence Livermore National Lab posed little disaster risk.
If pathogens were to escape from the lab – scheduled to open in August – they would disperse in concentrations so low they would be unlikely to harm anyone, attorney Todd Aagaard said.
Opponents sharply disagreed, saying even a small release could kill thousands of people. Attorney Stephan Volker said the government failed to consider the possibility that a plane or a truck could sabotage the site 50 miles east of San Francisco.
The Bush administration has been preparing the biodefense lab for years, saying the facility – to be jointly used by the Energy and Homeland Security departments – is vital to national security.
The lab would test airborne agents such as hantavirus, influenza, hepatitis, Q fever, herpes and salmonella on animals.
Volker said he would ask the court for an emergency motion preventing the facility from opening.
The site is in an area with several earthquake faults, and opponents warned that a temblor could release deadly agents in the densely populated region east of San Francisco.
The appeals court did not rule yesterday, but Judge Mary Schroeder, chief of the three-judge panel, questioned the wisdom of locating the facility in a region of 7 million people.
