Plum Island is located approximately 2.5 miles as the crow flies from the northeastern tip of Long Island, its closest mainland neighbor. For nearly 50 years Plum Island has been the home of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, which had been run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) until 2003, when the reins were handed over to the Department of Homeland Security.

Now this.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is considering the relocation of a research facility that holds the world's most contagious livestock diseases from an island to the heartland of the United States. The move is striking panic in the hearts of farmers who fear a nightmare epidemic. The Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, John Dingell (D-MI) called the proposal, "utterly baffling."

"Containing a major outbreak would be a Herculean if not impossible task," said Leroy Watson, Legislative Director for the National Grange that represents 300,000 farmers and ranchers. Watson told Congress the disease "is twenty times more infectious than smallpox."

An outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Britain last summer was traced to a nearby research facility. A 2001 British outbreak led to the slaughter of at least 6 million animals. - CBS News

Perhaps further justifying the worst fears of those who worry about such an epidemic, newly-revealed information shows that the facility has not been as secure as was previously assumed.

The only U.S. facility allowed to research the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease experienced several accidents with the feared virus, the Bush administration acknowledged Friday.A 1978 release of the virus into cattle holding pens on Plum Island, N.Y., triggered new safety procedures. While that incident was previously known, the Homeland Security Department told a House committee there were other accidents inside the government's laboratory. - SFGate

In a hearing before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Nancy Kingsbury, the managing director of Applied Research and Methods at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified that the decision by DHS to move foot and mouth disease (FMD) research was based on a 2002 USDA study that looked at whether such a move was technically possible, ignoring any potential for human error.

We found that DHS has neither conducted nor commissioned any study to determine whether FMD work can be done safely on the U.S. mainland. Instead, DHS relied on a study that USDA commissioned and a contractor conducted in May 2002 that examined a different question: whether it is technically feasible to conduct exotic disease research and diagnostics, including FMD and rinderpest, on the U.S. mainland with adequate biosafety and biosecurity to protect U.S. agriculture. This approach fails to recognize the distinction between what is technically feasible and what is possible, given the potential for human error. DHS told us that this study has allowed it to conclude that it is safe to conduct FMD work on the U.S. mainland.In addition to a number of other methodological problems with the study, we found that it was selective in what it considered in order to reach its findings. In particular, the study

1. did not assess the history of releases of FMD virus or other dangerous pathogens,
2. did not address in detail the issues related to large animal work in BSL-3 Ag facilities, and
3. was inaccurate in comparing other countries' FMD work experience with that of the United States. - Nancy Kingsbury, managing director of Applied Research and Methods at Government Accountability Office (PDF)

Worries? Apparently not to some who consider the possibility of jobs and government $$$ that such a move would bring.

A simulated outbreak of the disease in 2002–part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called "Crimson Sky"–ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation's National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets. In the exercise, the government said it would have been forced to dig a ditch in Kansas 25 miles long to bury carcasses. In the simulation, protests broke out in some cities amid food shortages."It was a mess," said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-KS, who portrayed the president in that 2002 exercise. Now, like other lawmakers from the states under consideration, Roberts supports moving the government's new lab to his state. Manhattan, Kan., is one of five mainland locations under consideration. "It will mean jobs" and spur research and development, he says.

Other possible locations for the new National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility are Athens, Ga.; Butner, N.C.; San Antonio; and Flora, Miss. The new site could be selected later this year, and the lab would open by 2014. The number of livestock in the counties and surrounding areas of the finalists range from 542,507 in Kansas to 132,900 in Georgia, according to the Homeland Security Department's internal study.

FMD virus can be carried on a worker's breath or clothes, or vehicles leaving a lab, and is so contagious it has been confined to Plum Island for more than a half-century, far from commercial livestock. The existing lab is 100 miles northeast of New York City in the Long Island Sound. Researchers there who work with the live virus are not permitted to own animals at home that would be susceptible, and they must wait at least one week after work before attending outside events where such animals might perform, such as a circus. - High Plains/Midwest AG Journal

What is foot-and-mouth disease?

FMD is a highly contagious and economically devastating disease of cattle and swine. It also affects sheep, goats, deer, and other cloven-hoofed (split-toed) ruminants. Many affected animals recover, but the disease leaves them debilitated. FMD causes severe losses in the production of meat and milk. Because it spreads widely and rapidly and because it has grave economic as well as physical consequences, FMD is one of the most dreaded animal diseases for livestock owners. South Dakota Department of Agriculture

........An interesting side note. In the 1991 movie The Silence of the Lambs, the following exchange involving Plum Island occurred between Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lechter, played by Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, respectively:

Clarice: If your profile helps us capture Buffalo Bill in time to save Catherine Martin, the Senator promises you a transfer to the VA Hospital at Oneida Park, New York with a view of the woods nearby. Maximum security still applies, of course. You'd have reasonable access to books. Best of all, though, one week of the year, you'd get to leave the hospital and go here - (She produces a map) Plum Island, every day of that week, you may walk on the beach. You may swim in the ocean for up to one hour. Under SWAT team surveillance, of course. And there you have it…If Catherine Martin dies, you get nothing. Lecter: Plum Island Animal Disease Research Center. Sounds charming. Clarice: That's only part of the island. There's a very, very nice beach. Terns nest there...