By Sarah Green
KHI News Service
MANHATTAN, July 27
Kansas could be the most cost-effective, research-ready location for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, according to leaders of the task force appointed to draw the national institution to the state.
The task force met here Friday at Kansas State University”s Biosecurity Research Institute. It was the group”s first meeting since the Department of Homeland Security announced earlier this month that a site in Manhattan was one of the five finalists for the $451 million facility.
Task force leaders said they were optimistic the Kansas site would be selected because the state already is home to the Biosecurity Research Institute, a secure research complex built to allow scientists to safely study pathogens and pests that could affect animals and plants.
“Kansas is perhaps the only one of five states that has a building this advanced, that is constructed to handle large animal research, that DHS could walk into and begin research in 2008
a full seven years ahead of schedule,” said U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who joined the group via teleconference from his Washington, D.C. office. “The merits are on our side.”
The proposed NBAF will be a 500,000 square-feet, high-security laboratory to research and develop countermeasures to animal and human diseases. In January 2006, the Department of Homeland Security asked to hear from states or other entities interested in the new facility. There were 29 applications, later narrowed to 18 possible locations.
Kansas” second location, which would have been adjacent to Fort Leavenworth, was not in the top five.
“I want you to know how proud I am of the effort that you all put forward,” said Roberts, speaking to members of the task force from Leavenworth. “Leavenworth can and should hold its head high, knowing that it made a great effort that the entire community and state can be proud of.”
As proposed, the NBAF site would surround the Institute, which is in Pat Roberts Hall east of the University”s football stadium and next to the university”s veterinary school.
The NBAF would complement work already being done at the Institute, said Tom Thornton, president and chief executive officer of the Kansas Bioscience Authority.
“We have a lot of assets here, but none of them were serendipitous,” Thornton said. “If anything, the NBAF itself was serendipitous. We”re very well-positioned to have it here.”
The institute was built on time and on budget, said Ron Trewyn, vice provost for research at the University.
Trewyn said members of the Homeland Security team who visited the proposed site earlier this year had been
“impressed” by the project”s relatively low construction and material costs.
“The track record is here,” he said.
The institute will not wait for the final NBAF location to be named, Trewyn said. Instead, it will immediately start integrating the government”s research agenda into its program. That will include inviting researchers from other institutions to study at the Institute to build a network designed to support the NBAF”s mission.
Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson, a co-chairman of the task force, described news accounts from the other states
Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Mississippi
picked as finalists. One story claimed Kansas was out of the running because “it was the only state not in the South,” he said. An editorial said that the Midwest was “where you were from, not where you were going,” a sentiment that drew boos from the crowd.
“There”s a stereotype against the Midwest in general, and Kansas specifically, that maybe we”re not as up to speed as other states in the area of science,” he said afterward. “That stereotype is definitely wrong. K-State specifically and the region in general have become a leader in animal science research.”
“People from the other sites might under estimate us,” said Jon Wefald, president of Kansas State University. “That”s all right. It”s always better to be under estimated than over estimated.”
The task force includes industry, business and government leaders. The fact that all three sectors are working together in bringing the NBAF to Manhattan will help attract other projects in the future.
“We need to use this process as a template for future endeavors,” he said. “There are other things down the road where we could learn a lot from this.”
A year-long environmental study of the site is scheduled to begin in August. The Department of Homeland Security should name the chosen site in October 2008; construction would begin in 2010 and the NBAF would be operational in 2013 or 2014.
A decision will be made in the next two to three weeks about whether to hire a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. to help promote the Kansas site, Parkinson said.
“Our best lobbyists right now are our congressional delegation,” he said.
-Sarah Green is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. She can be reached at
sgreen@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 118.