Biolab Will Open

Menino says biolab ’will go forward’

By Jay Fitzgerald Wednesday, December 12, 2007 Boston Herald General Economics

Mayor Thomas Menino yesterday predicted a controversial anti-bioterrorism lab in the South End will open in about a year - despite a recent blistering report that said a past safety review of the facility was inadequate and border-line incompetent.

“The biolab will go forward,” Menino said yesterday in response to a question after a speech before the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.

“I have no fear of the biolab,” said Menino, who says the planned $178 million facility will attract top scientists from around world to Boston.

He said he was aware of the recent report by the National Research Council, which harshly criticized the National Institutes of Health’s safety review of the proposed biolab being built by Boston University on its medical campus.

Menino said supporters of the biolab have “taken those concerns to heart.”
But he said there’s “nothing we can’t overcome” in order to open the lab in about a year.
The high-security facility, which is 70 percent complete and funded with federal money, will study dangerous germs and other pathogens as part of the nation’s anti-terrorism efforts.
Some have said the National Research Council’s damning report could delay the opening of the lab - and even lead to no highly dangerous “level 4” germs being studied at the facility.
A staff attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, which is suing to stop the project until a thorough environmental study is conducted, said Menino’s comments yesterday were “deeply irresponsible.”

“I didn’t know the mayor is a scientist and a risk-analysis expert,” said the CLF’s Eloise Lawrence, accusing Menino of “pure posturing” on the issue.

In separate remarks at the chamber event yesterday, Menino said:
He’s still determined to move City Hall from City Hall Plaza to the South Boston Waterfront, freeing up valuable downtown property for future development.

His administration, as the Herald reported yesterday, will launch next spring a new “green collar jobs” initiative that includes a $500 million revolving loan program, which would use private money to encourage property owners to retrofit their buildings to make them more energy efficient.