Biohazard lab plan
worries Pearl City

The UH project on Waimano
Ridge is awarded $25 million

A federal agency has awarded $25 million to the University of Hawaii at Manoa to build a regional laboratory for research on emerging infectious diseases, such as dengue fever or bioterrorism agents.

But some Pearl City residents are wary of putting the Biosafety Level 3 facility in their neighborhood.

According to the Centers for Disease Control Web site, a Level 3 facility can handle "indigenous or exotic agents which may cause serious or potentially lethal disease." Strict standards must be met for the so-called biocontainment facility to handle Level 3 substances.

The proposal approved by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease is to build the 60,000-square-foot facility next to a state Department of Health Biosafety Level 2 lab at the top of Waimano Home Road.

The facility, one of five to be built across the country, would enhance research already being conducted at UH-Manoa and elsewhere and improve the state's ability to deal with bioterrorism and other health threats, said Jim Gaines, the UH interim vice president for research.

In a news release announcing the grant, U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye said, "The research that will be done at this regional biocontainment laboratory will be vital to developing the shields and a coordinated response to biological and chemical attacks or emerging infectious disease threat that may possibly occur in Hawaii or the United States."

Residents, however, want to make sure that any agents stored there will not escape and pose a threat to their neighborhoods.

They are also wary of any new facilities on Waimano Ridge after a juvenile sex offender treatment facility was located there over the community's objections in 2000.

"The community is saying, why Waimano Home? Why not put it in town, why not in Hawaii Kai?" said James Pickard Jr., a member of the Pearl City Neighborhood Board who heads a task force on the issue.

State Sen. David Ige (D, Pearl City-Pacific Palisades-Waimalu) said the Legislature passed a law requiring the state to come up with a master plan for Waimano Ridge and to consult with the community before any new construction begins.

Gaines said the university is working with the community to answer their concerns, and also looking at alternate sites he declined to name. He noted that the medical school campus in Kakaako is too small for the lab, but locating it on a military base is a consideration.

The coalition of students, faculty and community members that opposes a Navy research center at UH-Manoa has not taken a position on the Regional Biocontainment Laboratory, but there are "strong concerns," said Kyle Kajihiro, of the Save UH/Stop UARC coalition.

"The military aspect is one concern," Kajihiro said. "A biocontainment lab working with dangerous biological agents in Hawaii is also a concern to us."

David Horio, chief of the Department of Health state laboratory at Waimano, said the new facility will actually be safer for the community.

Should an unknown disease strike Hawaii, the Health Department initially would have to handle it at the current state lab. The new facility will enable the state to better contain potentially contagious organisms, Horio said.

Biosafety Level 3 labs already exist on Oahu, Horio said, but this facility will be much larger and designed specifically to contain biohazards.

Because it is a regional air traffic hub, Hawaii is vulnerable to diseases such as SARS, West Nile or avian influenza, said Dr. Duane Gubler, director of the Asia-Pacific Institute of Tropical Medicine at UH-Manoa. The new facility will make it easier to identify germs and viruses and develop a response, he said.

Hawaii could become a regional center for research on vaccines and other measures to fight diseases in the Pacific, Gubler said. "If that kind of a business gets going here, it will blossom into a major biotech industry," he said.