Opinion ID: 622359
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The 2002 Original Environmental Assessment

Text: The DOE performed an EA for the proposed LLNL BSL-3 laboratory, pursuant to NEPA. The EA considered the environmental impacts of the BSL-3 laboratory on a wide range of issues, including human health, ecological resources, transportation, waste management, geology, soils and seismology, noise, and air quality. The EA also discussed how CDC and NIH guidelines govern the facility's operations and mitigate the risk of infection and accidental release. In evaluating the public risk potentially caused by the BSL-3 facility, the DOE relied upon three major sources of data: (1) statistics from hundreds of other CDC-registered BSL-3 laboratories; (2) the U.S. Army's Biological Defense Research Program (BDRP) laboratories; and (3) LLNL's BSL-1 and-2 laboratories. In addition to examining the normal operations of the aforementioned sources, the EA analyzed potential abnormal impacts on those sources, using a catastrophic release scenario, modeled upon a Maximum Credible Event (MCE), simulating the outer bounds of impact caused by a pathogen's accidental release. The DOE considered numerous possible methods of assessing the threat of release, but it chose a catastrophic release simulation (a centrifuge analysis), that the Army used to perform a NEPA analysis of its own biological research labs. The catastrophic release model used by the Army also was an MCE type of analysis, which simulated a reasonably foreseeable event with a low likelihood of occurrence, but with high risk. In the Army's simulated catastrophic release model, a liter of coxiella burnetii (C. burnetii) [1] was hypothetically divided into six centrifuge tubes with loose caps and loose O-rings. When the centrifuge was activated, some of the tubes' contents would be aerosolized, resulting in the production of almost 10 billion airborne pathogens. The Army then modeled a plume of the airborne pathogens as it moved through the lab and outside via the ventilation system. In order to produce conservative results, the Army simulated only one HEPA filter, operating at only 95 percent effectiveness. The Army concluded the chance of public exposure to an airborne pathogen, at a 50 percent rate of contracting the disease, was extremely remote. Using the Army centrifuge model, the DOE concluded that the chances of exposure at the LLNL BSL-3 lab were even more remote than those modeled by the Army because the Army scenario assumed one HEPA filter that was 95 percent effective. The LLNL BSL-3 lab, the DOE reasoned, filters all room air through two HEPA filter banks, each of which is at least 99.97 percent effective. The Army scenario also assumed a lab in close physical proximity to the public, whereas the LLNL BSL-3 lab is one-half mile from the nearest public area. Finally, the Army assumed lower wind speeds than are prevalent at LLNL; higher wind speeds would decrease airborne concentrations more quickly. Based on this analysis, the DOE concluded that even if a catastrophic release were to occur, there would be no significant impact on public health or safety. This conclusion thus led the DOE to issue a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI).