LaLota Moves to Preserve Plum Island - and Protect Long Island

By Rupert Deedes

Congressman Nick LaLota has moved to preserve Plum Island from development - and protect Long Islanders from the potential disease pathogens that could still lurk on the island after 70 years of "top secret" military bio-research.

Plum Island is an "off-limits" 840 acre government-owned island off Orient Point.  Since the 1950s, Plum Island was the location of a BioSafety Level 4 lab – the highest security federal animal disease research laboratory. It was managed  by the Department of Agriculture, and, since 2002, by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

In 2013, Congress voted to transfer the research lab to a modern National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan, Kansas. Since that decision, the future of the island has been uncertain.

Initially, DHS planned to sell the island to real-estate developers. Donald Trump expressed interest, and said he might build a golf course on the island.

But in 2020, Congress blocked the sale and instead instructed DHS to offer the island to other federal agencies, and if these agencies declined to take over the management of the island, to offer it to a state or local government agency.

In March of last year, Congressman Nick LaLota (R-NY1) introduced HR 1584 - his first bill after being elected to Congress -  designating Plum Island a National Monument “for the purpose of ecological conservation and historical preservation" The status would protect the island from development.

The bill grants the Secretary of the Interior jurisdiction to negotiate agreements with federal departments and agencies and prepare a management plan for the island.

Some experts warned that 70 years of research into pathogens - for which there is potentially no vaccine and no treatment - complicates the effort to turn the island into a national park which is open to the public.

Michael T. Reynolds, deputy director for Congressional Relations for the National Park Service, a part of the Department of Interior, told lawmakers that “The department appreciates the bill’s intent to increase public access and to protect Plum Island’s natural and cultural heritage, and we support that goal."

"However, given the multiple hazards to human health and safety that may exist, we have serious concerns about... the administrative jurisdiction over the island," stated Reynolds. "Plum Island’s long history of serving as a site for military operations and animal pathogen research has led to a series of ongoing environmental challenges.”

Michael Carroll, author of Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory,” claims that Plum Island can never be made safe for the public.

“The island is an environmental disaster,” said Carroll. “Every effort to decontaminate Lab 257, the1950s-era germ warfare building on it, has failed.”

"You can’t let anybody on it," stated Carroll. "There is contamination all over the island... It needs to be forsaken..."

LaLota's bill would mandate studies to determine the safety, security protocols and natural preservation of the island.