Much Ado About NBAF

originally published February 27, 2008

Is the proposed National Bio And Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) Armageddon for our town or a good chance to bring in a federal facility providing high-tech jobs? There’s a lot to like about NBAF and a lot to dislike. If you’re on one side or the other, there’s plenty of ammunition to support your arguments.

All of our leaders have been in agreement for some time that Athens’ best shot at pulling itself out of the economic doldrums is to capitalize on the presence of the University and the proximity to Atlanta by luring some kind of technological/scientific facility similar to the Merial vaccine plant already here. We have focused on companies with low environmental impact and high-paying jobs. We’ve recently been disappointed by two big vaccine companies which looked us over. One chose North Carolina, and the other has apparently picked Alabama instead of Athens.

When the Department of Homeland Security called up and asked if UGA and Athens would be interested in a big federal facility to research animal diseases that might be introduced into our country by accident or by terrorists, that was like Michael Stipe asking if you want to hang out. Coming on the heels of the long and ultimately frustrating courtship of the two vaccine companies, the prospect of the federal government building such a plant here was a monumental no-brainer: the answer to a community prayer. The University of Georgia moved swiftly to draw up a response calculated to compete with all the other places that had received the same phone call. In two months, UGA pulled together a proposal offering two tracts of prime near-town land for consideration, with a detailed description of UGA and Atlanta capabilities and compatibilities, including the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Every public official from our mayor to our governor and our two U.S. senators wrote letters of support. Then last summer came word that Athens had made the short list of five sites under consideration for the facility.

At that point, a lot of people looked up from their email and said, “Do what? You want to plop a potentially highly contagious, Department of Homeland Security mega-installation onto the green fields along the Middle Oconee next to the State Botanical Garden and change our beloved, weird, laid-back community into a maximum-security, anti-terror bunker under the direction of Michael Chertoff, mastermind of the Katrina response? No way!”

What has followed is a parade of experts explaining the meticulous safeguards of a highest-security, state-of-the-art lab, along with the economic benefits to Athens—countered by a guerilla, grass-roots phalanx of Internet-savvy citizens who question everything from the dollar value of the project to the ability of the government to guarantee the safety of our citizens living in proximity to a “bio-terror” lab.

This confrontation is reminiscent of the early ‘90s conflict over the design of the Classic Center, when the county government paid a New York architectural firm a million dollars and got a plan for a big-box generic convention center squatting on the east end of town like an Iraqi weapons factory (as portrayed in a Flagpole ad). Citizens rose up and shouted “No” and kept shouting until the county finally backed down and acquiesced to a better plan acceptable to the populace.

The assumption this time around is that enough opposition can make a difference to the DHS decision, but it will probably take a lot more than has been generated so far. If that opposition succeeds, will Athens be better off, or will we have missed the best chance we’ll ever get to hit the high-tech jackpot? If NBAF goes elsewhere, its opponents can relax, but those in charge of boosting our economy will have to pick themselves up and renew the long, frustrating task of finding some other industry, trying to get it to come here, and hoping our community accepts it.

Not About Me

Please donate to Project Safe at www.project-safe.org, clicking on the Dancing With Athens Stars button and voting for your favorite star with your dollars. Sure, I hope you’ll vote for Pete and Tiffany, but vote for somebody, even that lunk Jason Winders at the Banner-Herald. And don’t miss the show Mar. 2. (See Calendar Pick)

Pete McCommons