Keep Athens Weird

originally published August 20, 2008

There are so many arguments for and against locating the National Bio- and Agro- Defense Facility (NBAF) here in Athens that it appears something else besides specific issues determines people's attitudes toward NBAF. Two people, neither one knowing anything about science, decide that NBAF would and would not be hazardous to our health. Two scientists decide the same. Two business people decide that the benefits are worth the risk, or not. Anybody you talk to, who has made up her mind, stresses the benefits, or the dangers, of NBAF.

The NBAF facility would study deadly pathogens, but there are already labs right in the middle of campus doing the same thing, as do the Centers for Disease Control adjacent to the Emory campus in Atlanta. NBAF would impose a giant facility onto everybody's favorite greenspace out Milledge Avenue, next to the river and the botanical garden, but the university will eventually build out that land, NBAF or not.

If you add up all the negatives - the Department of Homeland Security as managers of the facility, the risk of exposing livestock and wildlife to hoof and mouth and other diseases, infected mosquitoes, the water use, the giant lit-up buildings, the impact on the botanical garden and the river and the bird flyways; the secrecy, the Bush Administration, the threat of terrorist attack, the phony science, the torture of animals, the disposal of infected carcasses into our air or our water - how could anybody want such a place in Athens?

If you add up all the positives - the jobs and economic impact of the construction and operation of the facility, including the scientific synergy with the university and bio-tech firms already here and sure to come - how could anybody not want such a perfect example of the kind of research node deemed perfect for Athens?

One clue to this conundrum is the opposition of artists. Our local community of artists is opposed to NBAF in Athens. The artists are not an organized group, but a lot of them know each other and they know when a wrong element messes up the picture. The artists, among many other citizens here, sense that this giant facility is out of scale with Athens and they are offended. That it is also dangerous and foisted upon us by a dictatorial administration just makes it worse and easier to oppose and talk about. But at bottom, if you think of Athens as a canvas - a landscape, a cityscape, an abstract, even - if Lamar Dodd were looking over your shoulder, jaw clamped on his pipe, he would point to that big, out-of-scale excrescence and growl, "What's this?"

If it were not NBAF but, say, a giant Mercedes-Benz factory, the artists would probably be up in arms over seeing our community dominated by one powerful corporate presence squatting in that green Eden out Milledge.

That's not to say that the university, government and business leaders who support NBAF don't have any art appreciation. They do, of course, but they don't let it interfere with business. For artists, of course, art is their business. Herein lies the disconnect. Both sides are right. We do need the jobs; we don't need a giant, potentially dangerous Homeland Security installation dominating our town. There's no way to compromise these two visions of Athens.

While our artists have always celebrated creativity and the life it gives to Athens, our government and business leaders have always sought for ways to sell Athens to industry. And of course we're all here because of the university, which makes the artists possible and sustains our community whether or not industry comes. To say that the artists are among those who are doing okay, thanks to the university, and don't need those factory jobs would be to miss the point. The artists understand the soul of Athens, the kairos, the right thing that, if lost, makes Athens anyplace, or worse. The artists are fighting NBAF as they would a prison facility or any other industry that would so dominate the landscape as to change the Classic City. We've been through all this before: years ago the Chamber tried to change the Classic City into Advancing Athens, and though they've pretty much dropped the term, that's still the aim.

Neither the artists nor the Chamber will decide this one. The federal bureaucracy will make this call, and we'll either get NBAF or not. If we don't, let's remember what the artists are telling us and come to some kind of community consensus about what kind of growth we need, how to grow yet preserve the soul of Athens, how to look together at the big picture.

Pete McCommons

editor@flagpole.com