Md. loses bid for U.S. biodefense laboratory

The Baltimore Sun

Maryland has been eliminated from a national competition to land a $450 million laboratory for research dedicated to protecting the country's agriculture and food from disease and terrorism threats.

The 520,000-square-foot lab is expected to play a critical role for the country in assessing bioterrorism threats over the next five decades. It could have helped the state boost its already growing presence in the biodefense research field and created hundreds of new jobs.

"Maryland would have been an ideal location for the proposed National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, as we are well-positioned to support this type of facility," state Business and Economic Development Secretary David Edgerley said in a statement. "With our highly educated work force and concentration of bioscience companies, technology-related federal agencies, laboratories, research facilities and academic institutions, Maryland will continue to play an important role in the defense of our nation."

Sources close to the selection process said yesterday that one reason Maryland was nixed is because the proposed site in Beltsville is too close to Washington - and that other applications near major urban areas were also turned down.

Becky Ceraul, a spokeswoman for the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said that members of the project's Maryland consortium were expected to meet today with representatives of the Department of Homeland Security to discuss the decision. Speaking for the consortium, Dr. Bruce Jarrell, vice dean for research and academic affairs at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said the group is disappointed.

"We hope to learn more in the coming days about why our proposal wasn't selected," he said.

Maryland was cut from a field of 11 states offering a total of 18 projects. The five finalists are: Flora Industrial Park, Madison County, Miss.; Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kan.; Texas Research Park, San Antonio; Umstead Research Farm, Granville County, N.C.; and University of Georgia, Athens.

"The competition was tough, and it was hard for the team that was put together to down select to five sites," said Larry Orluskie, a federal Homeland Security spokesman.

The lab, due to open in 2014, is a joint project of the departments of Homeland Security, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services. The next step in the selection process will be to assess the environmental impact of each of the remaining sites. Orluskie said the winner will be announced in October 2008.

The consortium lobbying for Maryland also included organizations from Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. Headlining Maryland's participants were the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical and Biological Center, and the University of Maryland School of Medicine and College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

The project was launched by DBED officials when Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. was in office. Aris Melissaratos, Ehrlich's DBED secretary, said he is disappointed.

"Obviously I'm not happy, I thought we put together a great partnership," he said. "It would've been a major investment from the federal government. On the other hand, we have too many of those federal agencies. We have a lot of those in Maryland. And other states are jealous. You can't win 'em all."

jennifer.skalka@baltsun.com

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