Luring the bio-lab

Old-timers in the Triangle might remember the proposed Superconducting Supercollider, and shudder at its mention. The federal physics facility was to be a 53-mile underground tunnel designed to smash protons together at outrageously fast speeds. The Triangle was one of several areas across the country in the running to host it, gaining hundreds of good-paying, high-tech jobs and professionally beneficial connections to the scientific communities at area colleges. The Triangle lost to Waxahachie, Texas.

Congress eventually killed the $8 billion project. It's less likely to cancel a $450 million research lab planned by the Department of Homeland Security. Two sites north of Butner in Granville County are on the department's short list to host the 520,000-square-foot Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility, along with sites in Kansas, Georgia, Texas and Mississippi. The high-security lab will study some of the world's deadliest pathogens, such as anthrax, avian flu, swine fever and other materials that could be used as biological threats.

Government, academic and business interests have joined to make a strong pitch to win the lab, and Governor Easley should make sure the state is focused on the effort. The lab is likely to become a center for international research. It would employ hundreds of scientists. Spinoff businesses could results in hundreds of additional jobs.

Homeland Security will conduct environmental and other studies before it makes a final decision in late 2008. Easley's staff should ensure that any holes in the Butner proposals are plugged; naturally, the utmost safety precautions must be assured. But this is a bid that the Triangle, and North Carolina, should not be prepared to lose.