DHS May Close N.Y. Radiation-Detection Lab Despite Objections

[maddezmom]

Source: Washington Post

DHS May Close N.Y. Radiation-Detection Lab Despite Objections

By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 4, 2007; Page A12

New York authorities and other advocates of a specialized government radiation-detection lab complained yesterday that the facility, which is only a mile from the World Trade Center site, is being shut down because Department of Homeland Security officials in Washington failed to understand its work.

Over the past three years, Homeland Security had been scaling back money for the Environmental Measurements Laboratory in Manhattan. The cuts were made even as New York emergency officials were trying to expand the lab's role in protecting the city from terrorism threats. Homeland Security officials said fiscal concerns were a key reason for targeting the lab, whose annual budget was less than $10 million.

"They're . . . our main federal partner in terms of science," said Jonathan A. Duecker, assistant commissioner of counterterrorism for the New York City Police Department. "If DHS decides to put an end to a program . . . it would have been nice for them to come up and ask us."

Counterterrorism experts say a "dirty bomb" attack ranks high on their list of terrorism scenarios, and New York is a preeminent target. The neglect shown a lab able to help detect such weapons is an example of how Homeland Security's spotty knowledge of the scores of agencies it controls can undermine its effectiveness, said members of Congress who are stepping up oversight of DHS.

"Rather than figuring out what the lab did and how it fit, they just let it wither on the vine," said Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), chairman of the Science and Technology Committee's investigations and oversight subcommittee, which held a hearing on the lab yesterday. "We're trying to figure out what happened to what seems an obvious asset."



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/03/AR2007050302217.html

[liberal N proud]

1. Keeping us safer my ass!

[HereSince1628]

2. The word "Environmental" in the name probably did it in.

The Cheney administration is nothing if not anti-environment.

Some 20 something political commissar from a small private college in a mid-Atlantic state undoubtedly made the decision which was approved without further investigation.

[drm604]

5. I think you hit the nail on the head.

This decision was probably made by some administration appointee who was educated to have a knee-jerk reaction against words like "environment" and "environmental" and assumed it was part of some evil liberal plot to take away his SUV.

[oldgrowth]

3. Radiac Research Corporation stores radioactive

medical waste, including uranium and plutonium.

At 33 S First Street Brooklyn, NY
There's video on right side!!Look around the site!
http://www.vbs.tv/shows/index.php?show=Toxic%20Brooklyn

[LiberalFighter]

4. So fiscal concerns are more important than national security