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We've been browsing city-data for several years; now that we're both retired, the search for a retirement community is in earnest.
My wife & I are both native Kansans (Emporia & Andover, respectively). We studied biology & always dreamed the Flint Hills would be retirement mecca. Have lived in Manhattan since '92.
KSU's campaign to bring the NBAF here was what I would term "demoralizing," from the get-go. Anyone local who had an opposing viewpoint was derided in The Manhattan Mercury; which stated only ranchers had a viable reason to be concerned. The editor admitted that all NBAF articles were prepared by a KSU media relations person who formally worked for The Mercury (her husband, once the Mercury's photographer; was hired as KSU Photographer). The editor toured the public NBAF comment sessions @ the other 4 possible sites. He described Mississippians as too ignorant to know they couldn't run the NBAF (the next KSU president, Schulz, ran Mississippi's campaign to secure the NBAF).
For me, the NBAF is NOT a Not In My Back Yard situation. My ancestors brought the first steam-powered thresher West of the Mississippi to Kansas. Homeland Security has estimated a release of Foot & Mouth Disease, resulting in the "culling" of herds within 200 miles of the NBAF to cost $5 billion (2008). Now imagine the effect on the U.S. beef export market. Our senators & representatives introduced a bill to bring FMD back to the U. S. Mainland, just for NBAF to study in the heart of cattle country.
No, my concern is with Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC):
Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC) is life sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products, or technologies that could be directly misapplied to pose a significant threat, with broad potential consequences, to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment, materiel, or national security.
The 2001 Anthrax Mailer was a researcher @ the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). His superiors were all KSU Veterinary alums. His commander was appointed to DHS's Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Committee, which serves as a source of independent, scientific and technical planning ... which condemned Plum Island Animal Disease Center (& likely picked KSU => NBAF site selection committee was never named). Another KSU/USAMRIID officer was named by Weald as KSU University Veterinarian (I kid you not, no other KS university needs a university veterinarian?). He was put in charge of the NBAF "dog & pony show" propaganda campaign.
1) all considering a move to KS, should be aware of the NBAF. Manhattan is expecting thousands moving there to work @ the NBAF
2) the NBAF is not as safe as KSU made it out to be. It will be built as safe as possible (recall Space Shuttle Challenger o-rings?). Dual Use Research of Concern will be of concern for the NBAF's 50-year lifespan.
Well, doesn't KSU's operation of the BRI (aka Pat Roberts Hall) prove such a lab can be operated safely?
That was the intention . . .
The BRI is only certified to study BSL-3 pathogens (BSL biosafety level is a set of biocontainment precautions required to isolate dangerous biological agents in an enclosed laboratory facility). Should a BRI researcher become contaminated, there are treatments available.
The NBAF will study BSL-4 pathogens, which cause severe to fatal disease in humans for which there are no available vaccines or treatments. The nearest BSL-4 treatment facility in Omaha, could accommodate only 3 ebola patients.
The BRI was to receive CDC & DHS contracts to cover the $5 million/yr operating budget. It has failed to do so & is siphoning off 35% of KSU's sponsored research $. For the next 18 YEARS. DHS placed the BRI on "secret sanctions" for 2 quarters.
I attended a Nat'l Academies of Sciences comment session where KSU stated the BRI was being run with the same attention to security as the NBAF would have. A few months later, the BRI accounts manager was removed for embezzlement.
KSU is heavily publicizing the BRI: recall the giant mosquito model shown by a BRI-ian? AFAIK, the BRI did not actually study the Zika mosquito. Many BRI contracts from DHS & CDC were to correlate data, not perform research with pathogens.
At one time, the BRI was directed by the daughter of KSU's largest donors. She is now the local DHS know-it-all.
Manhattan is a great location for NBAF, it's right on the end of the agricultural research corridor which is from Manhattan to KC. Manhattan already had a handful of high level bio research facilities, not just the one at KSU, and a nuclear reactor research facility. NBAF only goes 1 level higher then what the other bio labs already did, they already had deadly pathogens, they are bringing in only a small handful of new strains and the safeguards are higher then current bio labs. It's a big deal because it brings in a ton of Federal money and quite a few very well paying jobs. Manhattan could very well become the Silicon Valley of agricultural and bio defense research. Any local resistance will stop once people realize their homes have become gold mines. Here in Topeka our homes are increasing in value almost 10% annually, Manhattan is even higher. When we sell our house which is only about 35 minutes from Manhattan we will come out really well.
It's silly to compare NBAF to the Space Shuttle, there is risk in everything. Almost all, if not all, of the dangerous pathogens have occurred naturally, without these research facilities it will be more difficult to combat them.
I lost interest when somewhat valid points started getting intermixed with odd stuff about KSU donors kids and other stuff.
OP, no offense but your post and concerns at some point start to become incoherent.
Yeah that post was all over the place. I just want people to know Manhattan is a top notch town, one of the best in the Midwest for its size. People shouldn't be scared to move there.
At least one of you has swallowed everything positive re: NBAF since, well 2000. This was when the concept of an NBAF-type lab was presented to Wefald & Roberts. Col. (Ret) Jerry Jaax was appointed VP & Univ. Veterinarian @ $110K/yr & spoke to the KS Legislature in Oct 2001 re: bioterrorism.
Jerry's wife, Col. (Ret) Nancy K. Jaax, worked with Dr. Bruce Ivins the Anthrax Mailer, on Anthrax @ USAMRIID. She's been doing research @ KSU since ~ 2002.
The Jaax' USAMRIID Comander, David R. Franz, VP of Midwest Research Institute - Global, KC, MO (recipient of $450 K from KS Bioscience Authority to get the BRI into operational compliance with DHS & conduct a study "NBAF run as a government-owned contractor operated facility."), was an original member of the DHS HSSTAC I mentioned above. Franz also served as 1st head of KSU's National Agricultural Biosecurity Center. He was also on the KBA's Exec Committee, which doled out $ ($3 million for Dr. Jergen Richt to leave USDA Ames, IA, for KSU).
Those 4 researchers are, AFAIK, the only ones doing research along the lines of actual NBAF production. I live near several Ag profs who proudly stated their grad students had gotten jobs with the BRI, but couldn't say what they were doing (that's how the NBAF should be run, Top Secret - Sensitive Compartmented Information. I do know that one of the BRI's problems was employee's lack of exp with aseptic techniques.
Anything & everything I ever stated about the NBAF on the WWW could be linked to at the time. You can Google search for "NBAF" on site:ljworldDOTcom & find my comments since ~ 2010
it's right on the end of the agricultural research corridor which is from Manhattan to KC.
The corridor was a fabrication, prior to its usage with NBAF as the endpoint.
Manhattan already had a handful of high level bio research facilities, not just the one at KSU, and a nuclear reactor research facility.
Please name 2 that were started prior to 2008. The one off Green Valley Rd doesn't count, it's Nebraska owner wrote pro-NBAF LTE back in 2008. I am aware that USAMRIID was buying horse serum in Pott. Co
NBAF only goes 1 level higher then what the other bio labs already did, they already had deadly pathogens, they are bringing in only a small handful of new strains and the safeguards are higher then current bio labs.
Yep, one level down & there's a treatment. At BSL-4, you're SOL. They have those 3 BSL-4 beds in Omaha.
It's a big deal because it brings in a ton of Federal money and quite a few very well paying jobs. Manhattan could very well become the Silicon Valley of agricultural and bio defense research.
Boy, you've read every piece of propaganda KSU has put out! I started following NBAF in 2008. I couldn't believe it would be run as the learning environment KSU was making it out to be => grad students rubbing shoulders with the most elite bio-defense researchers.
The FBI had already investigated one USAMRIID researcher as the potential Anthrax Mailer. The 3 KSU alums prominently on the pages of The Mercury were all retired from USAMRIID. These KSU "experts" actually had no experience running s TS-SCIF; which USAMRIID became, AFTER the Anthrax Mailer in 2001. I view them as enablers, as the FBI found security & safety protocols so lax that a myriad of ways existed for Dr. Ivins to secure the anthrax.
I worked 1981-85 for Defense Mapping Agency Aerospace Center, a TS-SCI Facility (TS-SCIF). I couldn't believe the NBAF could be run as KSU was describing it to the public. So I began to Google & connect the dots.
Any local resistance will stop once people realize their homes have become gold mines. Here in Topeka our homes are increasing in value almost 10% annually, Manhattan is even higher. When we sell our house which is only about 35 minutes from Manhattan we will come out really well.
That's the CoC's viewpoint. The "local resistance" met ~ June 2008 @ the Manhattan Sr Center. The Mercury
s article described attendees as uninformed as to BSL 3 vs 4; and quoted the most outlandish comments. The week No NBAF in KS placed a billboard over the food coop, the landlord was called by CoC members & that billboard had to come down.
We live 1.6 miles, as the germs fly, from the NBAF. Our neighborhood is surrounded by KSU ag lands. An easy walk/bike to the NBAF. All improvements to our house since 2008 (~$75K) were made by contractors outside of Manhattan. All major purchases made outside Manhattan.
It's silly to compare NBAF to the Space Shuttle, there is risk in everything. Almost all, if not all, of the dangerous pathogens have occurred naturally, without these research facilities it will be more difficult to combat them.
I did NOT compare, just as NASA, DHS has the highest standards known to build the NBAF. The day after any failure, that will no longer be true.
The NBAF could have been built on an atoll in the Marshall Islands. Uncle has installations out there where you don't get off the plane without a TS-SCIF clearance. The price for isolation of deadly pathogens is expensive, less so, if you can convince some naive Kansans without mentioning Dual Use Research of Concern (my researcher is your terrorist).
I lost interest when somewhat valid points started getting intermixed with odd stuff about KSU donors kids and other stuff.
OP, no offense but your post and concerns at some point start to become incoherent.
No offense taken.
Dr. Marty Vanier, DHS, is the daughter of those Vaniers: Vanier Family Football Complex. She is the widow of Bob Krause, former AD & Wefald Minnesota sidekick. Krause represented KSU before the KS Bioscience Authority. After his Prince negotiations, Krause was sent to the KSU Olathe Innovation Campus. A forensic audit found that Krause & Wefald took their cut off the top when NutriJoy was sold to Coca-Cola.
Marty Vanier is director of operations and joined NABC in 2003
The Department of Homeland Security has selected Marty Vanier, the university's director of operations at the National Agricultural Biosecurity Center, to be the senior program manager for strategic partnership development.
As I began to Google, & having experience with how Top Secret DoD scientists pat each other on the back, the dots became nearly hallucinogenic. No matter how far-fetched I might imagine a connection I could usually find it to be valid.
When I expressed surprise that the new VP for Academic Research quit after 9 months, Google found a week-old KSU news release re: KSU Research $ 35% Goes To BRI annually for the next 18 years.
The DHS Inspector General looked into the fact that Col/Dr David R. Franz, a member of the HSSTAC, worked for KSU at the same time he was advising DHS on site selection. The selection official claims he did not know that, & therefore, it's AOK. Evidently, Franz has never laid his thumb on the NBAF scale. /sarcasm
It's easy to go with a conspiracy theory that a small cadre of bioweapons experts were asleep at the wheel and enabled the first use of bioterrorism on U. S. soil. Then they arranged for their alma mater to be selected for a $1.25 billion golden goose, using the rationale of defending from bioterrorism. DHS has assured us that Anthrax will not be studied @ the NBAF.
It would be loopy to add that Cols Jaax & Franz are now authorities on Dual Use Research of Concern.
I did NOT compare, just as NASA, DHS has the highest standards known to build the NBAF. The day after any failure, that will no longer be true.
The NBAF could have been built on an atoll in the Marshall Islands. Uncle has installations out there where you don't get off the plane without a TS-SCIF clearance. The price for isolation of deadly pathogens is expensive, less so, if you can convince some naive Kansans without mentioning Dual Use Research of Concern (my researcher is your terrorist).
Again, risk is part of life, but the research on these deadly pathogens needs to be done and the safeguards are very high.
Building NBAF in a remote location is not a good idea. The risk for something going wrong is so much higher, not considering the extreme cost to build something so remote. A research facility like that needs access to airports, backup electricity sources, backup fresh waster supplies, emergency personnel, etc. None of that is feasible on some remote atoll in the pacific. Provide a working link of a "uncle" installation on an atoll.
DURC is always a concern and that is why they are building a secure facility. That risk would exist regardless of where NBAF or any other research facility is built.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KSinmyrearviewmirror
No offense taken.
Dr. Marty Vanier, DHS, is the daughter of those Vaniers: Vanier Family Football Complex. She is the widow of Bob Krause, former AD & Wefald Minnesota sidekick. Krause represented KSU before the KS Bioscience Authority. After his Prince negotiations, Krause was sent to the KSU Olathe Innovation Campus. A forensic audit found that Krause & Wefald took their cut off the top when NutriJoy was sold to Coca-Cola.
Marty Vanier is director of operations and joined NABC in 2003
The Department of Homeland Security has selected Marty Vanier, the university's director of operations at the National Agricultural Biosecurity Center, to be the senior program manager for strategic partnership development.
As I began to Google, & having experience with how Top Secret DoD scientists pat each other on the back, the dots became nearly hallucinogenic. No matter how far-fetched I might imagine a connection I could usually find it to be valid.
When I expressed surprise that the new VP for Academic Research quit after 9 months, Google found a week-old KSU news release re: KSU Research $ 35% Goes To BRI annually for the next 18 years.
The DHS Inspector General looked into the fact that Col/Dr David R. Franz, a member of the HSSTAC, worked for KSU at the same time he was advising DHS on site selection. The selection official claims he did not know that, & therefore, it's AOK. Evidently, Franz has never laid his thumb on the NBAF scale. /sarcasm
It's easy to go with a conspiracy theory that a small cadre of bioweapons experts were asleep at the wheel and enabled the first use of bioterrorism on U. S. soil. Then they arranged for their alma mater to be selected for a $1.25 billion golden goose, using the rationale of defending from bioterrorism. DHS has assured us that Anthrax will not be studied @ the NBAF.
It would be loopy to add that Cols Jaax & Franz are now authorities on Dual Use Research of Concern.
Most of this is gibberish, please explain how any of this is related to each other. I will say, you really don't think DHS knew one of the site selection advisors worked at KSU? They selected Franz to be an advisor, but didn't know where he worked, come on. There's a word for what this is called, lobbying, and it happens all the time in the US, government officials press for Federal (or state) funds to be spent in their local area. That's exactly what happened with NBAF. When one combines billions in Federal money, high security, high technology, and dangerous pathogens, it makes for some good conspiracies and out there ideas.
Also I want to say, please add working links to sites.
Most of this is gibberish, please explain how any of this is related to each other. I will say, you really don't think DHS knew one of the site selection advisors worked at KSU? They selected Franz to be an advisor, but didn't know where he worked, come on.
Also I want to say, please add working links to sites.
It's not gibberish, but highly interconnected lobbying & a sham site selection process. I'm the originator of the ? to the DHS IG regarding Franz's multiple identities (he was never named as Col Franz on DHS documents). The No NBAF in KS group alerted the other 4 sites to Franz being a "ringer" in the site selection process.
Jerry's wife, Col. (Ret) Nancy K. Jaax, worked with Dr. Bruce Ivins the Anthrax Mailer, on Anthrax @ USAMRIID. She's been doing research @ KSU since ~ 2002.
David R. Franz, VP of Midwest Research Institute - Global, KC, MO (recipient of $450 K from KS Bioscience Authority to get the BRI into operational compliance with DHS & conduct a study "NBAF run as a government-owned contractor operated facility."), was an original member of the DHS HSSTAC I mentioned above. Franz also served as 1st head of KSU's National Agricultural Biosecurity Center. He was also on the KBA's Exec Committee, which doled out $ ($3 million for Dr. Jergen Richt to leave USDA Ames, IA, for KSU).
The Under Secretary Appointed a Bio Scientist Affiliated with the Kansas (Heartland Bio Agro Committee (HBAC)) to the Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Committee
In July 2007, the Under Secretary re-appointed a bio-scientist to the Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Committee who was affiliated with the Kansas Heartland Bio Agro Facility Consortium that was bidding for the NBAF site. The committee serves as a source of independent, scientific, and technical planning advice for the Under Secretary. The bioscientist has been a board member of the Kansas BioScience Authority (KBA) since its inception. The KBA and Kansas State University formed the Kansas HBAC. Having been appointed to this advisory position, it raised concerns that not only did the bio-scientists have unique access to the Under Secretary and could leverage that access to help the Kansas consortium, but that the Under Secretary had pre-selected the Kansas consortium. That the bioscientist met with the Under Secretary in his office in March 2007 while representing the Kansas consortium added to the speculation that the site selection process was tainted.
The bioscientist was familiar to S&T officials who recommended his reappointment to the Under Secretary because he had served on the committee previously. Then-Under Secretary Dr. Charles E. McQueary first appointed him to the committee in February 2004 due to his expertise in biosciences, and he served on the committee until it suspended activities in 2006.
We interviewed both the Under Secretary and the bioscientist about his appointment, their relationship, the meeting in the Under
Review of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility Site Selection Process
Page 30
Secretary’s office, interaction between the Under Secretary and the committee, and whether they ever discussed the NBAF process during committee meetings. The Under Secretary asserted he was unaware of the member’s affiliation with the Kansas consortium, that his appointment had nothing to do with the NBAF mission, and it was an oversight by S&T officials vetting potential committee members. The Under Secretary said he had little interaction with the whole committee and no one-on-one conversations with this committee member. He stated that the committee member never made a direct representation on behalf of the Kansas consortium to him or the steering committee.
As a board member for one of the two entities comprising the Kansas consortium, the committee member described that “listening in on phone calls” was the extent of his involvement in the NBAF process. Based on his description of his involvement, we surmised that he did not spearhead the Kansas HBAC effort and did not attempt to use his position on the committee to advance the interests of the Kansas HBAC. He acknowledged that he attended the meeting with the Under Secretary but did not participate in the discussion. He also stated at the end, he felt like it was a waste of his time because others did most of the talking and he did not contribute anything.
The Under Secretary did not intend to influence the steering committee or undermine the site selection process. In addition, the committee member’s ability to influence the outcome of the site selection process was mitigated by the lack of interaction with the steering committee, which recommended the Kansas site to the Under Secretary.
Having retired from DoD, I can appreciate the use of "plausible deniability," just not for bringing Pandora's Box to Kansas.
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