FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 11, 2007
CONTACT: Geoff Embler or Matt Mackowiak
Sen. Hutchison Announces San Antonio Named Finalist for National Bio and Agro Defense Facility
DHS Narrows List of 18 Sites to Five, will Select Site by October 2008
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) announced today the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has named the Texas Research Park site in San Antonio as one of five finalists for the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility (NBAF). All five will receive a formal Notice of Intent from DHS and Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) will be prepared in the final site selection, expected to occur by October 2008.
Initially there were 29 proposed locations for the NBAF, which was cut to 18 locations that received site visits. The sites in Texas included Texas A&M University, the Brooks (City-Base) Development Authority (San Antonio), the Texas Research and Technology Foundation (San Antonio), and the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (San Antonio).
“I am excited that the Texas Research Park site in San Antonio has been selected as a finalist,” said Sen. Hutchison. “The goal of public and animal health research, bioterrorism, and coordination between federal government agencies requires a new, state of the art facility and there is no better location for it than Texas. I will continue working with DHS to ensure San Antonio gets every consideration as this process goes forward over the next year.”
Sen. Hutchison and Sen. John Cornyn sent a letter of support to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff on February 1, 2007, citing the specific strengths of the Texas A&M and San Antonio sites. In the letter, she said, “Texas offers a number of unique advantages that we believe make it an ideal location for the NBAF, including its central location, diverse economy, strong transportation infrastructure, highly skilled workforce, and unique combination of intellectual research capacity and agriculture stakeholders.”
In her letter to DHS, Sen. Hutchison cited the Texas Bio & Agro Defense consortium in San Antonio as having “immediate access to a number of outstanding research facilities including several from the University of Texas System, especially the University of Texas Health Science Center—one of the nation’s largest and comprehensive health sciences universities. The Center offers a highly qualified workforce, formidable construction and operations capabilities and strong community support of the biotechnology and scientific industries.”
According to DHS, these 18 sites were evaluated by four criteria: proximity to a comprehensive research community with existing research programs related to the NBAF mission, proximity to skilled research and technical staff with expertise in operations conducted at biological and agricultural research facilities, the ability to provide a 30 acre site deeded at no cost or minimal cost to the Federal Government and in-kind contributions offered to DHS (water, roadways, upgrades, etc.). The 18 sites were then visited by DHS, with the Texas sites being visited May 7-9, 2007.
The EIS is expected to begin this month and will take more than a year. Detailed design at the selected site is expected in November 2008, with construction beginning during the 2010 fiscal year, and the facility becoming operational in 2013 or 2014.
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