Posted on: Tuesday, June 21, 2005

EDITORIAL
Health agency must inform us about labs

State health officials appear to have learned little from their community relations failure five years ago when they chose a Pearl City site for a sex-offender treatment facility without consulting with the community.

Again the department has earned the neighbors' mistrust by contemplating an upgrade of the biohazard lab on Waimano Ridge to a level allowing infectious agents of serious and even lethal diseases to be handled there.

Fortunately, that project has been put on hold because costs have risen above the initial estimate of $1.5 million. That delay has bought enough time for a thorough series of public information meetings and an open dialogue with the neighbors who live just a short distance downhill.

In a welcome show of initiative, area lawmakers David Ige and Mark Takai shepherded a bill that requires at least 90 days' notice of projects at Waimano Ridge and the approval of the governor for use of state land in the area. The Waimano campus sits close enough to a residential area to merit this kind of oversight.

It's true that adequate facilities for the testing of potentially dangerous materials are important to public safety. Labs enable the state to respond more quickly to biohazard incidents and contain a broader threat to public health. For example, technicians could detect the presence of West Nile Virus in a dead bird or confirm a powder as anthrax, and head off any wider exposure to the infectious agents.

It's important to remember that the community is not balking at the laboratory activity being proposed, or at plans for a larger University of Hawai'i biohazard lab. Residents merely want to be informed about what's going on in their neighborhood. They deserve that information. The general public has the right to be kept in the loop about how and where the state provides this crucial service using their tax dollars.