A Big Island man has filed suit in U.S. federal court, seeking to block the start of an $8 billion European particle accelerator until a safety report and environmental assessment are done, the New York Times reported yesterday.

According to the report, Walter Wagner and his colleague Luis Sancho of Spain are pursuing a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the National Science Foundation and the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN, as defendants, the newspaper said.

The suit was filed March 21 in Honolulu.

Wagner, who studied physics and conducted cosmic ray research at the University of California-Berkeley, claims a restraining order on Fermilab and the Energy Department, which helps supply the accelerator's superconducting magnets, would shut down CERN's Large Hadron Collider, the newspaper said.

He said CERN hasn't properly addressed concerns that the research conducted at the collider might create a miniature black hole or some other form of matter that might destroy the Earth, the newspaper said.

CERN spokesman James Gillies told the Times the collider's safety had already been confirmed by two reports.

Gillies didn't immediately respond to a voice-mail message and e-mail seeking comment outside of business hours.