And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 22:40:34 -0400
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Lynne Moss-Sharman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Winnipeg, Manitoba: Level 4 Lab Waste Water leak
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Winnipeg Safety defect Level 4 Lab (ebola virus etc)
LEVEL 4 LAB WASTE WATER LEAK
Safety defect found at high-risk laboratory
Winnipeg waste-water leak a 'wake-up call' for Ottawa
ANNE McILROY Globe & Mail Parliamentary Bureau
July 13, 1999
Ottawa -- The federal government is reviewing safety procedures after waste
water was accidentally released from the Winnipeg lab designed to contain
the world's deadliest microbes, including the Ebola virus, The Globe and
Mail has learned. The Level 4 laboratory, one of about a dozen in the world
with the strictest level of containment, has not yet been stocked with
vials of Ebola, Lassa, Marburg, Machupo and other viruses. That was
supposed to happen this month, but the restocking has been put off until
August or September, in part because of the spill. "It is a wake-up call.
We are looking at the procedures to eliminate the human error on this
system. We are bringing in people to make sure that the corrective measures
we are taking are adequate," said Lee Thompson, chief of safety and
environmental services at Health Canada's and Agriculture Canada's new
laboratories in Winnipeg.
On June 23, more than 2,000 litres of effluent from the lab's waste-water
system was accidentally emptied into a blending tank and from there was
released into the city's sewer system. But federal officials say the
release of the waste water poses no threat to human health. The release
breached what Mr. Thompson describes as the facility's second line of
defence. The federal lab has its own waste-treatment system, which kills
viruses with heat, that is separate from the city of Winnipeg's. "For
something to actually get out of one of the labs, we would have say, a drop
of a vial at the exact same time someone opened a drain
valve. That is why we have redundant systems, so we have backups on
backups." But he explained that in the case of the Level 4 labs, the
possibility of that happening is even more remote, because there are no
drains. But there are sinks and chemical showers, he said.
The effluent that was released in June came from a lab where potentially
lethal animal infectious agents are housed. If federal officials had
determined there was anything dangerous in the water, they would have dealt
with it in the blending tank where the waste is mixed with material from
other labs within the same facility, Mr. Thompson said. But they decided
there was no danger, to humans or animals, and released it into the city's
sewer system. "The possibility of anything being in that water was very,
very minimal," Mr. Thompson said.
Lab managers debated issuing a press release, but decided not to because
the leak was not that serious, said communications manager
Sherri Cherwinski. But she confirmed reports from sources that there had
been a leak, and Mr. Thompson answered questions about it. The new Level 4
laboratory will, for the first time, give Canada the ability to diagnose
most virulent infections, and it will mean that the blood from people in
Canada suspected of having a deadly, exotic disease will not have to be
flown to a lab in Atlanta. There are fewer than 15 Level 4 labs in the
world. The lab is a series of pressure chambers from which air cannot
escape. Each is interlocked by modified submarine doors. The sewage is
filtered separately in three 5,000-litre tanks in the basement.
The leak came when a staff member mistakenly opened the valve on one of
these tanks, Mr. Thompson said. He said new procedures will now require
that people work in teams of two around the sewage tanks. "We are looking
at procedures," Mr. Thompson said. Among the most dangerous of the viruses
that will be stored in the Winnipeg lab are those that cause hemorrhagic
fevers, like the Ebola virus, named after Zaire's Ebola River, where it
first appeared in 1976. One of its relatives was identified in Marburg,
Germany, where it travelled courtesy of African green monkeys and
killed seven lab workers. There are also viral hemorrhagic fevers named for
the West Nile, the Rift Valley and an obscure Nigerian village named Lassa.
The lab cost $172-million to build, and was constructed on a six-hectare
site where the city of Winnipeg once parked its trucks and piled gravel. It
covers the area of five football fields. It is the legacy of former
Manitoba MP Jake Epp, who was health minister in 1987 when former prime
minister Brian Mulroney's government decided to locate the microbiology lab
in Winnipeg, rather than expand a similar plant in Ottawa. Mr. Thompson
said a spill is always a possibility, but "we minimize those possibilities."
WHERE THE LEAK OCCURRED The Federal Laboratories for Health Canada and
Agriculture Canada in Winnipeg is the country's most advanced containment
facility for the study of infectious agents. An accidental, but harmless,
leak occurred there in June. Effluent from an infectious agents lab,
normally treated in one of three isolated 5,000-litre containment tanks
under the Level 3 and 4 labs, was mistakenly released into the facility's
sewage blending tank. Each lab is designed to be air tight. The floor above
houses the high efficiency particulate air filter. The floor below is where
biowaste is treated.
"Let Us Consider The Human Brain As
A Very Complex Photographic Plate"
1957 G.H. Estabrooks
www.angelfire.com/mn/mcap/bc.html
FOR K A R E N #01182
who died fighting 4/23/99
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.aches-mc.org
807-622-5407
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE
http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/
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