The federal government owns the island off Long Island’s North Fork — it’s been used for an animal disease research lab for 60 years. In 2008, they decided to move the lab to Kansas and sell Plum Island to the highest bidder.
Save the Sound and several other groups sued in 2016 to block the sale, arguing the first environmental impact study was insufficient. Roger Reynolds is with Save the Sound. He said the new study will fix many of the problems with the first one, like considering more than 400 federally protected species on the island. But he said it still won’t consider whether part of the island could be set aside for conservation.
“Ultimately the federal government can do what they want with it, but they have to at least consider alternatives such as conservation. And our contention is they did not and still have not considered that,” Reynolds said.
Last year the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to block the sale. U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer of New York have co-sponsored a similar bill in the Senate.
The government said the move will push the island’s sale date to at least 2023.
