As the Life Sciences Building nears completion, a lawsuit claiming the University did not adequately report the building's impact on the neighborhood has yet to be resolved.
The College Hill Neighborhood Association and 11 community members filed a suit in 2004 alleging a 2003 environmental assessment of the LiSci, conducted by the National Aeronautics and Space Association and the U.S. Department of Energy, was insufficient and that the public was not given enough time to respond to it. At the time, neighbors were seeking to stop construction of the LiSci until a more thorough assessment was completed, The Herald reported in October 2004.
Barbara Harris, president of the CHNA, said she believes "corners were cut" in the University's decision to not conduct a more complete environmental impact study on the LiSci. The University was legally obligated to conduct the environmental assessment done by NASA and DOE but is not required to conduct an environmental impact study.
"This is about the chemicals that are being used - the kind of chemicals," Harris said. "We wanted to be extra sure that it wasn't going to be hazardous air or even potentially hazardous air."
Now that the LiSci is scheduled to be completed this summer, the plaintiffs are only looking for information, Harris said.
In October, U.S. District Court Judge Ernest Torres denied the plaintiffs' motion to compel the University to disclose information on 14 topics outlined by plaintiff William Touret. Court filings by Touret sought information about several points of the environmental assessment, including the fact that part of the LiSci would be designated "Biosafety 2." The Centers for Disease Control specify four different levels of safety in the use of biological material; Biosafety 2 denotes the presence of "agents of moderate potential hazard" and requires laboratory personnel to have training with pathological agents.
"It's an experimental science building - animals, chemicals, all the things that we think don't really belong so close to residents," Harris said.
"This is a building that has to have heavy ventilation," Harris added, "and if everything works right it's supposed to be ventilated."
Beverly Ledbetter, vice president and general counsel and a member of Brown's defense team, said though the University was named as co-defendants with NASA and the DOE, the three parties are not working together because a U.S. attorney is defending NASA and the DOE.
"This lawsuit is a challenge to NASA and the DOE," she said.
The latest filings have tried to force the court to "go outside the scope ... of what NASA and the DOE handle. ... We really don't think that anything has been found that changes anything (about the LiSci's impact)," Ledbetter said, adding that much of the lawsuit concerns research functions already being performed without incident on campus.
"We're moving from one building to a newer building, and in the process we're using new updated technology and assessing things," Ledbetter said. "That's true of all new buildings."
While the CHNA's Web site also criticizes the LiSci's appearance and calls the building's Olive Street site "devastated," Harris said the aesthetics of the LiSci were not a motivating factor in the filing of the lawsuit. Before construction began, the CHNA asked the University to relocate the LiSci.
"We don't think at this point that it's very attractive, but hopefully when it's completed it will look better," Harris said. "We're losing a lot of sky and light, but Brown is doing that to its own campus."
"It's a different aesthetic, but that's not the basis of the lawsuit," Harris said. "It's a question of whether the air will be adversely affected."
"I think most people believe (the plaintiffs') original intent was to block the building," Ledbetter said, "but that just wasn't realistic." She said the plaintiffs "want relief from the University."
Regarding the lawsuit's potential to interrupt the building's operation, Ledbetter said, "It's not that it's impossible, but it's very improbable."
Ledbetter said she believes the court's decision will be handed down sometime in 2006 and will show the University had taken all the necessary precautions with regard to the LiSci.
"We are very respectful of the court's ability to decide" in this matter, she added.
But Harris expressed disappointment with the University's handling of the matter. "If (the environmental impact study) had been done and said that the chemicals and the things they'll be using and their systems were really secure, that would be the end of it," she said. "Why Brown has refused to do an environmental impact study in the midst of a residential area, we don't know."
