Plum Island, the Animal Disease Research Facility, Is About to Go up for Sale

Now that Congress has authorized moving the Plum Island Animal Disease Research Center to Manhattan, Kansas (right in the middle of our food supply in the Midwest in an area often referred to as “Tornado Alley”), the old facility off Long Island — first founded via the ideas of a Nazi named Dr. Erich Traub during the U.S. government’s Operation Paperclip after World War II — is about to go up for auction.

The 843-acre island, thought to possibly be worth a billion dollars, is crawling with weaponized, Lyme Disease infested ticks and has been the only legal location where researchers have been allowed to study foot-and-mouth disease from its humble beginnings in 1955 all the way to 2008. Comes complete with a biowarfare lab that includes one upgraded building (Building 101, completed in 1956, upgraded in 1995, and hosed down with chemicals to deter animal life from approaching it according to Wikipedia) and one completely rotting building (Building 257, built in 1911) that’s home to who knows what, the souls of thousands of animals who died during decades of government experiments, a power plant, and the crumbling remains of old Army base.

Apparently Donald Trump mulled over buying the place in 2013; others claim it should be turned into a wildlife preserve. (Yeah. Sounds like a brilliant idea.)