“People say the lab is an eyesore,” said Mt. Desert native and boatbuilder Ralph Stanley, speaking of opposition to a proposed expansion of Bar Harbor’s Jackson Laboratory. “It doesn’t look like an eyesore to me. It looks like security to a lot of people.”
Stanley, active in several Mt. Desert historical societies and most things pertaining to his island, explained that closure of the sardine factories in the 1970s eliminated a major source of local, year-round employment. The Jackson Lab, he said, “keeps jobs and keeps land in families that have owned it for five or six generations.” Opponents “just don’t want working people on Mount Desert Island.”
Those who oppose the proposed expansion, a small, but vocal group, don’t appear to be primarily against working people cluttering up what they consider their paradise. Rather, they consider it “too much of a good thing,” which takes in all aspects of enlarging what they consider an already over-expanded facility.
The Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Laboratory opened in 1929, thanks to a gift of 13 acres from philanthropist George Dorr, who wanted to provide year-round employment for islanders while sustaining MDI’s original beauty and character. (Dorr also donated land for Acadia National Park and organized the gifts of land that became the park. In addition, he saw to it that the Marine Biological Laboratory, then based at Harpswell, moved to the island.)
According to a letter published Jan. 31 in The Mount Desert Islander by physician and researcher Victor McKusick, M.D., in the early 1900s the lab’s founder, Clarence Cook Little, was among a dozen or so scientists who believed that the genetic factors of cancer could be studied in mice. McKusick went on to say, “In the 1920s no one (not even visionaries like Dorr and Little) could have predicted how vitally important the work of The Jackson Laboratory would become. Genetics is the medicine of the 21st century, and The Jackson Laboratory has a unique and critical role in the gene discovery process that leads ultimately to treatments and cures.” To that end, the lab began breeding laboratory mice with differing genetic characteristics for use in scientific research.
The lab sold its first lab mouse in 1933. It now breeds, raises and sells 2,500 different genetic strains of Mus Musculus, or the common house mouse.
Here’s where some of the criticism comes in.
Steve Perrin, a writer and photographer who lives on MDI, in an letter published in the Bangor Daily News charged, among other things, that the lab produces and ships “millions of genetically deformed and diseased mice as `tools’ or `devices’ for use in biomedical research.” He went on to describe this process, making it sound as if lab researchers were involved in Nazi-like experiments.
Joyce Peterson, the lab’s public information officer, responded by explaining, “It’s important to understand what we really do here and why we do it. We’re looking for genes that make people susceptible or resistant to very complex diseases, such as cancer.” This will lead, she said, to the ability to treat or even prevent these diseases, “but it can’t be done using a computer or a petri dish. At the Jackson Laboratory we use mice, which are now the preferred animal in research and growing in importance.” She said the lab follows “the very highest standards for care and use of laboratory animals set by the USDA, National Institutes of Health, and other voluntary and government guidelines.”
Each of the 2,500 different strains of mice bred by the lab, she said, “is a valuable model for a disease that humans (and other mammals) get.” She noted that the great majority of mice bred at the lab look like ordinary mice. The only exceptions, she said, are such strains as the hairless mouse and the wrinkly “rhino” mouse, useful in immunology research. She said both strains are the result of natural mutations.
As the lab’s research program has grown, along with the number of strains of Mus Musculus it sells to other research institutions, it has grown from the original 13 to 60 prime, tax-exempt acres and from a staff of eight to 1,200. It is the largest employer in Hancock Country. Not only does it employ islanders; it draws employees from a 50-mile radius who commute from as far away as Belfast, Milbridge and Bangor.
Too much traffic, say those opposed to expansion; and they’ve got a point, though the popularity of Acadia National Park creates a worse problem in summer. The combination of Jackson lab personnel and park visitors streaming on and off the island each day has produced a mammoth bottleneck at the point of entry and exit.
The lab acknowledges the traffic problem and has sought to alleviate it by creating round-the-clock shifts both in its laboratories and production facility, and by staggering work hours to lessen the rush hour problem. In addition, it also provides busing for employees from the Bangor-Brewer area and from Franklin. Peterson said the lab’s Transportation Committee “is reviewing other options, including public transportation and carpooling … and participating in a regionwide transportation study funded by the Maine Department of Transportation in cooperation with Downeast Transportation.”
Then there’s the eyesore, or view, factor.
The lab’s main campus uses about 26 percent of its 60 acres, or 15 acres of buildings and parking lots. The expansion would increase the percentage of land in use by another seven percent.
Those who oppose expansion for aesthetic reasons note the incongruity of having to look down upon what they refer to as a massive industrial complex when hiking. One concerned resident wrote, “Even before its anticipated expansion, the lab has become an unsightly blemish on a beautiful landscape, nestled incongruously at the base of Champlain and Dorr, two of the most majestic and frequented of Acadia’s peaks.”
The choice of dark red brick buildings and copper roofs for the lab was made to conform to its Campus Master Plan, “a major tenet” of which, said Peterson, is to “develop an image consistent with the natural beauty of Acadia National Park and buildings on Mount Desert Island.”
Another issue is affordable housing for lab employees.
“Do we want to be looking at sprawling housing developments while we hike in the park or drive around the island?” asked a resident. Perhaps, he suggested, non-research operations at the Lab, such as mouse-breeding, could be moved elsewhere, especially since this activity particularly stresses the environment (using water, polluting the air). “The Bar Harbor facility,” he continued, “then could house just the medical research operations, continuing to capitalize on Acadia’s appeal to attract top-notch scientists to this site.”
As for the suggestion that the lab pollutes the air, Peterson stated, “We’re proud of our record of meeting or exceeding all federal, state, and local standards for emission.”
Aware that expansion cannot continue indefinitely on a finite piece of space (an island), the lab has already chosen to locate a new training center at Fairfield, and is considering building a future one at Cherryfield. Two years ago it opened a small mouse breeding facility at the University of California, Davis.
While it would certainly be simpler and more cost-effective to build affordable housing on its own land, the lab recognizes the controversy such a move would create both aesthetically and from the point of view of its tax-exempt status. (Although it makes gifts each year to the Town of Bar Harbor in lieu of paying taxes, the gifts do not equal what 60 acres of prime MDI real estate would bring into the town’s coffers.) Because of such criticism and because the lab is trying to be a good neighbor, it is looking into housing at the now defunct Winter Harbor Naval Base and in other areas. Peterson also noted the lab continues to keep the Town of Bar Harbor updated and presents specific plans to the town’s planning board at each stage of the proposed expansion. The board then determines whether those plans are complete and if they meet all appropriate ordinances.
For the obvious reason of increased employment for Maine citizens, Gov. Angus King is in favor of the proposed expansion; so is the Bangor Daily News, which published an editorial on March 7, advocating such a move.