Prairie safe from germs

UND's research office has decided that it would no longer try to build a federal germ research center on Oakville Prairie, the native grassland area that university biologists say is full of rare and some endangered species.

Here's what research vice president Peter Alfonso has to say about it.

I spoke on Thursday afternoon with Alfonso and he said that, besides the fact that protests could harm UND's chances of getting the germ lab, he didn't want to hurt his office's relationship with researchers. The research office's goal is to turn UND into a top notch research university. Attracting the federal lab is one way to do so, but making researchers mad is not.

Update 5:08 p.m.: One potential site for the lab is the old Amazon.com land off of 32nd Avenue South. UND Research Foundation, of which Alfonso is the president, is looking to build a tech park there that would include a mini-germ lab. So far, no protests... One problem is the size of the site. The tech park is to take up only 20 acres but there are plans to expand it to the full 77 acres in the future. If the germ lab is built, a minimum of 30 acres is needed, so there wouldn't be much room for expansion.