As a child growing up on Long Island, New York, I shared with many other children a curiosity about what was occurring on the mysterious Plum Island, a restricted bit of land just off our northeastern shore. There were stories in the media and in books that the federal government was conducting animal experiments there. My vivid imagination envisioned bizarre operations being performed on animals, resulting in Frankenstein-like creatures which would then roam the barren beaches of the island on additional arms and legs. Ironically, I was reading Plum Island,1 a novel by Nelson DeMille, when I learned about the work that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), New York District, has been performing on the island for the past decade.
展开▼
