SJC upholds biolab ruling requiring further environmental review

By Stephen Smith, Globe Staff

The state's highest court today delivered a victory to opponents of a controversial research laboratory being built by Boston University, ordering that an ongoing environmental review should continue. The Supreme Judicial Court also agreed with a 2006 ruling from a superior court judge that the state's original environmental analysis was "arbitrary and capricious."

The decision by the SJC, though, does not halt construction of the laboratory complex in Boston's South End, which is about 70 percent complete. The centerpiece of the project is a Biosafety Level-4 lab where scientists will be able to work with the world's deadliest germs, including Ebola, plague, and anthrax.

The case wound up before the SJC because BU had appealed the earlier ruling by Suffolk Superior Court Judge Ralph D. Gants.

In its decision, the top court ruled that the review by the state environmental affairs secretary during the administration of Governor Mitt Romney "lacked a rational basis."

Today's decision represents the second time in two weeks that environmental reviews of the BU project have been lambasted. An independent panel of scientists declared two weeks ago that a separate federal review of the lab was "not sound and credible" and failed to adequately address the consequences of highly lethal germs escaping from the project.