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Berkeley residents can voice their concerns about the future of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab at a scoping session at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. 

Because the lab’s Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) requires an environmental impact statement, concerned citizens can air their concerns at the legally mandated sessions. 

Of particular concern to residents have been impacts of major construction on open space, creek corridors, wildlife, parking, and traffic congestion, as well as pollution from the facilities themselves. 

But some neighbors are worried about something too small to see, too tiny to feel, but big enough to likely dominate some of the discussion at Monday’s session. 

Their concern in nanotechnology. 

A nanometer is a billionth of a meter—roughly 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. But that’s the scale of some of the most controversial technology ever to come down the pike. 

All sides agree that nanotechnology has huge potential. Nano-particles are already responsible for irritation-free contact lenses and sunscreen that doesn’t leave white gunk on your nose. 

Within a few decades, scientists envision nanotech devices tunneling through and cleaning out clogged arteries, forming factories in miniature that emit zero pollution, and making up bombs that can annihilate millions. 

If the technology’s possibilities are immense, some residents fear that risks could also be great if the LBNL’s already-approved Molecular Foundry releases nanoparticles into the air while performing research. 

Since the foundry is already in the pipeline, it’s not included in the long range development plan set to guide future expansion through 2020. But critics say they still intend to be heard Monday night. 

Residents fear are so minusculethat they’ll pass right through the standard lab filters used to capture research emissions. And while there’s little hard evidence that inhaling them is harmful, concerned residents want to be the first ones to know if it turns out they are. 

“This is such a new science, there haven’t been enough tests to know its health effects,” said Gene Bernardi of the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste (CMTW), which has opposed the lab on numerous projects. 

The Community Environmental Advisory Commission (CEAC) unanimously asked City Council last week to ask the lab to incorporate an annual, independent environmental and health review of their nanotechnology work in their LRDP. 

Lab spokesperson Terry Powell called it a “good idea” and said she was sure “the lab would listen to that.” 

Powell said nearly all nanotechnology research already performed at the lab either binds the particles to other substances or traps them in solutions so they can’t escape from the lab. 

While everyone acknowledges nanotechnology will have military implications, Powell insisted that LBNL would not get involved in that facet of research. “This is a basic energy lab. We don’t do weapons work,” she said. 

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) website is vague on nanotechnology work at LBNL, saying the lab will focus on various types of research including carbon fibers and lithographic plates. 

But former Lawrence Livermore Laboratory scientist and CMTW member Marion Fulk fears that work done at LBNL may find its way to the Department of Defense. “I’m concerned when a government lab all of a sudden gets interested in this at a time like this,” he said. 

CEAC’s monitoring proposal comes after it lost a fight in City Council earlier this year to request the lab to conduct an Environmental Impact Report of the Molecular Foundry—the proposed six-story 94,500 square foot nanotechnology center on the lab’s 200-acre Berkeley Hills campus. 

Preliminary estimates show the lab expanding from a daily flow of 4,300 staff and guests to a maximum of 4,750, while adding an additional 238,000 square feet of building space. 

CEAC wants future development restricted to preserve open space, asks that parking space development be limited in favor of better public transportation, and urges a comprehensive study of the facility’s impact on the Strawberry Creek Watershed.