MADISON, Wis. -- In what could be a blow to the University of Wisconsin-Madison's effort to land a high-security national animal disease research lab, the Dane County Board on Thursday night debated a resolution opposing the university's proposed 40-acre lab site in the Town of Dunn.

Earlier this week, the federal Department of Homeland Security was greeted by a handful of protesters as it toured the site. It's one of 18 sites vying for the Bio and Agro Defense Facility.

The Town of Dunn is against the proposal, saying it flies in the face of its land-use farm preservation plan, WISC-TV reported. County board officials agree, and they criticized the university for relying on only one site.

"The fact they didn't add a couple more sites like other communities did -- it sort of put some of us at a loss. And we're not going to tell towns all over the county, 'Well, if something really good comes along, then forget your land-use plan,'" said Scott McDonell, chairman of the Dane County Board.

UW-Madison is defending the proposal, saying that it submitted only one site because it was the only competitive site.

Tom McKenna, who spent the last 13 years at the national lab the government wants to replace, said that the facility would bring huge benefits to Dane County and the nation.

The government is looking to replaced the current leading national animal disease research lab in Plum Island, N.Y. McKenna, the new director of UW-Madison's Veterinary Diagnostic Lab, was one of the three animal disease lab directors there.

McKenna said the focus there was hoof-and-mouth disease, and that would continue to be the primary focus at the new lab facility.

He said the lab would be perhaps twice the size of the UW-Madison Veterinary Diagnostic Facility. The biosafety rating currently at 3 would go up to 4, allowing the United States to do its own research on emerging infectious animal disease instead of going to Canada.

"Do we want to be ready and have the facility where we can move ahead and get a good jump on a disease like that, or do we want to be waiting in line to use another country's facility while the diseases may be introduced into the United States or spread"? McKenna said.

McKenna said that the BSL 4 rating would also allow it to study swine and horse diseases that have started to kill humans in Australia and Indonesia.

The site finalists for the new lab will be picked in August.