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SCP-989 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-989
Expected annual
$787K
One-time setup
$915K
Annual recurring
$745K
Personnel
9
Initial one-time setup is moderate (~$0.9M) driven by research campaign funding, contingency reserve and specialized equipment; annual recurring costs are dominated by staff wages and medical/security readiness (~$745k/yr). Major incidents or research scale-ups can raise costs into the millions.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $915K
Initial Research And Lab Setup $394K
[#10, #15, #17, #21, #22, #24] Initial shared-instrument access / campaign costs and commissioned lab work (#10); SOP development (#15); initial forensic/investigation startup (#17); structured research program startup/initial campaign (#21); specialized isotope/noble-gas contracting (one-time portion) (#22); archival/documentation initial costs (#24).
Contingency Reserve $250K
[#23, #14] Recommended contingency reserve to cover unexpected anomalous behavior, long-term compensation or major unplanned costs (also intended to help cover possible long-term care/compensation #14).
Single Severe Medical Incident $100K
[#13] One-time estimate for a single severe injury requiring surgery/hospitalization and acute care.
Equipment $84K
[#2, #3, #4, #9, #19, #20] Precision electronic scale and integration (#2); CCTV initial hardware and installation (#3); access-control hardware/installation (#4); glovebox/hoods (#9); IT/secure-logging hardware (#19); containment response equipment one-time portion (#20).
Legal Coverup Incident Fund $50K
[#18] One-time legal/cover-up contingency for an incident requiring document work, payoffs or PR actions.
Major Decontamination Event $20K
[#12] One-time large decontamination / specialized disposal event estimate for significant contamination.
Facilities $15K
[#1] Secure storage locker construction and installation, tamperproof/dry cabinet work.
Initial Ppe $2K
[#8] Initial PPE acquisition (PAPR, gowns, gloves, face shields, initial sterile tool sets).
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $745K/yr
Staff Wages $480K/yr
[#6, #7] Salaries and benefits for research personnel (PI, Level-2 researchers, lab tech) and site security staffing/rapid-response guards.
Medical Emergency Preparedness $100K/yr
[#13] On-call specialist contracts, emergency readiness, quarantine room readiness and occupational-health readiness costs.
Research And Monitoring $40K/yr
[#10, #21] Ongoing instrument access fees, paid-per-use analytic campaigns and scheduled research monitoring outside the initial campaign (#10, #21).
Cover Story And Legal $35K/yr
[#18, #25] Ongoing cover-story maintenance, PR/legal retainer costs (#18) and public-health liaison/local-authority coordination (#25).
Facilities Maintenance $26K/yr
[#5, #3] Site overhead allocation, utilities, insurance and amortized space costs (#5); CCTV recording/storage and minor camera maintenance (#3).
Supplies And Consumables $22K/yr
[#8, #11, #12, #22] Consumable PPE replacements and disposables (#8); sample handling and storage consumables (#11); routine hazardous-waste disposal volume costs (#12); recurring xenon / gas purchases and minor isotope consumables (#22).
Investigative Monitoring $20K/yr
[#17] Ongoing forensic and field monitoring of vendors, purchasers, and follow-up investigations.
Training And Drills $10K/yr
[#15] Annual SOP refreshers, staff training and containment drills specific to particulate exposure and decontamination.
Logistics And Transport $5K/yr
[#16] Annual budget for secure transfer / courier services (per-transfer costs averaged over expected yearly transfers).
It Security Maintenance $3K/yr
[#19] Ongoing maintenance, backups and hardening for electronic logs, weight reporting, and CCTV storage redundancy.
Containment Response Maintenance $3K/yr
[#20] Replacement filters, maintenance and consumables for HEPA vacuums, negative-pressure units and rapid-deploy isolation equipment.
Archival And Documentation $2K/yr
[#24] Ongoing secure digital/physical archival costs and chain-of-custody record-keeping.
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $745K/yr
90.0% probability / year
Normal year with steady-state containment, scheduled research access and routine maintenance; no major incidents.
no incidents scheduled experiments normal staff operations
🚨 Minor Incident $945K/yr
6.0% probability / year +$200K vs baseline
Single accidental exposure or localized contamination requiring medical treatment, targeted decontamination, short investigation and modest legal/PR work.
accidental aerosolization during handling single severe injury treatment targeted decontamination
🚨 Major Incident $1.9M/yr
1.0% probability / year +$1.2M vs baseline
Containment breach affecting multiple civilians/staff, requiring mass decontamination, long-term care, major legal settlements and large-scale remediation.
public exposure multiple serious injuries class-action or costly settlements
🚨 Research Breakthrough Requiring Scale Up $1.3M/yr
3.0% probability / year +$600K vs baseline
Research yields results prompting purchase of major instrumentation and hiring/retooling to scale experiments (capital investment year).
successful replication decision to purchase in-house instrumentation expanded experimental program
👥 Personnel 9 total
Role Count Notes
Principal Investigator 1 [#6] Senior oversight (Level 3 oversight assumed but PI listed for directed research).
Research Scientist / Level-2 Researcher 2 [#6] Two Level-2 researchers to run authorized tests and experiments.
Laboratory Technician 1 [#6, #8, #9] Hands-on technician for sample handling, PPE management and routine experimental prep.
Security Officer / MTF Agent 3 [#7] On-site guards and rapid response personnel (shift coverage averaged).
Engineer / Maintenance 1 [#1, #20] Facility and containment equipment maintenance support (dry-cabinet, glovebox, HVAC filters).
Administrative Staff 1 [#4, #19, #24] Access control logging, records retention, scheduling and cover-story coordination support.
📋 Confidence Notes
Analyst notes are detailed, allowing a reasonable baseline estimate, but substantial ranges for research, medical, legal and contingency items create material uncertainty; incident probabilities are expert judgments rather than empirical frequency data.
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