MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — State Agriculture Commissioner Kent Leonhardt is hoping to convince state leaders to allocate millions in federal pandemic relief money for the department’s labs.
The Regulatory and Environmental Affairs Laboratories Unit verifies quality and safety of everything from pet food to ice cream. Leonhardt said he wants state lawmakers to allocate up to $55 million in federal relief money to update and expand capacity. Currently, the labs operate from a 1950′ era air defense site that does not meet the needs of the employees or taxpayers, according to Leonhardt.
“We could do more with pesticides, right now we ship or pesticide testing out-of-state” Leonhardt said. ” We could a lot more in state and we would have better control over those type of things.”
Gov. Jim Justice still has $127 million in CARES act money to spend before the federal government’s Dec. 31 deadline. Justice said Tuesday there would be announcements concerning the money at Thursday’s coronavirus media briefing.
“We’ve been monitoring those dollars all along,” the governor said, alluding to several announcements planned for Thursday. “We’re going to make sure we handle these dollars and handle the store the way we should have all along.”
It’s no known if Leonhardt’s request is under consideration.
Leonhardt said state lab workers respond to resident complaints, foodborne outbreaks, large scale events and regulatory and compliance issues. The facility was not designed for the labs resulting in poor working conditions and refrigerators used to hold samples have to be maintained in hallways.
“We’re basically out of space and we should at least give our state employees a good working environment and that’s what the new labs would do,” Leonhardt recently told WAJR Radio in Morgantown. “New labs will give us more space, modernize us and make us ADA compliant.”
Some of the work involves verifying ingredients and making sure locally prepared foods and meats are safe for consumption. In some cases the lab work has won rebates for farmers when fertilizer samples have not been accurate.
“We go out at state inspected slaughter facilities and take meat samples back for testing to make sure they’re healthy. We’ve caught things before they get out to the general public to make sure they’re safe,” Leonhardt said.
Since 2010, the WVDA has been a part of the Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) and the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS). The collaboration works with all levels of government and universities to integrate food-testing laboratories nationwide to respond to biological, chemical, or radiological foodborne emergencies.
“We’re out here to take care and making sure people eat from a safe and affordable food supply,” Leonhardt said. “That’s what the WVDA does and the labs are integral to that.”
Leonhardt said a new stand alone lab would be required because lab equipment cannot be shared. In some cases, agreements with the federal government restrict equipment use to a specific purpose and uses vary by situation and department.
“Some of the equipment might be the same, but the calibration is different from one test the DHHR might use and the department of ag,” Leonhardt said. “Sometimes it can be very costly to recalibrate that machine and take time.”