The United States Department of Agriculture facility in Ames, the only facility in the country to diagnose both domestic and foreign animal diseases, is in the process of securing funds to finish construction of the new National Centers for Animal Health.

The USDA completed two facilities last September to help consolidate three agencies into four proposed buildings to create the NCAH.

The project has an overall goal of building four new buildings and renovating existing buildings. The three agencies involved are the National Animal Disease Center, National Veterinary Services Laboratories and Center for Veterinary Biologics.

Thomas Bunn, chief of the Diagnostic Bacteriology Laboratory at the National Veterinary Services Laboratories, said the project’s total cost will be $460 million. He said if Congress fails to fund the next phase of the project in 2006, construction will be halted on the center.

James Harp, research program representative for the Ames Modernization Program, said they were optimistic this would not be the case.

“We’re having to modify what we originally proposed,” Bunn said. “We’re realizing we have to be more economically sensible to reuse some of our existing facilities.”

Bunn also said the first consolidated laboratory building being built is only a mock-up of a larger building.

Harp said this building was part of the second phase of the project that was hours away from the groundbreaking.

One of the main functions of the new laboratories is testing for the disease known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy said Arthur Davis, chief of the Pathobiology Laboratory.