The Ames National Animal Disease Center is still waiting for $40 million in funding to modernize the facilities.

“The facilities are old, run-down and the fact of the matter is that the federal government has simply not kept pace with the technology and the kind of sophisticated laboratory equipment needed,” said Gary Steinke, director of government relations at Iowa State.

The agricultural appropriations bill passed through a senate subcommittee earlier in the month. But the lab is still waiting for federal funding.

Jim Roth, assistant dean of the international program at the College of Veterinary Medicine, said the labs have been kept at par for too long.

“The main lab for the NADC was opened when Dwight Eisenhower was president. [It is] over forty years old and science has changed dramatically. The mandated requirements for the lab have changed,” he said.

Roth said the outdated labs hinder the efficiency of research and the efficiency at which the facility operates.

“They are operating safely now, but in order to do that they have had to renovate space,” Roth said. “It takes more time to accomplish the research in old facilities. They are inefficient.”

The federal funding bill has been heavily lobbied by both Iowa State and national organizations interested in animal health.

“We have interests for a number of reasons. One, because we, like everyone else in animal health, want to see U.S. livestock protected from disease. There’s the national need to protect animal health,” Roth said. “From a local perspective, we [College of Veterinary Medicine] collaborate with the researchers and diagnosticians on various projects, and we also have graduate students who do their work at the USDA labs in Ames.”

Norman Cheville, dean of veterinary medicine, said the labs play a wide range of roles for the state of Iowa.

“Firstly, labs of that magnitude make Ames a global center for veterinary research,” he said. “Secondly, it’s a significant economic issue for the state of Iowa in that it brings jobs and payroll dollars into the state.”

He said the labs also provide for “a great intellectual mass for the science community,” and serve as an attraction to graduate students in veterinary medicine.

Roth said the chances of the passage of the bill bringing money to Ames seems to look good. He said if the bill passes, the labs will continue to benefit.

“My understanding is they will allocate $40 million dollars to the project this year and that if they commit that much money to it, Congress then intends to fund the whole thing over the next three to five years,” he said. “Nothing is definite until the budget is signed off by the President.”