National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility Makes Lemonade Out of the Year 2020

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2022-05-18 06:30:06

Building the nation’s first large-animal research and diagnostic facility with maximum biocontainment capability during a pandemic comes with some challenges. The team standing up the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, or NBAF, being built in Manhattan, Kansas, took those challenges in stride and continues working to make the best of them.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology Directorate, or DHS S&T, is building the state-of-the-art facility to standards that fulfill USDA’s mission. Once construction and commissioning activities are complete, USDA will own and operate the facility. Construction progress remained on schedule until about April 2020, when COVID-related disruptions affected labor and material availability. To minimize delays to the overall program, the USDA and the DHS S&T collaborated to realign NBAF’s schedule, which was announced in December 2020.

Currently, the mission transfer is only projected to be delayed about 4 months from the original schedule — a big accomplishment that is a result of many people working together in the best interest of NBAF. As part of the schedule realignment, USDA and DHS S&T worked together to make key decisions regarding the timing of certain tasks.

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