{"id":326118,"date":"2026-08-20T20:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T20:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/326118\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T20:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T20:50:17","slug":"manhattan-federal-facility-not-fully-operating-since-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/326118\/","title":{"rendered":"Manhattan federal facility not fully operating since opening"},"content":{"rendered":"

MANHATTAN (KSNT<\/a>) – Concerns are growing over a federal facility not being fully operational since opening three years ago in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

The National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF<\/a>) is designed to protect the nation’s agriculture, farmers and citizens against the potential impact of serious animal diseases. A new report from the Office of the Inspector General found the $1.25 billion facility has not fully functioned since its opening in 2023.<\/p>\n

In July of this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA<\/a>) Office of Inspector General issued a report following a visit to the Manhattan facility to determine if it was properly equipped to house animals for high-level biosafety and animal disease research.<\/p>\n

The report found the facility was “not set up for full operations and was not appropriately configured and commissioned to house animals for high-level biosafety and animal disease research and diagnostics or to receive select agent registration approval.”<\/p>\n

The report explained that the Department of Homeland Security<\/a> transferred the facility to the USDA in 2024 without a complete commissioning report. The USDA accepted the facility and proceeded with the transfer believing the appropriate repairs and upgrades would be fast-tracked under its agency. However, USDA officials said they did not know the full extent of the repairs and updates needed.<\/p>\n

As a result, the USDA incurred a total monetary impact of $78.4 million as of Apr. 2026. This included questioned costs without recovery for at least $75.8 million that the USDA incurred for remediation, commissioning and operational costs for laboratory spaces.<\/p>\n

In July’s report, the Office of Inspector General put forward three recommendations to the USDA so that the facility can reach its full operating capability. The USDA is working towards these recommendations.<\/p>\n

According to the Inspector General’s Report, the facility is currently conducting bio safety level one and two experiments. The Director of the Biosecurity Research Institute at K-State tells 27 News that it is assisting the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility with resources it has available. There is no clear timeline to when it will be fully operational.<\/p>\n

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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MANHATTAN (KSNT) – Concerns are growing over a federal facility not being fully operational since opening three years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2300,122742,75,84,83,9,24,63,122743,122741,88356],"class_list":["post-326118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-department-of-homeland-security","tag-fully-operational","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-office-of-the-inspector-general","tag-the-national-bio-and-agro-defense-facility","tag-u-s-department-of-agriculture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}