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CHARLESTON, W. Va.–Auditors for the state Legislature have concluded that the facilities of West Virginia state-owned laboratories have surpassed their useful lives.
“Every state-owned laboratory facility PERD toured had significant inadequacies and inefficiencies,” auditors wrote in a report presented to state legislators.
Nearly all the state’s laboratory testing programs are in facilities dating back to the middle of the last century, the auditors wrote. Not only are they relatively old, the auditors noted, but many were not constructed for lab testing purposes.
Besides that, each of the state’s lab testing programs do not have sufficient lab space in their current facilities, and no facility upgrades or remodeling have occurred to maintain modern standards.
The lack of space and upgrades has made it difficult to maintain scientific standards under each laboratory’s accreditation standards. That, then, puts at risk current lab testing programs, precluding the state from conducting new lab testing programs. Finally, some of the lab facilities do not have secure perimeters.
“These issues have created significant issues that threaten the viability of the state’s regulatory testing programs,” the auditors wrote.
The audit presented noted that a study commissioned in 2005 by the West Virginia Chemical Alliance Zone identified the very same problems with the very same facilities.
House Speaker Roger Hanshaw asked a variety of questions, including about what additional needs the laboratories might have and what effect any changes might have on agency accreditation.
“We asked for this audit. We intend to do something. The purpose of this audit is to determine what,” said Hanshaw, R-Clay.
Matt Izzo, chief administrator for Office of Chief Medical Examiner, told lawmakers that improvements could be transformative over many years. He cited the possibility of using a recent influx of federal dollars for the improvements.
“The return on investment, in my opinion, will certainly pay dividends for decades into the future,” Izzo said.
Representatives from the Legislature’s Performance Evaluation and Research Division toured the facilities of the State’s major laboratory testing programs. Those include:
• the Department of Agriculture’s laboratories located at the Gus Douglass Agricultural
Center in Guthrie.
• the Department of Environmental Protection’s Air Quality Laboratory.
• the Bureau of Public Health’s Public Health Laboratory in South Charleston, and the
Newborn Screening Laboratory at the West Virginia Regional Technology Park (South
Charleston).
• the Division of Labor’s Weights and Measure Laboratory in St. Alban.
• the State Police Forensic Laboratory in South Charleston.
• the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner’s autopsy suite and laboratory in Charleston.
• Public Health’s Environmental Chemistry Laboratory in Big Chimney.
The aging laboratories at the Department of Agriculture were the focus of a recent WSAZ-TV report. Agriculture Commissioner Kent Leonhardt projected projected the cost of a new lab at $55 million
“I am really glad to see that attention is being given to the laboratories in the state of West Virginia,” Leonhardt told lawmakers today. “It’s time that we do something.”
The Medical Examiner’s facilities were the subject of an earlier legislative audit that highlighted the agency’s storage of dozens of unclaimed bodies, stacking up in a freezer that is short of capacity. The latest audit was broader and underscored the 1957 facility’s lack of space to perform autopsies efficiently.
Besides touring those state labs, PERD visited the Kentucky Consolidated Laboratory in Frankfurt, Ky., and gathered information on other consolidated state labs in the country to determine the benefits of having multiple laboratories under one roof.
The West Virginia audit noted that many states have been consolidating or co-locating their laboratory programs.
State auditors suggested that the West Virginia Regional Technology Park in South Charleston, already owned by the state, would be a logical place for such a cooperative approach.
The Tech Park opened in 1949 as the Union Carbide Corporation Technology Center and became Union Carbide’s largest research and development center. Through a donation from Dow Chemical, the Tech Park is owned by the state through the Higher Education Policy Commission.
“Given that the Tech Park is owned by the State, and it has already invested over $10 million into the facilities,” the auditors wrote, “any strategy to address the State’s laboratory needs must include the Tech Park as part of the solution.”
So, options to address the aging, cramped facilities include:
1. Build new laboratory facilities for each agency.
2. Co-locate laboratory programs to the West Virginia Regional Technology Park.
3. Co-locate laboratory programs in one newly constructed lab facility.
Leonhardt warned against some approaches to combining state laboratories, noting that it wouldn’t be desirable to have animal laboratories and laboratories pertaining to humans in the same location. “You can’t share everything,” he said.
The Legislative Auditor determined that an independent architectural study will be needed to arrive at the best approach for the state to take.
“To determine an accurate cost estimate the State will require a formal architectural and engineering study for any option it chooses,” the auditors wrote.
Senator Stephen Baldwin, D-Greenbrier, asked which branch of government should take the lead on those decisions. “In whose purview does this lie? The Legislature’s? The executive’s? Both of us? Where do we go from here?” he asked.
Hanshaw said it’s time to act. “We’ve studied this and studied this and studied how to studied it,” he said.