Closing USDA Lab in Texas Might Carry a Price

WESLACO - When a swarm of Africanized honeybees infiltrated the U.S.-Mexico border in 1990, it was detected, destroyed and studied by U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists at the Kika de la Garza Subtropical Agricultural Research Center.

When Hurricane Alice and a subsequent tropical depression sent floodwaters coursing down the Rio Grande in the historic flood of 2010, it was planes operated by the center that allowed officials to track the river's swelling.

And when U.S. customs officers detect pests or diseases in produce coming north from Mexico, it's the nearby USDA experts who can tell them for sure.

The more than 100 personnel at the center knew months ago that their labs were being targeted for federal budget cuts, so this week's announcement by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack about looming cuts was for them only a formality.

Still, all involved, including the USDA's Agriculture Research Service that is directing the closure, agree critical missions for food safety and crop protection in a strategically located subtropical U.S.-Mexico border zone may be lost -- a steep price to pay for the approximately $10 million in annual savings.

"I would challenge anybody in ARS to convince me the unique things we do here can be done somewhere else," entomologist Robert Mangan said. "Putting us up north in some lab that works on field crops is not going to get that work done."

The lab began in 1931 with a single USDA scientist tasked with research for what was becoming one of the nation's major agricultural areas.

Its mission expanded over the years with Valley agriculture, employing some 30 scientists and more than 100 support personnel. It was renamed for former U.S. Rep. Eligio "Kika" de la Garza about a decade ago.

The center is the only ARS research unit with quarantine-secure facilities for fruit flies.

"Universities do not train research entomologists to work on quarantines. This is something that people have to learn on the job," Mangan said. "Three of us here have been doing it for 20 years each."

The center is less than an hour from a Mexican research facility, which allows for direct contact with plant scientists south of the border.

It's only 12 miles from the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge, now rivaling the Nogales, Ariz., inland port as leader in agricultural imports. And its remote sensing aircraft have proven vital in monitoring the Carrizo cane and other nonnative plants that grow like thick weeds on and along the Rio Grande, sucking up water supplies and making it harder for Border Patrol agents to spot smugglers and contraband.

The center has been a world leader in irradiation technology, touted as a chemical-free method to treat produce.

"Texas and the United States imports a lot of produce from around the world, and the work that has been done by the USDA ARS lab has been phenomenal in terms of developing international standards and national standards," said Suresh Pillai, professor of microbiology and director of the National Center for Electron Beam Research at Texas A&M. "That work needs to continue somewhere."

Vilsack on Monday presented the USDA's "Blueprint for Stronger Service," which in effect meant the closure of 259 domestic facilities, including 10 Agricultural Research Service centers and seven foreign offices. He said the closures would result in annual federal savings of $150 million.

The plan was outlined in the USDA budget approved by Congress and signed in November by President Barack Obama.

"In these economic times, when we are all being asked to 'do more with less,' ARS and USDA have had to make some tough choices," ARS spokeswoman Sandy Miller Hays wrote in response to questions about closing the Weslaco center. "Some activities that were highly specific to the Weslaco center will not be able to be replicated at some other ARS facility - but these are the difficult decisions that we face if we're going to live within the budget that we've been appropriated."

The Weslaco researchers have reached out to federal representatives and local farm groups to try to save the center to no avail.

"The way we feel right now is that it didn't work," Mangan said. "We never got any consideration that was based on science by either the Obama administration people or any of our congressional people."

One, U.S. Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, in September hand-delivered a letter to Vilsack's office, saying that "closing this facility would not only have a substantial negative economic impact on the region, but also on agricultural production, international commerce and food safety nationwide."

He voted for the budget bill, which spokeswoman Patricia Guillermo noted bundled the USDA budget with other departments including Commerce, Justice, and Transportation, and was passed without allowance for earmarks.

He since has met with ARS personnel and local farm groups to find a way to salvage the research. Land grant colleges, such as Texas A&M and Hispanic-serving institutions, such as the University of Texas at Brownsville, would have first dibs on the facilities, Guillermo said, state and local governments after that.

Ray Prewett of Texas Citrus Mutual said local farm groups were anxious to find a way to keep the scientists in the Valley, perhaps by including an agricultural research component to the 400-acre manufacturing research park being planned by the city of McAllen. He said research funding might come from the companies that import produce.

"The need is not going to go away," he said.

McAllen Economic Development Corp. President Keith Patridge said he was open to the idea.

"I know that we have a real need from an agricultural standpoint for the subtropical research component that this center had," he said. "Agriculture is an important element of the Valley economy... What're our options?"