page_title: National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility / Construction
caption_attribution_description: English: NBAF construction sign in Manhattan, Kansas
context_page_description: The National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility is a planned United States government-run research facility that will replace the 1950s-era Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York, which is "nearing the end of its lifecycle and is too small to meet the nation’s research needs." The NBAF will be operated under the authority of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Research Service and Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, Veterinary Services as primary research partners.
  The facility will be located in Manhattan, Kansas, and will employ between 250 and 350 people. Construction on the 574,000-square-foot facility officially began in May 2015. Although delayed from its original timeline, the facility is now scheduled to be completely constructed and permitted by 2022. Operations will be fully transferred from the Plum Island facility by 2023.
  After the Manhattan location was finalized in 2009, the Government Accountability Office questioned the choice of location in a July 2010 draft report, because it is located on the mainland U.S. unlike the current Plum Island facility.
context_section_description: The facility is under construction.  Preliminary clearing and grading of the proposed site began in 2010, construction on the site's power plant began in 2013, and construction of the lab began in 2015.
  On January 2, 2013, the Department of Homeland Security accepted a transfer of land from the State of Kansas for the site of the facility.  In March 2013, a contract was awarded for the construction of a central utility plant for the NBAF.  An official groundbreaking ceremony for construction of the power plant was held on May 28, 2013.
  The federal government budgeted $440 million for construction and related work on the NBAF under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014, signed into law on January 17, 2014.  President Barack Obama included an additional $300 million for construction in his proposed 2015 budget, constituting the final installment of federal construction spending for the facility. This funding was secured when President Obama signed into law the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2015, on March 3, 2015.
  A groundbreaking ceremony for construction on the full facility was held on May 27, 2015. It was attended by Kansas Senator Pat Roberts, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.
caption: NBAF construction site in Manhattan in 2013
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