At the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) in Maryland, the largest agricultural research facility in the world, things are not going well.
Water has been pouring into the buildings. Walls are moldy. Ceilings collapsed with debris scattering all over the floor. Labs where important government research is conducted are flooded. Because the elevators are not working, employees have to carry hazardous materials down several flights of stairs to save decades-old research.
From the videos and photos of the damaged area, this massive 300-building complex that houses approximately 800 people looks more like a war zone than a working U.S. government research center.
“For some people, part of their day is to empty their buckets,” said an employee who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. An employee was suspended in 2018 for speaking up about the water and waste-water issues.
Last summer, they didn’t have water for several days. All toilets had no water. During the summer heat, people who worked in the field had no drinking water when they returned to the office. For two years during the pandemic, there was no hot water. A section of a building was flooded for one year and the water was finally shut off only after AFGE Local 3147 reached out to the research center’s parent agency.
Management knew about these unsafe working conditions but never really addressed them. The local was told the cost to fix these safety issues was too great – a million dollars. So, it’s been ongoing for several years, and when problems get worse, they tell people to just go home.
“But I have research to do. I can’t just go home,” said another employee whose office has water dripping from the ceiling. She showed us a picture of the area in front of her office where two buckets are standing collecting water, one of which has algae growing. Other pictures show an office that stores computers worth $30,000 was flooded, a pile of government data books that were moldy and had to be thrown away, the flooded hallway connected to the offices where research was being conducted.
This building has flooded twice – all five levels – in four years with numerous leaks springing up before, during, and after the floods. The temperature inside the building hovered around low 60s to upper 50s all the time, making it harder for employees to work as wearing long sleeve shirts could contaminate the work they were doing.
For years, Local 3147 has been trying in vain to get management to address the problems. They are now planning to file an OSHA complaint, urging the occupational health agency to investigate these violations.
“The apathy is unbelievable,” said the employee. “You put in ticket after ticket, and after a week, they say it has been fixed, but I’m looking at it. It’s not fixed.”
“This used to be the flagship for all agricultural research. People dedicated to the agricultural sciences would compete to get a spot at BARC knowing they could write their own ticket if they had BARC on their resume. Sadly, that is not the case now, and our nation and its people are paying the price,” she added.
AFGE Health and Safety Specialist Milly Rodriguez, who has been working closely with the local, said some of the maintenance issues around the elevator and water in the building were documented starting in April 2022 and throughout the year. But the lack of water in the buildings for general use and for fire suppression was documented back in 2019.
“The local notifies management. They may move people around or allow telework or provide bottled water, but the issues aren’t addressed,” she said.
“Allowing water to flood and collect in the workspaces creates the perfect breeding ground for mold,” she added. “Allowing the mold to grow unabated puts workers at risk of developing upper respiratory illnesses, causing or aggravating allergic reactions, and worsening asthma. This is a hazardous situation for workers that urgently needs to be addressed.”
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