Province confirms plans to build massive new plant and animal health lab in Abbotsford

The provincial government is planning to build its massive new farm-disease lab on a plot of Abbotsford farmland next to the University of the Fraser Valley, a new application confirms.

The new Plant and Animal Health Centre will replace a 78,000-square feet lab on Sumas Prairie that was flooded in 2021 but has since re-opened. The lab test plants and animals for hundreds of different diseases and other problems, and is BC’s only lab that can handle testing for avian influenza.

The new facility will be more than 177,000 square feet, more than twice the size of the current lab. Like the current Plant and Animal Health Centre, the new lab will include a crematorium to dispose of animal remains. A budget has not been confirmed but could exceed $100 million. (In 2009, construction was completed on a 10,000-square-foot expansion to the current lab.)

The Current reported last June that the province had identified an 86-acre parcel of land for the new facility. While the province refused to say where the land was located, only a plot of land just east of UFV’s Abbotsford campus met the likely requirements of a new facility. A development company (Pacific Land Group) acting for the province has now submitted an application to subdivide the province and use a 16-acre chunk for non-farm purposes—i.e. building the new lab.

The application says the new facility is needed because “much of the infrastructure at the existing facility has been water-damaged.” That, combined with the threat of future floods and a lack of capacity at the current facility, requires a larger lab to support BC’s farmers.

The application says the new facility would increase testing capacity, reduce delays that currently exist when samples must be sent to other labs.

The application says the current lab hasn’t had enough space or staff to process all of BC’s avian influenza specimens.

“Due to limitations in staffing, equipment, and space, some samples have been redirected to out-of-province laboratories, causing delays in detection and resulting in economic losses and animal distress,” the application says.

In addition to a variety of labs, the new Plant and Animal Health Centre would also house administrative offices including those for BC’s Chief Veterinarian, as well as space for BC’s food safety inspection agency and officials who provide business programs and support to farmers.

The province hopes to build its new PAHC on about 16 of the 40 acres it plans to acquire. The rest of the land would remain as farm fields, and provide a potential for “future research and development.”

The building will be located on the southeastern corner of the subdivided property. The facility’s crematorium led the province to conduct an “air dispersion” study. Members of a city committee were told last week that the facility’s location on the farm site was chosen, in part, to provide distance between the facility and nearby homes.

In order to build on the property, which sits in the Agricultural Land Reserve, the province will need the Agricultural Land Commission’s permission to subdivide the parcel and use the land for non-farming purposes. That process is mostly a formality, given that the provincial government can overrule decisions made by the Agricultural Land Commission,but Pacific Land Group still made the case that the benefits the new lab will provide to BC agriculture justify it being built on farmland.

In particular, it noted the lab’s proximity to Highway 1, local farms and, specifically, BC’s blueberry industry. The application pointed out that the current PAHC was the first to identify blueberry scorch, and said the new lab’s proximity to blueberry farms will enhance its ability to test for the virus. (We wrote about one local scientist’s war against the virus last year.)

The City of Abbotsford Agriculture Advisory Committee reviewed the application and recommended the city forward it to the ALC with its support.

The entire parcel being subdivided was identified as a “special study area” in Abbotsford’s Official Community Plan. The OCP had originally identified the land as a future home for new city wide park space, although it also noted that the area could be used for agriculture-related research and education.