New state lab needs pricey drain fix

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - You got to love this one.

The state built a very sophisticated and very expensive building where autopsies known as necropsies are performed on dead animals.

The building is only two years old, but there's a serious flaw with it, a flaw that could cost you a lot of money to fix.

The New Mexico Scientific Laboratories opened just two years ago at a cost of $79 million.

But in the basement lab where the New Mexico Department of Agriculture's Veterinary Diagnostic Services performs necropsies the floor is flat, so blood and water from the necropsies pools instead of running to a drain.

A spokesman for the State's General Services Department says 1,200 square feet of concrete will have to be ripped out and poured again, this time with a slope. That could cost taxpayers up to $500,000.

The state concedes contractors did what they were told to do, and that state workers oversaw the project including the flawed design.

"Because of turnover in state employees, we're having difficulty getting a good explanation for why it was designed that way instead of a way that we would prefer to have it," said GSD spokesman Tim Korte.

There is no warranty, Korte added, but the state is working with the contractor to try and fix the problem.

It is not knonw when the concrete will be torn out and redone, he said.