The COVID-19 pandemic produced an unexpected benefit for institutional and commercial facilities: It alerted the general public that facilities and their key systems – in the case of the pandemic, the ventilation and air filtration systems – have a direct impact on the health of occupants and visitors. But for all the heightened awareness of this connection, facilities remain woefully underfunded and undermaintained. The latest examples of this are the facilities of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which are crumbling due to insufficient funding for maintenance and repair.
NIST needs hundreds of millions of dollars annually, into the mid-2030s, to reverse the deterioration of buildings and infrastructure on its campuses in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Boulder, Colorado, according to a recent study by the American Institute of Physics. It warns conditions have been worsening for years and are undermining the agency’s ability to perform its mission.
The study committee attributed conditions at NIST to years of insufficient funding. Problems researchers face at NIST range from frequent power and climate-control failures to rampant water leaks. Specific problems include power outages destroying one electron microscope worth $6 million and water leaks destroying another worth $2.5 million. Another water leak permanently degraded a $10 million facility housing a Kibble balance, a device that makes ultrasensitive mass measurements.
The committee endorses a plan the office drafted last year for recapitalizing the Gaithersburg and Boulder campuses. The plan estimates NIST will require between $300 million and $400 million in construction funding every year for the next 12 years. In addition, it is anticipated between $120 million and $150 million in maintenance funding will be needed for at least that long to arrest further facilities deterioration.
NIST and other federal facilities, which rely on taxpayer funding to support their missions and operations, have been especially hard-hit by insufficient funding for facility maintenance and repair. For example, NASA says its facilities require $2.7 billion for repairs and maintenance.
