| POWELL, Wyo. (AP) - A proposal to bring a state seed certification lab
to the Big Horn Basin will be introduced in the Legislature for a fourth
straight year. Each year since 1999, legislation that would establish a
lab in Powell has failed.
"The seed lab, hopefully, will be approved to come to
Powell," Rep. Pat Childers, R-Cody, said at a forum last week.
The lab would be built and operated with money from the state's general
fund and reserves.
The Joint Agriculture, Public Lands and Water Resources Committee has
recommended a bill for the 2002 session that would spend $313,000 from
reserves to build a seed lab in Park County. The measure also would
transfer $69,000 from the budget reserve account to the Wyoming Department
of Agriculture to select, pay and buy equipment for a seed analyst.
The bill also would spend $157,500 from the general fund to operate the
lab the first year.
At the forum at Northwest College, legislators said the lab should be
placed where the majority of seed crops are produced. The University of
Wyoming Seed Certification Service offices are also in Powell.
Since the state seed lab in Cheyenne was closed in June 2000, growers
have been sending samples to out-of-state labs to be tested for weed
content and purity. |