A week spent in Beautiful, Northern Michigan

Monday, June 27, 2011
Tara and I headed up to Atlanta, Michigan (the Elk capital of the WORLD/Michigan, haha) to visit the Michigan Department of Agriculture regional office that they have set up over there solely for bovine TB purposes. When we arrived, Steve Maniaci gave us a tour of the small facility. The building consisted of about 8 offices, with 2 receptionists, Beth and Doris. They also have select offices for the veterinarians and for their main scheduler, whom I have absent-mindedly forgot the name of. She was responsible for scheduling all tests for each producer's anniversary date. The program she worked with was pretty extensive and required a lot of attentative work so that veterinarians, producers, and the offices were all on the same page when it came to the testing date.

The facility also had a specialized drive-thru garage that could seal shut. The garage is used to wash all dirty equipment used at farms and it contained high-pressure water hoses with a strong disinfectant to wash it all down. There are guidelines for how to wash the equipment as well. Each gate must come off the trailor to be washed individually. The drainage systems  take the excess liquid and drain it through a fine filter to make sure the water is clear of disinfectant before reaching the water table. Then, the toxic compounds that reside are dumped elswhere, and a biosecurity truck comes to empty it 1-2x each month. If the equipment cannot be washed immediately upon return, they had to be placed out in the back directed N/S to indicate they were still dirty. If the equipment was oriented E/W and was around the perimeter, this meant the equipment was clean and ready for use.

There was also a tiny lab area for separating serum from blood draws and other small-scale lab work. The are had a small hood and a table, but was convenient for some of the veterinarians working with blood tubes.

After our tour, we worked with Beth, Doris, and Steve to show them discrepancies we found between the USAHerds database (used for all Michigan premises with livestock) and their list of farms that have been Whole Herd Tested. For instance, some of the properties we found on the WHT list were not listed in USAHerds at all, so they may have been listed under another name, county, etc. Once we walked through some of the issues at hand, Tara and I went through the list and made the noteable changes. The process was fairly quick and then we were out on our own. We went to check in at the Wind-Sans motel of Atlanta. The place was tiny and fairly run-down, but it was fine for the night. To avoid sitting around, Tara and I went to Clearlake State Park to find some nature trails. It was really an enjoyable way to spend our afternoon.