Published: September 27, 2008 10:03 pm         

Gus Douglass going strong, ready for another term

If the telephone rings at 3 a.m. about a homeland security breach, Gus Douglass says he is ready to answer.

Except for a bum knee, America’s longest serving agriculture commissioner says his health is excellent.

“I feel good,” he said in an interview with The Register-Herald editorial board. “I feel like I can handle it another four years.”

Douglass initially won the job in 1964, and except for a brief interlude in 1988 when he ran for governor, he has been West Virginia’s agriculture leader, serving under seven different governors.

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, homeland security has come to embrace agriculture, and the need to protect critical food supplies from deliberate contamination, the commissioner said.

“Fortunately, I guess I was in the national picture to the extent that some of my vision o what is needed in this state was identified,” he said.

“We have received approximately $3 million to provide a fast response activity for the state. This has gotten national attention as well. I have the only mobile laboratory that is recognized at the Level Three, and Level Three is the one that you work in a box and gloves.”

Within three hours, Douglass said, the mobile lab can be put on the road to deal with any food-related problem, be it sabotage by a terrorist, or an invasion of a foreign disease, such as Avian flu.

“I have a mobile incinerator, the only one of its kind that is attached to homeland security,” he said.

About 20 members of his staff routinely engage in training on responses to such matters.

“That runs everything to diseases to chemical spills to food situations,” he said.

Last spring, he depopulated a 65-head herd of cattle after an outbreak of rabies. Ten humans were exposed, half of them his own employees, but none actually contracted the disorder.

Seven years after the terrorist assaults, no evidence has been uncovered to show any plot was ever laid to spoil the food supplies in West Virginia.

“But my staff, when we evaluate, that is always in the back of our mind,” Douglass said. “Absolutely, this is the way we’re trained.

“This is the method we operate. If I find something that we question, that immediately goes into the federal system. We are part of the response network. Since I’m a team leader, I have to maintain myself 24/7. I’m into that radio network. I drive an emergency vehicle. I’m on the job as well.”

Few realize it, but Douglass says he led the entire response to the mad cow scare in the state of Washington on behalf of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It meant a disruption of his Christmas holiday but Douglass had no choice, since he chaired the federal agency’s advisory committee on foreign animal and poultry diseases.

“We put the teams in place out there,” he said. “We controlled those animals that might be carriers of it.”

Douglass has been in the national spotlight before, once chosen as national president of the Future Farmers of America.

Back in 1957, he joined the state department after selling his interest in an International Harvester agency he had run about seven years. All he had in mind then was two years as an assistant.

“But the challenge of government service has been there, because I didn’t realize how bad a shape this state was in its food commerce, what was going into the food system,” he recalled.

“Cancered cows going into butcher shops. It was horror stories galore.”

From that point on, Douglass said he embarked on a mission that he has pursued the past four decades.

“That’s been my goal — food safety — and I’m very proud of it today,” the commissioner said.

“We’ve got firewalls up in this state with the programs I have now. We have a beef inspection program, food safety program, rapid response team. Homeland security. Farmers markets. That’s the life of Gus Douglass.”

When he broke into the agency, the mission had a single focus — agriculture promotions.

“We have basically doubled,” he said.

Animal disease was rampant in the 1960s.

“I’m proud to say we’re disease-free today,” he said. “We’re clean. I have a tremendous veterinarian medical staff that really I didn’t have in yesteryear.”

Douglass feels he has achieved another goal he set back then, one of according the farmer just recognition.

“I just felt we never capitalized or had given the rural community the attention it should,” he said.

“We have 21,400 farms here feeding 1.8 million people. Now, that’s pretty much a dependence of trying to ensure that we’re providing that food to the citizens because of the safety factor. I’ve never had a food recall on any meat product or vegetables or other foods in this state that my staff has been inspecting. I’m very proud of that.”

Douglass says he wants an 11th term to see new programs now in the planning stages come on line.

One entails an effort to provide the poultry industry — now the biggest one in agriculture in West Virginia — with an alternative to LP gas and fuel oil.

Many poultry growers are facing a staggering, $50,000 annual fuel bill, but Douglass is working with the Hamer Pellet Fuel Co. of Kenova in its quest to provide wood pellets as a cheaper alternative to propane, reducing fuel bills by as much as 40 percent.

“We are nearing production,” the commissioner said.

Hamer operates two plants and is designing a new burner at its Elkins installation to use the pellets, he said, while a broiler house is being modified and will be used this fall and winter.

“I’m at that point I’d love to see this through to fruition,” he said.

“I think the whole bottom line is the experience that I have, and the people I know in the national picture, the environmental picture, I can share that with folks in this state for four more years.”

Poultry has become such a huge undertaking in West Virginia that some firms are exporting their products overseas. One company ships exclusively to Cuba.

“We’re in the overseas markets in many products,” Douglass said.

“International trade is part of my effort as well, both in the apple industry, that, of course has declined considerably, as well as other products that we’re shipping overseas.”

Fewer farms exist nowadays but Douglass says the number has stabilized in the past 15 years. Only six weeks ago, in fact, the department learned of an additional 200 new farms. The last agriculture census put West Virginia has the No. 1 state in owner-operated firms in the nation.

“What I have seen is that these are income opportunities,” he said.

In recent years, regional markets have expanded to 54 current ones, along with tailgate markets.

“There is a tremendous demand for local vegetables and meats and we’re seeing the turnaround in this state,” he said. “With more opportunities.”

Douglass played a key role in establishing the concept of the farmers market 35 years ago.

His Republican challenger, Michael Teets of Lost River, has portrayed the incumbent as little more than a caretaker in the office, with little or nothing to do.

“Mr. Teets unfortunately does not recognize the activities of the agriculture department,” Douglass said with a laugh.

“That has been really amusing to me. If you look at my farm program, he has copied that farm program in order to have something on going, I guess.”

Douglass points to an accredited lab in Moorefield but says he needs another term for another pet project — updating a facility in Guthrie out of a 60-year-old military barracks.

“We just had an evaluation of those labs,” he said. “They’re doing good work. The offices are credible, but we cannot get them accredited. We’re asking this Legislature for $7 million in start-up money.”

One aspect of his office that gets little attention is a pet protection program. In past disasters, such as chemical leaks, owners have been reluctant to abandon home out of concern for pets left behind. When creosote spilled in Huntington a few years back, his staff moved some 150 dogs and cats until the all-clear signal came.

“Another scary thing in the national picture is the migration of people west if we have an emergency on the East Coast somewhere, or in Washington,” he said.

Officials across the state are preparing to absorb a sudden influx of thousands, say, for instance, a terrorist attack disabled the nation’s capital.

“What the public doesn’t know is the planning, the effort that has been in this, and the fact that donated foods are my responsibility,” he said.

“All the foods that you’re getting in the school system come through that donated food program. We also regulate food safety on the warehouse. Up there, we are absolutely keeping those warehouses loaded with food in case we get refugees.”

Family farms have changed since the early days of his career, but Douglass sees today’s farmer as more enterprising, willing to diversify so that a steady income is available. Agriculture tourism figures into the mix.

Generations ago, the family farm was just that — a livelihood that was passed on to the children.

“It is still being passed on,” Douglass said.

“One of the things that is happening in this state, for many individuals, who are maybe at retirement age, are coming back and taking over those farms. They want to come back to what they were doing in yesteryear. That is a different talent that we’re getting on these farms.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com