The U.S. Department of Agriculture will reimburse schools for destroying beef that is part of an unprecedented national recall announced this week, according to a memo sent to Pittsburgh Public Schools.
One hundred ninety-six schools in the state received beef that was recalled because some cattle were not fully inspected, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture spokesman Chris Ryder said. Federal and state government agencies have been contacting local schools since Monday afternoon to give instructions on discarding the beef.
More than a dozen Allegheny County schools got the beef. North Hills School District officials said they had yet to get the instructions, but added that any communication delays are unlikely to cause problems. They had six cases of the recalled beef, which were quarantined in an off-site freezer Feb. 6 when the meat was put on hold.
"They're completely out of the way, so discarding them is of less concern than making sure they aren't in our school," North Hills spokeswoman Tina Vojtko said. "They could sit there for a year and not be in our way or anything."
Pittsburgh Public Schools has 12,000 pounds, which means it must have the beef incinerated, take it to a landfill or to a rendering plant for use in nonedible products, including soap or pet foods, according to the USDA and Guillermo Cole, spokesman for the Allegheny County Health Department. Anyone with 50 or fewer cases can dispose of the beef themselves and send documentation to the USDA.
The beef recall of 143.4 million pounds is the biggest in U.S. history. It dates to February 2006, meaning most of the beef has been consumed, according to the USDA Web site.
Despite the recall, local and national officials have called the health risk negligible. About a fourth of the recalled meat went to domestic nutrition assistance programs, including school lunches, and orders to put that meat on hold went out Jan. 30, according to USDA.
"They should already have that food identified," Ryder said. "So, for those schools, it should not be a great burden now."
The USDA will attempt to resupply schools for the recalled beef, according to the memo. Schools often have alternative supplies of the government-subsidized product, called "commodity beef," and should not experience a shortage, officials said.
North Hills had 90 useable cases of beef even after it had to separate the six cases of now-recalled beef, Vojtko said. The six cases are worth about $135, a minimal cost to the district, Vojtko added.
The recalled meat came from Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. of Chino, Calif. Cattle that couldn't walk -- and were potentially susceptible to mad-cow disease -- were slaughtered there in violation of federal regulations.
State agriculture officials are working with education officials to find out if any Pennsylvania schools outside the National School Lunch Program got the beef. Local Catholic schools officials do not believe they had any of the meat, Pittsburgh diocesan spokesman the Rev. Ronald Lengwin said.
Larger text
Smaller text
Print this article
E-mail this article
