The Ark at JFK may be coming to an end

Noah may have had no trouble getting two of every animal on his boat, but the Ark at JFK has been having trouble getting even one of every creature to its facility.

That’s because, the company claims, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey has been allowing other centers at John F. Kennedy International Airport to help transport and care for animals — allegedly violating the terms of its lease with the Ark at JFK and putting the facility at risk of closure. The Ark late last year filed a lawsuit against the PA, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

“The Port Authority has willfully breached its obligation to provide Ark with the exclusive right to provide specified animal handling services at JFK Airport,” the company said in its lawsuit, which was posted on its website. “These breaches have not merely caused enormous financial damage to Ark; they pose grave national security risks ... placing at risk both U.S. citizens and U.S. livestock.”

The Ark opened last February and was touted as a state-of-the-art pet care and transportation center.

It cost $65 million to build.

The Ark also was to act as a quarantine center for all birds, horses and other creatures that must be housed for a set period of time once flown into the country.

But instead of sending the animals to the JFK site, the PA allegedly has been transporting nearly all of them to a site in Newburgh in Orange County, owned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about two hours away.

The animals, according to the lawsuit, are moved in “non-bio-secure towed trailers” over public highways. Animals and people are put in harm’s way because of that, the lawsuit claims.

“Many animals regularly enter from countries potentially adversarial to the United States,” the complaint states, but less than 10 percent of animals required to be quarantined have gone to the Ark since it opened.

The lawsuit mentions that between Oct. 3 and 4, 30 horses arrived at JFK from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines — but none were quarantined at the South Queens airport.

KLM is one of several airlines — including British Airways, Aer Lingus and Lufthansa — that have told the Ark it would not utilize its site unless mandated by the PA, according to the lawsuit. The loss in business may cause the facility to close its doors.

“The Ark at JFK is in imminent danger of shutting down, due to the massive operational losses caused by the Port Authority’s willful breaches of the lease,” the company states in the lawsuit.

The Ark was needed, the lawsuit states, because “JFK lagged far behind international norms in the appropriate care of animals in transit” and, should the facility shut down, JFK will return “to its historic primitive animal handling facilities and services.”

A Port Authority spokesman did not address any of the allegations in the lawsuit.

“Prior animal services at JFK were not centralized, were not in first-class facilities and in many cases fell far below minimum appropriate standards,” the spokesman said in an emailed statement. “The ARK contract was tailored to enable the private contractor to make the necessary investment to build and operate a world-class facility.”