St. Joseph, Mo. ? A federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent has been assigned to St. Joseph for three months to help fight what authorities are calling a persistent methamphetamine problem.

The agent, whose name was not released Monday at a news conference in St. Joseph, already has begun the 90-day assignment that will expire in July. The DEA will decide after that whether the area’s drug problem warrants a permanent position.

“As confident as I am about the seriousness of the drug problem in northwest Missouri, that’s how confident I am that we’re going to get that permanent agent,” U.S. Rep. Sam Graves told a group of law enforcement and local government officials Monday.

The Tarkio Republican, who has long pushed for a federal agent in his district, announced the DEA assignment at the Buchanan County Drug Strike Force headquarters.

“Drug dealers are like cockroaches,” Graves said. “They just find any shadow to hide in.”

The district also received a $300,000 grant to hire more officers for the strike force.

Because meth manufacturers sometimes take their operations across state lines, having a federal agent with the authority to track suspects into neighboring states will be beneficial, strike force coordinator Mike Strong said.

“With the federal guy with us, we wouldn’t have to stop,” he said.

Strong said the agent also has access to such crime-fighting tools as phone taps, asset forfeiture and abundant informational resources.