Preservation poor at Interior's museums

WASHINGTON — Inspectors say it is just one too-typical example of how Interior Department agencies care for — or don't — the artifacts in their museums and research.

At the Boston National Historic Park, "antique furniture, carts and bicycles were stacked on top of each other or were leaning against each other without protection" in a storage area, a new inspector general report says.

At California's Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, pests threatened displays of historic furniture. But "pest-management controls were removed from the site due to the large volume of pests being trapped, and they were unable to keep up with removing the pests being caught," the report says.

"Countless artwork, artifacts and other museum objects are in jeopardy" because proper preservation and protection has been neglected at sites nationwide, according to reports on five separate Interior agencies released by the department's inspector general Friday.

None of the sites visited for the reports were in Utah. However, Utah was where a large federal raid occurred last year on private sellers of Indian artifacts found on public land. Officials then said such people were robbing the nation of its heritage. The new reports say poor preservation at federal museums may be doing the same.

The new reports follow up a report issued in December that said the department largely doesn't know what is in its collections, often doesn't know if items were obtained legally and didn't appear to care for many items properly.

To determine better what deficiencies in preservation may exist, the inspector general developed a 44-item checklist of the most key preservation steps required by department rules and then sent inspectors to look at 39 museums or holding sites nationwide to evaluate performance.

Reports said 38 of the 39 museums visited had at least one deficiency, and "even one deficiency could jeopardize museum objects and result in irreparable harm, irreversible damage, or loss." The Golden Gate National Recreational Area in California was found deficient in 80 percent of the checklist items.

Inspectors reported what they termed "widespread issues" and problems at facilities operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Fish and Wildlife Service. For example, they said no BIA sites "monitored temperature and/or humidity to determine its impact on the condition of artwork and/or artifacts."