Feds' stewardship abysmal

Ancient pot, meet ancient kettle.

A new internal audit says the Department of Interior largely does not know what is in its collection or whether the items were obtained legally. Moreover, the Interior Department does not properly care for many of the items in its custody, according to an inspector general's report released this past week.

This would be the same Department of Interior that railed on 24 men and women, mostly Utahns, charged in federal court last summer in the theft and sale of more than 250 American Indian artifacts from public lands in the Four Corners region.

At the time, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar cautioned, "Let this case serve notice to anyone considering breaking these laws and trampling our nation's cultural heritage that the BLM, the Department of Justice and the federal government will track you down and bring you to justice."

Indeed, unearthing ancient artifacts, and taking them home for personal enjoyment or sale, is wrong. It's illegal and it eliminates the opportunity for experts to carefully excavate these items and learn more how ancient Pueblo people lived. Worse, it demonstrates profound disrespect for items that represented the heritage and sacred beliefs of ancient peoples.

To a large degree, however, many of the same conclusions could be drawn regarding the Department of Interior's care of many priceless items in its possession, according to the report.

"Because the preservation of the collections at many Department of Interior sites has been neglected, countless (items of) artwork, artifacts and other museum objects are in jeopardy," it said.

The department is responsible for museum collections second in size only to the Smithsonian Institution. It has an estimated 146 million items in its collections, although only about 78 million of them have been catalogued.

Because the items cannot be accounted for, they are essentially unavailable for research, educational use or display. Having no reliable record of these objects renders them vulnerable to "theft, deterioration and damage," the report said.

None of the facilities that were reviewed for purposes of this audit was in Utah. However, the lack of control over any of these items should be an affront to all Americans who expect the Interior Department to be careful stewards of these priceless artifacts.

Otherwise, Salazar's admonishments ring hollow.