On the front page of the Friday November 26
th issue of The New York Times, there is an article by Christopher Flavelle , “
Saving History with Wet-Vacs in Washington”, which alerts the reader to the fact that, due to being built on former marsh land, the Smithsonian Institution museums-- foremost among them the National Museum of American History-- are in risk of flooding and their collecfions in risk of destruction. The Smithsonian has plans to build flood gates and move collections to storage facilities in Maryland. Lack of funds and the complication that several agencies share responsibility for controlling flooding have hindered those plans. In the meantime, museum employees put out plastic sheeting and use wet-vacs to remove water that comes into buildings when it rains. On the day after Thanksgiving slow news day, the threatened destruction of U.S. cultural heritage is front page news.
#ConservationintheNews