[Nhcoll-l] Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) files a complaint with the Dept. of Interior IG accusing the USGS of neglecting its biological collections

[Bentley, Andrew Charles]

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.peer.org_news_news-2Dreleases_vast-2Dfederal-2Dbiological-2Dcollections-2Dat-2Drisk.html&d=AwIFAw&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=SSiOtmyx1QvbM-f5MC3n7aOCamfQmPT5R2Llk7IRmOM&s=ZEpK5Gi8KxvxXKcyt7oLK_1j7mcvTbEZnXz1WNQ7G_4&e= 

Also featured in Greenwire:

USGS: Agency biological collections in danger -- watchdog
Dylan Brown, E&E reporter
Published: Thursday, June 4, 2015
An environmental watchdog group accused the U.S. Geological Survey today of shirking its duty to preserve biological collections in its care.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed a complaint with the Interior Department's Office of Inspector General, which the advocacy group hopes will trigger a review of USGS's management of fossils, plants, animals and cultural artifacts.
PEER asked Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall to halt any current or pending decisions regarding USGS biological collections until a review is complete, noting a repository agreement with the University of New Mexico.
When the short-lived National Biological Survey was dissolved by Congress in 1996, USGS inherited huge collections assembled by researchers over the previous decades. The 136-year-old agency took on a new biological responsibilities, but PEER attorney Laura Dumais said the mandate never took, despite the key role USGS plays in ecological research nationwide.
"The evidence of our ecological heritage is in jeopardy of being lost or discarded," she said in a news release. "After all these years, it is surprising USGS leadership still apparently suffers from an anti-biology bias."
PEER said "the world's foremost earth science agency" lacks a complete or accurate inventory of biological collections, and also does not have any policies or guidelines on storage or management.
PEER said USGS policy is aiming to "control growth and costs of collections," putting legacy plant and animal specimens at risk of destruction or being given away to make room.
According to PEER, budgetary considerations are trumping scientific value as USGS classifies the bulk of non-mineral collections as "working collections" that are under no obligation to be preserved.
Dumais said USGS's governing law is past due for an update that incorporates the holistic nature of the agency's research and museum mandates. The 1879 Sundry Civil Act references depositing only "collections of rocks, minerals, soils, fossils, and objects of natural history, archaeology, and ethnology."
"A maxim of museum management says, 'A collection that is not growing is dying' by which measure the biological collections within USGS are simply awaiting extinction," Dumais said. "It is past time to set aside the interdisciplinary blinders."
In its complaint, PEER said, "While some of the issues raised by this request may seem a tad esoteric, in the minds of the scientists within the agency they go to the heart of the USGS's scientific mission. The ability to preserve and document the raw material supporting scientific conclusions, and fund collection care is a key component of whether USGS is doing 'good science' and following accepted professional practices."
USGS did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

    A  :             A  :             A  :
 }<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<)))_°>
    V                V                V
Andy Bentley
Ichthyology Collection Manager
University of Kansas
Biodiversity Institute
Dyche Hall
1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
Lawrence, KS, 66045-7561
USA

Tel: (785) 864-3863
Fax: (785) 864-5335
Email: abentley at ku.edu<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu&d=AwIFAw&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=SSiOtmyx1QvbM-f5MC3n7aOCamfQmPT5R2Llk7IRmOM&s=uj4k4IoRDUwZWZoGBBJWHMqTKi5Ht2Di2MQW5hk9cdw&e= <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu_&d=AwIFAw&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=SSiOtmyx1QvbM-f5MC3n7aOCamfQmPT5R2Llk7IRmOM&s=zyCUlmAk0mH063riVaWraoPZ-YIVDUdp9y9V4tKyvW0&e= >

SPNHC President
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.spnhc.org&d=AwIFAw&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=SSiOtmyx1QvbM-f5MC3n7aOCamfQmPT5R2Llk7IRmOM&s=RRBcExLzf80w3EDq83fquVB50CCfuehoDv6cbDLrA7c&e= <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.spnhc.org_&d=AwIFAw&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=CLFZJ3fvGSmDp7xK1dNZfh6uGV_h-8NVlo3fXNoRNzI&m=SSiOtmyx1QvbM-f5MC3n7aOCamfQmPT5R2Llk7IRmOM&s=OmIfmQfqC831XSBdXqfEo7GAxYcYqXmNgIZPCX_VKuE&e= >

                           :                 :
    A  :             A  :             A  :
 }<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<)))_°>
    V                V                V

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20150612/90c40489/attachment.html