[NHCOLL-L:3928] RE: Wet collections underground?

[John Early]

Thank you so much for all your wonderful responses and the leads you
have given.  Now for a lot of follow up.  What's clear is that no
country has a consistent set of regulations, or at least a consistent
application of regulations.  I really appreciate your support and
advice.
 
Best wishes to you all
 
John
Curator of Entomology 
Auckland War Memorial Museum 
Private Bag 92018 
Auckland, NEW ZEALAND 
phone +64 9 306 7042  fax +64 9 306 7091 
jearly at aucklandmuseum.com 


________________________________

From: owner-nhcoll-l at lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-nhcoll-l at lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of John Early
Sent: Thursday, 24 July 2008 2:12 p.m.
To: NHCOLL-L at lists.yale.edu
Subject: [NHCOLL-L:3924] Wet collections underground?



Dear colleagues

 

Does anyone know of a museum or similar institution anywhere in the
world that has wet collections or flammable dangerous goods stored
underground?

 

The reason I ask...

 

The Auckland Museum would like to build a collection store for its wet
collections (mostly 70% ethanol, small fraction in formalin) in part of
an existing but underutilised underground car park.  We are getting the
run around from the NZ authorities whose approval is required and who
seem to keep changing the rules. We've met all the design conditions
regarding fire rated walls, floors and ceilings, ventilation systems,
fire suppression, secondary containment etc but now they are saying "no"
because the store will be underground (why couldn't they have said that
in the first place?).  It seems that they haven't had a similar
application before, don't really know how to handle it apart from just
saying no, and are making up the rules as they go.  Our slim but only
hope is to demonstrate that it has been done elsewhere where it has
satisfied building codes and standards.

 

Please get in touch with me if you are able to help.

 

Many thanks

 

John Early

Curator of Entomology

jearly at aucklandmuseum.com

________________________________

This e-mail message has been scanned for Viruses and Content and cleared
by MailMarshal 
________________________________


#####################################################################################
This e-mail message has been scanned for Viruses and Content and cleared 
by MailMarshal
#####################################################################################
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/private/nhcoll-l/attachments/20080725/628fda0c/attachment.html