Rain, Mildew, Pigeons Ruining State Archives

The state archives--110 million irreplaceable historic documents housed in a leaky former printing plant--are being destroyed by rain, mildew and pigeons, officials say.

“The California State Archives building is a disaster waiting to happen,” said Secretary of State March Fong Eu, who oversees the archives program. “The current archives building is totally unsuited for storing the state’s historical records.”

The three-story building lacks a fire sprinkler system, temperature or humidity controls, and it has taken its toll on the documents, some which date back to Spanish rule.

Unprotected Against Elements

An unexamined collection of ledgers, maps, journals, deeds, registers, photographs and other legal and political documents are stored in boxes. But that is not enough to protect them from the elements.

Pigeons that have brought repeated insect infestation to the archives are kept from nesting in the air vents by a length of wire mesh suspended over a light well.

The top two floors of the building do not have a fire sprinkler system. Big sheets of plastic cover several rows of documents on the top floor in an effort to keep the rain out.

“The most damaging thing to paper is temperature fluctuation,” said John Burns, the state’s chief of archives, adding that a constant temperature of 65 degrees is needed.

The archives now have an average temperature range between 40 and 90 degrees.

Important Sources

Burns said the archives are an important source of information for authors, researchers or genealogists who want to trace their roots.

“This is not the province of an elite group of scholars,” he said. “We handle more than 15,000 individual requests for information a year, but so little was done for so long, much of the material we do have is not accessible in this decrepit building.”

A recently completed, unreleased study estimates the cost of a new building at $11 million and the cost of renovation at $7 million.

The report is likely to become the focus of debate in Sacramento about whether the state can afford such spending.

The current budget is $900,000. But James Rhoades, former United States archivist, said in a study that the amount “falls far short of (what is) needed to properly administer the state’s archives.”