At 04:40 PM 11/27/00 -0700, Michael, Lee wrote:
>Background:
>
>Our company has recently experienced a small flood because of a fire
>sprinkler line break.   We have 30 cubic feet of records that sat in 3
>inches of "clean" water for approximately 6 hours before they were removed.
>The records are now frozen, awaiting the next steps.

You  speak of your "company", however your address is a
.gov domain.  The final disposition of many scientific/project
files is very much disputable on a case-by-case basis.


>All of the records are closed technical and research contract files
>representing many millions of dollars in contract value.  I believe these
>records are some of the most important in our company, and I also believe
>the records should be fully restored.  Some quick calculation identified
>that the cost of full restoration and paying for 10 years of freezer storage
>will be basically the same.
>I have been asked to justify to management why we should spend money to
>restore these records, rather than leave them frozen for the duration of the
>retention period (10 years).

Are these purely financial/contractual records?  What is the likelihood of
audit?  In the contractual science field, in my experience, the risk is
very high.

>I really see two primary problems with leaving
>the records frozen.  The first problem is access to the records for audits,
>reviews, etc.  The second problem is security of the records since they
>would be in a vendor facility.

Vendor facilities are secure, especially if the records are "frozen."


>Question:
>
>Are there other valid arguments that can be used to justify the restoration
>of these records?

Most contract records (Fed Gov) are disposable 6 yrs 3mos after final
payment.  Depending on the age (and I wonder how current the records
were if they were stored as your message implies, rather than active).  If,
however, these were project files containing STI, they may well be
considered permanent, in which case restoration is mandated.

Sorry, without further details I can not be more specific.

AoD
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>Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Lee Michael, CRM
>Records Program Manager
>National Renewable Energy Laboratory
>Golden, CO
>303-275-4213
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