Forest Service's Preservation Problem

Here's the "ouch" statistic of the day, courtesy of Lyndsey Layton in the Washington Post, about an agency that's responsible for managing literally millions of American cultural resources: "In 2004, the Forest Service turned away more than one-third of the people seeking to help agency archaeologists because it did not have the resources to organize them."

Part of the reason is that an increasing share of the agency's budget is going to firefighting. And as a result, many sites, from Civil War battlefields to cabins built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, are falling into ruins. But it's hard to tell exactly how many, because the Forest Service simply doesn't know how many sites of archaeological or historical importance are on the lands under its control. The National Trust for Historic Preservation is pushing Congress to double the agency's budget for managing culturally important resources.