Caroline Walters wrote:
I have a question - what type of record would your business retain for 300 years???  I'm having a hard time seeing where a 300 year old business record would be retained for business reasons - can you help with an example?

Hazmat disposal manifests, asbestos disposal/abatement, facilities decommissioning records where studies of toxic substances occurred, property records where these facilities were located, soil analysis records. The organization may not own the property any longer and contamination may have occurred with successive owners if a lab/manufacturing facility was taken over by a another organization decades later. This starts getting into the Superfund liability issue. The risk for most organizations is low, but it's good if you can prove there was no contamination present the last time your organization had any involvement in the situation.

Sure you can get rid of those records legally. I have also been told by those in the hazmat field(those working it in for over 40 years) the successor liability not only can apply to the offender(hazmat disposal contractor licensed by the gov't) but to its clients as well should a contamination event be discovered and the offending contractor/organization no longer exists and the gov't can no longer reasonably expect to recover any damages from the parties directly responsible. It is my understanding that having records detailing what you disposed of and in what quantities can reduce or absolve your organization or its successor liability in these matters(search for CERCLA Successor liability). In other words, a site is contaminated with something that remains toxic for centuries and it was caused by your organization's contractor. Your organization has records detailing what disposal services this contractor performed for you and that you never had anything close to the contaminate in question. Is the organization out of the woods? No, but it certainly is in a much better position legally than it would be without those records.

This issue has come up in Kansas City, MO. A site was found to be contaminated with all sorts of horrible things in downtown Kansas City. Who was responsible? The current owners? No, the site was used as a early coal fired power around 1900 and now time has come to clean up the mess. Who can be held responsible? To my knowledge the current owners never had any business actives that had anything to do with the contamination. A century later and this issue is only now starting to be addressed.

In following up to Caroline's other question: after 300 years you should have a pretty good idea of the risk level if you have a problem or not from a liability issue. Is the retention too high? Maybe. A lot of the early defense superfund cleanup from the 1940s is still going on today after more than 70 years with no end in sight. I certainly don't see environmental laws of this nature becoming more lenient in the future.

If these records make it 300 years would they still be destroyed or would they be transferred out as historical? I can't answer that. My mission so to speak is to try and get them to goal if at all possible.

Rob Seibolt
Email
Senior Records Analyst
Midwest Research Institute, Kansas City, MO
http://www.mriresearch.org/


-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Walters, Caroline (cw8de)
Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 4:13 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: NOW Permanent 300 years/WAS: Records Management Myths? Clarification

Robert,

I have a question - what type of record would your business retain for 300 years???  I'm having a hard time seeing where a 300 year old business record would be retained for business reasons - can you help with an example?

Caroline J. Walters, MA, MLS

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