SOUTH DEERFIELD — While the risk of damage is low, a recent radiator leak at the South County Senior Center has accelerated town officials’ efforts to move records stored in the building’s vault.
The leak, which occurred in the kitchen away from the vault, has attracted the attention of the Secretary of State’s Office, which is the governing body of town documents across the state, as municipalities are required by law to protect historical records.
Deb O’Malley, a spokesperson for the secretary of state, said her office is looking into what exactly happened.
“Once they have more information, they’ll be sending the state archivist to do a site visiit,” O’Malley said.
Several people in town said records being stored in the Senior Center has been a persistent issue and the leak is driving it to the forefront, even if it’s not serious.
“This has been an ongoing issue,” said Historical Commission Chair John Nove. “The leak is almost irrelevant, except for pushing us to do things faster.”
The vault contains thousands upon thousands of town records from at least the 17th century, of which more than 6,000 have been digitized. Peter Thomas, a retired historian in Deerfield working on creating digital copies of the documents, said there are still thousands more to go through. Thomas also helped lead the steeple repairs at the South Deerfield Congregational Church in November.
“Deerfield is probably one of the most documented towns in the state,” Thomas said, “in terms of the records that it’s got.”
O’Malley said the Heritage Emergency National Task Force, which is sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), reached out to the Secretary of State’s Office after Thomas called them seeking advice.
The challenge, Nove said, is dealing with potential mold contamination as the documents have been stored in the building for three decades.
Nove said “things are in the process of happening,” as a solution of having the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association (PVMA) store the documents is being worked out.
Thomas said the records should be moved to a more secure place, as the vault is always slightly cracked open, exposing the documents to the building’s mold issues, because nobody knows the combination to the vault.