As Climate Change Makes the North Country Wetter, More Archives are Plagued by Mold

By Lucy Grindon. Report for America Corps Member in Canton, NY. NCPR.

Climate change is making the North Country warmer and wetter. Extreme precipitation has increased by 20% or more throughout the Northeast over the last century or so, according to federal data.

All that water is damaging homes, property, and agricultural fields. It’s also causing an unexpected problem for museums.

Cathy Tedford directs the Brush Art Gallery at St. Lawrence University in Canton. She's worked there for over three decades. But last year, she saw something new in the archive. Something terrifying.

"We'd never had mold in the 35 years I'd been here," Tedford said.

Mold was growing right on the talons of a five-foot wooden owl sculpture. Tedford said a contractor from an art preservation firm, Lorna Brundrett, spotted it first and told her right away.

"It's shocking to hear, and nobody, you know, being a director of a collection, you don't want to hear that, right?" said Brundrett.

"It's the last thing you want to hear," Tedford replied.

But the problem has only gotten worse since then. Brundrett was back in the archive several weeks ago and found even more mold. Using a small flashlight, she pointed it out to Tedford, whose face fell as she noticed more and more spots.

Brundrett said the mold was able to grow in the archive because there was too much moisture in the air. It's measured by small electronic trackers placed on shelves around the room. Brundrett pointed to a graph of the space's relative humidity, with two lines on it to indicate a safe range.

"And what we can see from this graph, going back to 2022, is how much the humidity is going outside of those boundaries," Brundrett said.

Jeremy Linden runs the preservation firm Brundrett works for, Linden Preservation Services, based in Brockport. Linden has worked in libraries, museums, and archives throughout the country and the region.

"So what's happening here is really just one example of what cultural heritage institutions around the North Country, around northern New England, have been dealing with for the last few years, and we see it manifest in different ways. Here, it's sort of a long-term process. We're seeing this mold outbreak as a result of changing outdoor conditions over time," Linden said.

In other words, the humidity problem has a lot to do with climate change.

"As we see extremely wet events, storm events, wet summers, warm winters where it doesn't get as dry outside, the moisture content of the space just stays high and remains high," Linden said.

There's a law of physics that states warm air can hold more moisture than cold air. So, as an atmosphere gets warmer, it can also get wetter. Linden said that's causing trouble for archives all over the country, especially in the Northeast and the Midwest.

"Actually, in Minnesota and Wisconsin, the problems are very similar to here," Linden said. "The winters are different, the summers are hotter, the moisture content is higher."

Too much moisture is really bad for antique objects. It corrodes metal finishes and causes cracks to form as materials expand and contract. Plus, it encourages mold, which is bad for human health, stains objects, and spreads fast.

"To see it on a couple of objects 6 months ago, and now 10, 12, 15 objects today is heartbreaking, actually," said Tedford, the gallery director.

Tedford said students need tactile interactions with real objects to learn about history and culture.

"Students are so used to, these days, seeing images flipping through a screen. A lot of times, they'll come in, and they won't know if it's a painting or a drawing. You know? It's like, this is canvas! This is what canvas looks like!" she said.

To keep the art safe, Telford said the archive will need a whole new climate regulation system. The old one was installed about 15 years ago, and it doesn't control humidity. That was never a problem, until now.

Linden, the preservationist, said that climate change risks like higher humidity are reshaping his entire field.

"We didn't know to design to take care of this in the past, so we see more of these occurrences, we see more risk from mold, we see more risk from corrosion as we're moving forward. And I think that's true whether we're here in Canton, whether we're up in Potsdam, whether we're looking at the Adirondacks... Throughout the entire region, it's a very much shared challenge that we have to address, really throughout the entire profession, throughout the entire sector," Linden said.

For St. Lawrence, a new moisture regulation system will cost tens of thousands of dollars. But Tedford says that's just what it will take to keep up with climate change.