USGS Escapes Interior Shutdown

You may remember the times a couple years ago when the National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey, and other agencies of the Department of the Interior had their Web sites shut down for months on end. It was all connected to a judge's order in a case involving Indian tribal royalties. Judge Royce Lamberth shut down the servers again yesterday, claiming the agency still hadn't protected its data from hackers and corruption. This time, though, the USGS and NPS showed that they had fixed the problems and were allowed to stay up. Now if they can just keep their budgets from erosion...

In other USGS news, the Western Regional Office in California seems to have finally lost a decades-long battle to stay in the San Francisco Bay area. It will be moving to Tucson, an AP story reported last week.

Visit the USGS site and help celebrate the agency's 125th birthday.