I was just down near Roanoke Island on vacation.
Although they're unclear, my guess is that the lens was in some National Park Service building at Fort Raleigh (the "Lost Colony") site.
So, the short answer is that WE have been picking up the storage tab.
Oh well... at least they found it.
It makes one wonder how much other stuff is stored in warehouses across America that is just sitting there waiting to be found. Does the government catalog all this stuff in national data base? And if they do I wonder how hard it would be to access the lists?