Archeological Find Unearths Furious Debate : Artifacts: Handling of bones at dig entwines site’s developer, Native Americans, politicians, environmentalists and archeologists. Now district attorney is asked to investigate.

HUNTINGTON BEACH —  The place looks like little more than an abandoned work site now.

On a windy winter day, the heavy smell of damp earth rises from the ground. And amid an array of metal storage trailers, the landscape is dotted with piles of loosened dirt.

It wasn’t always that way. Once, archeologists believe, this 7.4-acre site near the Bolsa Chica wetlands was a large village teeming with the life and culture of an ancient civilization. There, men and women, they say, spent significant portions of their lives doing the things that people have always done to survive.

In recent years, in fact, the site has become what many describe as one of the richest archeological digs in the state, yielding an abundance of important Native American artifacts. Among them are hundreds of “cog stones”--gear-like objects, the purpose of which remains a mystery. And two years ago, scientists unearthed several human-bone fragments purported to be about 8,000 years old, including a portion of a skull bearing a human-bored hole.

“It’s a very important site,” said Patricia Martz, a professor of anthropology at Cal State Los Angeles, and chairwoman of the state Historical Resources Commission. “It’s one of the very few we have from that time period.”

The rub is that the place is smack in the middle of a controversial proposal for a multimillion-dollar development that would put 4,286 new homes near the wetlands. Thus the recent discovery, while delighting archeologists, has put the project at the center of a furious debate that has some City Council members calling for a grand jury investigation.

At issue: Did the Koll Real Estate Group, which owns the property, properly handle and report the discovery of the bones, or did it try to cover up the find to safeguard building plans? The argument has drawn environmentalists and politicians already opposed to the project, archeologists with academic interests, state bureaucrats with laws to uphold and various factions of Native Americans.

On Saturday morning, about 60 angry Native Americans staged a protest on the steps of Huntington Beach City Hall.

“We will not be manipulated and intimidated,” said Jim Velasques, chief of the coastal Gabrieleno Shoshone tribe and one of the protest’s organizers. “No more secrecy in a closed room; we want to know what’s going on out there.”

Although officials say that the controversy is unlikely to derail the project entirely, it already has resulted in calls within the Huntington Beach City Council for a court injunction against the developer as well as the grand jury investigation. A recent hearing on the proposed development drew 600 residents.

Lucy Dunn, senior vice president of the Koll Group, said, “We’ve abided by the law and followed all procedures.”

The controversy began last month when opponents of the project leaked to the press an internal memo written by a forensic anthropologist hired by the Orange County coroner’s office to examine the bones found at the site in 1992. In the memo, Judy Myers Suchey, a faculty member at Cal State Fullerton, described the bones as “very old, approximately 8,000 years,” and therefore of serious interest to archeologists.

Dunn acknowledged Saturday that a number of other bones were found earlier at the site, but said she couldn’t comment on their scientific importance.

What angered project opponents was that no mention of the 1992 find had been made in the county’s draft environmental impact report on the project released late last year. “It’s a significant omission,” said Flossie Horgan, president of the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, which opposes the development on environmental grounds. “Our major concern is credibility.”

According to those involved in the process, the omission resulted primarily from bureaucratic delays.

Koll company officials say that they reported the existence of the bones to the coroner’s office--as required by law--in June, 1992, shortly after determining that the remains were human.

A spokesman for the coroner’s office could not confirm that date, but said that he was unaware of any attempt by the company to skirt the law. “They have cooperated fully,” Jim Beisner, chief deputy coroner, said of the Koll company’s efforts.

And Tom Mathews, director of planning for the county’s Environmental Management Agency which oversaw preparation of the environmental impact report, said the latest archeological finds at Bolsa Chica were not mentioned in the document because studies to determine their scientific significance had not yet been completed.

“I’m not going to put a letter from Judy Suchey to the coroner” in the environmental impact report, Mathews said. “That’s not a report; it’s her opinion, and I want to see how this information is interpreted by the scientific community.”

A report on the bones being prepared by Nancy Whitney-Desautels, a state-certified archeologist hired by the Koll company, is expected to be released well in advance of the county Board of Supervisors’ vote on the environmental impact report next fall, Mathews said. If she concludes that the Bolsa Chica bones are scientifically significant, Mathews said, that information will be included in the final impact report to be used as a basis for future decisions on issuing construction permits.

“It could significantly modify the project,” Mathews said, adding that the developers conceivably could be forced to build around the archeological site, which constitutes only a small portion of the proposed 400-acre construction zone.

Such assurances, however, did little to mollify critics, some of whom have said they believe that the Koll company may have engaged in a cover-up. At a recent city hearing attended by 600 residents, in fact, those suspicions found voice in a motion by City Councilman Ralph Bauer, who requested a temporary restraining order against further disturbance of the site and calling for a grand jury investigation into the company’s handling of the archeological finds.

“To me this is really significant,” said Councilman David Sullivan, who seconded the motion. “Is the Koll company following the law? How much did they know about the significance of this site when they just went on doing their excavations?”

The motion was eventually tabled while the city’s staff prepares a report on its legal ramifications. The matter is expected to be decided in about two weeks.

In the meantime, a new group of protesters has entered the fray: Native Americans who say they have been kept in the dark regarding the discovery and disposition of the bones of their ancestors.

The company has employed several Native American monitors since the project’s beginnings. Recommended by various archeologists involved in the project, the three monitors, each representing a specific tribal group, have been on hand during all of the excavations at the site and subsequent discussions regarding the findings.

Recently, however, another group--identified by the state’s Native American Heritage Commission as the most likely descendants of the individuals whose remains were discovered at Bolsa Chica--have challenged the right of the Koll-employed monitors to act on their behalf. “They don’t speak for us,” Velasques said.

So instead of accepting a recent invitation by the Koll company to meet for a discussion on the disposition of their ancestors’ remains, the group staged a protest Saturday morning. The protesters--a few bearing signs such as “No Development; Respect Native Americans”--listened to speeches denouncing the proposed project before watching a lively dance put on by a troupe of Aztecs from Los Angeles.

“The greed has got to stop,” said Cindi Alvitre, a Gabrieleno and director of a Native American maritime cultural society in Long Beach. “Who gave them the right to rape my ancestors? We are demanding an investigation of the crimes imposed on my people by the Koll company. Leave the land alone!”

Archeologists, meanwhile, say they are eager to begin learning the lessons that the land may have to teach.

Among those lessons: What did these early Californians eat, what was their stature, how long did they live, what sort of medical problems did they have and were they rich or poor?

“This could fill a gap in our knowledge,” said Constance Cameron, curator of the Museum of Anthropology at Cal State Fullerton. “When you haven’t had the remains to study, you don’t know much.”

With development inching closer, however, the time may be short.

“Once this site is gone,” she said, “it’s gone. It’s a non-renewable resource.”