And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
From: "hansenhouse" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "FN" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: 'DIPITY ~ More Indian remains found at Blaine site ~
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 09:15:03 -0800
More Indian remains found at Blaine site
Wednesday, November 17, 1999
By PHUONG LE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Skeletal remains of an additional 55 Native Americans have been uncovered in the
mounds of dirt excavated from Blaine's waste-water treatment plant.
Archaelogists expect to find more bones, but recovery efforts were halted last week
when the Lummi Indian Tribe ran out of money to pay for it, tribal leaders said
yesterday.
The tribe is asking the city of Blaine to help pay the costs after workers building a
$7.6 million expansion of the city's wastewater plant unearthed the remains of 40
Native Americans in July.
City officials knew the site was an Indian burial ground but did not notify tribal
leaders. They also allowed some of the bones to be carried out of state.
Dirt excavated for the city's project was kept at the wastewater plant as well as
trucked to a private landfill about 7 miles away. Last month, a crew of 25 workers and
archaelogists began sifting through about 10,000 cubic meters of dirt at the landfill,
Lummi project manager Raynette Finkbonner said.
So far they have recovered remains belonging to 55 individuals, she said. This is in
addition to the remains city workers dug up in July and August.
Lummi workers had sifted through only 2 percent of the dirt, dumped over a 3-acre area
on the landfill, before money ran out, Finkbonner said. Tribal leaders are launching a
campaign to raise about $1.2 million to pay for expenses. They also want the city to
pitch in.
Recovery efforts cost about $25,000 a week and are expected to take from two to five
years.
"It's very critical," Finkbonner said. Until all remains are recovered, "we have open
graves and our ancestors are exposed."
In September, the tribe filed its intent to seek $30 million in damages from Blaine.
The claim asks for $10 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in punitive
damages.
The city has not responded to that claim, Blaine City Manager Anthony Mortillaro said.
For the past three weeks, tribal leaders and city officials have been working with a
mediator, a retired state Supreme Court judge, to hammer out a plan on how to proceed.
The tribe wants Blaine, a city of 3,800 half a mile south of the Canadian border, to
find a new site for its wastewater plant. Tribal leaders want to rebury the remains
where they were found, and they want the grounds to be designated a cemetery.
"We understand that they need to upgrade their services, but we have our needs also,"
said Timothy Ballew, chairman of the Lummi Indian Business Council, the tribe's
elected ruling body.
Problems came to light in August when a tribal member on a routine visit discovered
that skeletal remains had been dug up at the site. The U.S. Department of
Agriculture's Rural Development Office, which provided some of the project's funding,
issued a stop-work order on construction.
City officials admitted they violated an agreement they signed with tribal, state and
federal officials. That agreement required the city to notify the tribe if remains
were discovered at the work site.
Respect for ancestors is a way of life for the Lummi tribe and members want to recover
and repatriate the remains as soon as possible, Ballew said.
P-I reporter Phuong Le can be reached at 206-903-0728 or
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Sierra Club leads drive to guard legacy of Lewis and Clark
© 1999 Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
All rights reserved.
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine
of international copyright law.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
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