The federal Bureau of Land Management has postponed fire rehabilitation work after archaeologists found more American Indian artifacts in the west Utah desert than they expected.
The delay involving nearly 182,000 wildfire-scorched acres in Millard and Juab counties was ordered after Eugene Romanski, an archaeologist helping BLM survey the area, complained that inspections for artifacts were inadequate."A couple of our (in-house) archaeologists were developing the same concerns," said Garth Portillo, the BLM's state archaeologist in Utah. "They were just starting to compile their data and saying `Oh my. We didn't expect to find the densities and distribution of artifacts we're finding.' It's worth another look."
The BLM had hoped to remove dead vegetation and then seed the area with grasses and shrubs to stabilize the soils and reduce widespread erosion, said Richfield district manager Jerry Goodman.
Before proceeding, federal law requires BLM to check rehabilitation areas for "cultural resources," such as dinosaur bones or the artifacts left behind by American Indians and Western pioneers.
BLM brought in 25 archaeologists to help inventory sites identified as most likely to have artifacts.
Romanski, 36, of Southern California, was one of them. He thought BLM's process violated several laws, contending it "wrote off archaeological sites" of historic value in pushing the rehabilitation work.
"We're only being allowed to survey 20 percent of the burn area for artifacts," he said. "You can't extrapolate from what we'd done in sample surveys. That would be highly detrimental to prehistoric sites, some of which are 8,000 to 10,000 years old and represent the nation's older and least understood . . . heritage."
He especially did not like the plan to use "chaining," dragging a thick chain between two bulldozers to uproot dead pinon and cedar trees killed by the fires.
Goodman, the district manager, did not hear of Romanski's opinions firsthand. Romanski complained directly to agency officials in Washington, to reporters and to environmental groups.
"I didn't think (local BLM officials) would take any action, and time was of the essence," Ro-man-ski said. "It's always a fight for archaeologists."
On Friday, his concerns were aired in a conference call involving Mat Millenbach, the assistant BLM director in Washington (and former BLM state director in Utah); current state director Bill Lamb; their key staff members; Portillo and staff members from the Richfield and Fillmore districts.
They decided additional survey work was needed.
"Sample surveys said our basic assumptions about the archaeology of the area were wrong," said Portillo. "We're trying to do the right thing here and not go off willy-nilly and be harmful to the resources and be sorry about it later."
A meeting has been scheduled for next week to go over facts, maps and other information.