Hush-hush archaeology
How scientists and Native Americans pulled off a major dig before the feds triple border fence destroyed everything
By Gayle Early -
http://www.sdcitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/hush_hush_archaeology/7880/During the past year, archaeologists have been digging like mad to preserve one of the last remaining ancient Indian village sites in coastal Southern California, racing against the claw of the bulldozers and massive grind of the steam rollers to get the work done before the federal government erases in one year what had managed to survive for millennia.
And they did it in almost complete secrecy.
By April 2008, then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had waived 36 environmental and cultural laws that could otherwise block completion of a triple border fence. Congress granted him this authority in 2005, with the passage of the so-called REAL ID Act.
That amounted to an end run around the National Environmental Policy Act, Native American Graves and Repatriation Act, Indian Religious Freedom Act, National Historic Preservation Act, Archaeological Resources Protection Act and so on, down to the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act—laws protecting communities, farms, forests, watersheds, wildlife, antiquities, habitats, migration corridors and cultural resources.
In the interest of national security, the feds claimed eminent domain ...................