Now’s not the time for finger pointing or assigning blame.

Instead, Waco needs to find ways to continue the many praiseworthy plans for the riverfront grounds of Fort Fisher and the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum.

Recent excavations on the site of Waco’s most popular museum have uncovered burials from the old Waco cemetery originally located where expansions to Fort Fisher are under way.

In 1968, the city obtained a court order for the “disinterment and relocation of the interred bodies and/or grave markers” in the old cemetery to make room for Fort Fisher. Apparently grave markers were moved, but not many of the interred bodies.

Over the intervening 40 years, Fort Fisher has been used as an RV park and the annual Brazos River Festival, as well as becoming home of the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum.

Besides expansions to the Texas Rangers facilities on the 35-acre site, plans also include extending Waco’s riverwalk past the museum.

The riverwalk extension is part of an overall plan to complete the riverwalk on both sides of Lake Brazos from Baylor University through downtown and on to Cameron Park before looping back along the same distance on the east side of the river.

The completion of this project is important to the continued growth and rejuvenation of downtown. A completed riverwalk would be complemented by hotels, restaurants and other businesses.

To their credit, museum officials hired an archaeologist to survey the site before work began on the education building and Company F headquarters.

When American Archaeology surveyed the 8,000-square-foot site for the new buildings in August, 2006, no graves were found. The crew found remains of masonry structures and some bone fragments but concluded that the graves had been removed.

Since then, more than 160 bodies have been found along the path of a utility line that is being dug toward the new Texas Ranger Company F building and education center behind the museum.

An estimated 200 more graves might be discovered along the line, according to the Texas Historical Commission’s archaeology division.

It could be that much of the Fort Fisher site still contains graves of former Waco residents dating back from before the Civil War up until the 1960s.

In some cases, bodies were buried on top of bodies three deep.

Before obtaining a court order to relocate the old cemetery that became Fort Fisher, in 1968 city officials published a notice of the plans to relocate the old cemetery and received no responses from descendents of the deceased.

No purpose would be served to second-guess what happened 40 years ago. At this point, the important thing is to openly and forthrightly confront the current problem and do whatever is necessary to move forward with plans for the long-term benefit of Waco.