An archaeological firm that was fired from a job excavating human bones at the city’s Texas Ranger museum expansion site is claiming the city has mismanaged the project.

The city this week terminated a $437,000 contract with American Archaeology Group to relocate human remains from the site, a former burial ground. Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum director Byron Johnson said the city chose to “part ways” with the firm over differences of opinion about the archaeological process, but he said he can’t say much more because the firm has threatened a lawsuit.

Officials with the archaeology group, which is based in Lampasas, say the city hasn’t told them why they were axed. However, they believe the contract was canceled because their work was too thorough for the city’s liking.

The firm also claims the city was ultimately responsible for alleged mistakes made during the project, including:

* Utility lines installed in areas that were not archaeologically cleared or approved by the Texas Historical Commission for construction work. Human remains were subsequently discovered under the lines, including full skeletons.

* Museum workers picked up bones from the site without documenting where they came from, contrary to state protocol making it less likely that the bones can be properly identified.

* The city failed to provide accurate information about the site’s history early in the project. The company says it has uncovered documents proving the area was once the official city cemetery and therefore likely contains thousands of bodies.

If that information had been known before the expansion started, the firm says, the state might have prohibited construction there. At a minimum, more stringent guidelines would have been put in place to minimize the impact to the burials, they say.

James Bruseth, the Texas Historical Commission official overseeing the project, said there’s no question errors have been made during the course of the project, such as unapproved utility lines being installed. He also said the archaeology group has done a good job.

At the same time, Bruseth said he believes the city understands the state’s expectations for the project and wants to finish the job accordingly. Every time a problem has come up — whether it was an unapproved pipe or bones being improperly collected — the city has addressed it, he said.

Timeline in question

The issue at the center of the controversy, Bruseth said, appears to be the project’s timeline. He said his understanding is that the city wants to speed up the archaeological process.

The city may be able to do that by hiring a company that would put more workers at the site, Bruseth said. The commission would have no objection to that, as long as the new firm follows the agreed-upon protocols, he said.

The historical commission’s main objective is to see that the project is completed with the least possible impact to the burials, Bruseth said.

“That’s in the best interest of everyone,” he said.

The city plans to hire another contractor to take over the work, Johnson said. He added that the city’s priority is following the methodologies the state has set for the project.

Construction on the museum campus began more than a year ago. The project includes a new headquarters building for Company F of the Texas Rangers as well as a new education building for the museum.

From the beginning, city officials suspected the construction zone contained some human remains. They said they knew the museum site was a burial ground, possibly serving as an informal pauper’s cemetery around the turn of the 20th century.

When the museum was built in the late 1960s, the city got a court order allowing it to remove and relocate bones and grave markers from the site. However, city officials said they expected some burials likely were missed.

That’s why the city hired American Archaeology Group. Before construction started, the company studied the footprint of the new buildings and found traces of old grave sites but no human remains.

Based on that finding, the city started work on the buildings. But in May 2007, utility crews discovered bones as they were digging a trench for a pipe to connect to the building, according to the archaeologist and city officials.

Johnson said he couldn’t comment on whether there had been archaeological study of the path of the pipeline before construction began. He said that’s a “point of contention” between the city and the archaeologist.

The discovery of the bones prompted the historical commission to demand plans from the city showing that future work would minimize the impact to the human remains.

That process delayed work at the site for a couple of months, but it soon resumed.

By last fall, however, it was apparent the situation was more complex than the city anticipated. Not only was the archaeology team finding more skeletons than anticipated, but many were stacked on top of each other, making removal trickier.

In mid-November, the city council increased the project budget from $100,000 to $437,000. At the time, museum officials said the money should cover the worst-case scenario, which they described as moving 180 burials.

Johnson this week estimated that 130 to 150 remains have been discovered, and he said he has no idea how many remain or how much they will cost to relocate.

About $88,000 of the money budgeted for the project is left, he said.

Michael Bradle, president of the archaeology group, said his firm exhumed more than 160 burials and identified at least 20 more before its contract was terminated Thursday. Finishing the current construction might require relocating hundreds more graves, he said.

The firm was more than willing to do the work, even though the scope of the project was vastly expanded.

But starting in late November, he began to sense tension with city officials.

One issue was a series of unapproved utility digs the company brought to the city’s attention, Bradle said. He claims that several pipes, a gas line and a fire hydrant were installed in unexamined areas that turned out to contain bones.

Johnson, the museum director, said he couldn’t comment on those claims.

The intrusions were probably unintentional, Bradle said, but they damaged the site and jeopardized the Texas Historical Commission permit that allowed his firm to do the work.

Bradle’s group uncovered multiple burials along the path of the utility line and documented them with photos. Those photos show the human component of the project.

In one picture, the skeleton of a woman lies under a blue water pipe. Her dress is still intact, and the material is synthetic, suggesting the burial was as late as the 1950s or ‘60s, Bradle says.

In another picture, a skeleton lies in the dirt under the intersection of several pipes.

Bradle says the breach of protocol was probably unintentional and the result of a lack of coordination among those involved in the project. Still, he said he finds it difficult to understand why museum staff did not pick up on the errors. They have told him they walked the construction site daily when archaeological crews were not there, he said.

Ultimately, it was the museum staff that was responsible for overseeing the project, he said.

“I think the big problem in this whole thing is a lack of proper management,” Bradle said.

Officials from the building contractor hired by the city, Imperial Construction of Weatherford, could not be reached by the Tribune-Herald on Friday.

Shortly after the problems were brought to the city’s attention, Bradle said museum staff started expressing concern that the pace of the work was too slow and the company didn’t have enough workers.

Bradle agreed that the work could be sped up with more help, but the city wouldn’t pay him to hire more workers. He said his crews already had done more work than they had been paid for.

Without more resources, Bradle said he told city officials there was no way his company could do the job well and still be done by the end of February, as the city had hoped. He says he suggested that the work would take several months, he said.

In late February, the company received the termination notice. Bradle said he has still received no explanation for the termination.

American Archaeology officials said they were never told outright to cut corners, but museum staff sometimes made seemingly joking comments such as “stop finding burials.”

“There was kind of an underlying message,” said John Griggs, senior vice president of the company. “They were joking, but they still made it known that they wanted us to get it done.”

Bradle is vowing not to give up the state permit that allows his company to work at the site. He says there were no timelines contained in the contract with the city and no termination provisions.

Not only is the company legally entitled to finish the work, Bradle said, but it wants to make sure the job is done right. He doesn’t know which firm the city wants to hire to replace his company, but he said not all archaeological outfits are as thorough or ethical as his.

“We’re seriously concerned about what happens out there,” he said.

Bruseth, from the historical commission, said a fight over the permit could play out in several ways. The commission could decide to leave Bradle’s company as the sole permit holder. It could yank Bradle’s and issue one to a new firm. Or it could allow Bradle to keep his permit but issue a second one to another company.

“Exactly what the commission’s position on this will be has not been determined,” Bruseth said.

The expansion is a joint project between the city of Waco and the state of Texas.

Johnson, the museum director, said the city is not trying to rush the project.

“We’ve done everything we can, including shutting down work on the buildings, which are currently mothballed,” he said. “We’ve got to see the proper remediation. The state of Texas is not pushing us. They know we’re trying to do it correctly in the interest of all parties involved.”

cculp@wacotrib.com

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jbsmith@wacotrib.com

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