By J.B. Smith

Tribune-Herald staff writer

The city of Waco is countersuing an archaeological firm, blaming American Archaeology Group for allowing the city to expand the Texas Ranger Museum into an unmarked cemetery.

In a counterclaim to the firm’s breach of contract lawsuit, the city alleges AAG was negligent in green-lighting the construction of an annex behind the museum.

The city claims it proceeded with the expansion “based solely on AAG’s professional recommendation” and that the city now has to relocate some 150 human remains at an estimated cost of $1 million.

SLIDE SHOWS

Richard Thompson takes bones from museum expansion site / July 19, 2007

American Archaeology Group photos of grave excavations / March 2008

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Cemetery map

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See a 1968 map and gravestone registry from the relocation.

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COMPLETE COVERAGE

• 07-21-09  Waco City Council to consider 2 downtown TIF projects tonight 
• 07-20-09  Waco City Council to consider doling out more money for excavation work near Ranger museum 
• 05-12-09  National Park Service wants historic cemetery designation and other changes around Waco's Texas Ranger Museum 
• 12-16-08  Waco City Council to decide whether to spend another nearly $500,000 for Rangers Museum work 
• 10-29-08  Cemetery 'debacle' at Ranger Museum site will bring about new legislation, lawmaker says 
• 10-08-08  City of Waco countersues archaeological firm in Texas Ranger Museum project 
• 09-23-08  State legislator tours burial site at Texas Ranger Museum expansion 
• 09-08-08  Political charges fly over graveyard dig at Ranger Museum 
• 09-06-08  State calls inquiry on graves at Ranger museum site 
• 09-05-08  State funeral hearing's focus shifts to graves at Texas Ranger Museum expansion 
• 09-04-08  State agency hearing in Waco today on families' access to graves 
• 05-07-08  City OKs spending up to $350,000 to dig beneath graves for water line to museum 
• 05-06-08  Letting First Street Cemetery dead rest in peace will come at a cost, city leaders say 
• 04-27-08  Descendants of First Street Cemetery dead plea for peace at long last 
• 04-02-08  Museum grounds may be re-dedicated as old cemetery 
• 03-23-08  DEAD WRONG: Bad assumptions, ignorance played havoc with old city cemetery 
• 03-08-08  Firm says city mismanaged burial site at Ranger museum 
• 11-13-07  Grave concerns bedevil Texas Ranger Hall of Fame project 
• 08-06-07  Texas Ranger Museum gets OK to resume construction at site where bones were unearthed 
• 07-24-07  State officials scrutinizing loose human bones, ambitious museum plans 
• 07-20-07  Missing bones cause big beef for city, museum officials 
• 07-19-07  A bone to pick: Case of exposed skeletal remains 'gone awry' 

OPINION

• 04-03-08  Editorial: Re-dedicate old Waco cemetery 
• 03-25-08  Editorial: Solution, not blame needed at old cemetery 

“Had the city been advised that remains did in fact exist, it could have and would have re-evaluated the building location and relocated the expansion to an area where remains would not be encountered,” the counterclaim states.

City Attorney Leah Hayes said the city likely would seek damages that include the $1 million in archaeological expenses, the yet unknown cost of reinterring the bones in Rosemound Cemetery and payments for delays to contractors.

Hayes said the city wants to be reimbursed for all the money it has spent in the entire process at the site.

“If the survey had been done properly, we would not be building on that site. We didn’t intend to have to exhume and move any burials,” she said

AAG owner Michael Bradle called the city’s allegations part of “a misinformation campaign by city attorneys and museum staff who are deflecting for their own failures and gross negligence, and failures to properly manage the entire construction project.”

He blamed the city for failing to tell him from the beginning about the property’s past as a city cemetery and for starting work on utility trenches without getting archaeological clearance.

AAG sued the city in June, a few months after the city fired the firm from the archaeological project.

In its lawsuit filed in Waco’s 170th District Court, AAG charged that the city terminated a $437,000 archaeology contract without cause.

The city hired the company in October 2006 to survey the 8,000-square-foot site for the new Texas Ranger Museum education center and Texas Ranger Company F headquarters. City officials said they knew the museum grounds formerly had been part of First Street Cemetery but thought that the graves had been relocated in accordance with a 1967 court order.

The firm found no graves and recommended to the Texas Historical Commission that the city be allowed to continue with the project, saying in a letter that “archaeological monitoring is not necessary.”

On May 11, 2007, according to the counterclaim, construction crews dug into the site AAG surveyed and found part of a human skull. AAG returned and found more remains in that area. Later, after the foundation had been laid, city crews discovered an entire human skeleton partly covered by the foundation, according to the counterclaim.

Bradle said he was only hired to survey the top meter of soil in the building’s footprint. He said he would have gone deeper if he had known the property was a former graveyard.

“Had AAG and the (historical commission) known that the buildings were to be constructed on a cemetery, a different methodology, including scraping to a greater depth, would have been employed,” he said.

Also in May 2007, the city began digging utility trenches leading to the annex and discovered more bones. AAG was hired to monitor and excavate bodies along the trench, and that summer got a state antiquities permit for the work.

City officials said that when Bradle green-lighted the project in 2006, it was understood that the utilities were part of the project. Bradle disagrees.

“At no time during the first survey did the (city) request or AAG recommend that construction could proceed on utility lines outside of the pad of the buildings because (neither the historic commission) nor AAG were ever apprised of any proposed utility lines,” he said.

The city this March terminated the contract with AAG to hire another contractor. The reason was “the quality of the work, and the staffing or lack thereof,” Rick Bostwick, an attorney for the city, told the Waco City Council on Tuesday.

Hayes said American Archaeology failed to provide sufficient protection for the dig area and was not as systematic in the care of excavated material. She said the new contractor, PBS&J, has had to re-excavate trenches where AAG had missed human remains.

“This is our first experience with an excavation of this type,” she said. “We’re learning a lot about the archaeological process. What we’ve learned is that the initial contractor was not following the standards that professional archaeologists usually follow.”

Bradle stands by the work his firm did.

“AAG was doing a good job for the city of Waco despite the misinformation and failures of the planners and managers of the construction project,” he said.

jbsmith@wacotrib.com

757-5752