But did Buffalo's Big Dig do more for history (and historical archaeology)  
than it did to satisfy the visceral treasure-hunters' dreams? I think most  
people on HISTARCH have experienced emergency salvage projects where the laws  
either did not exist or circumstances required heroic action, but the problem  
with rush jobs is there is no provision for carry-through in the cleaning,  
conservation, cataloguing, and long-term curation. Usually, this results in a  
massive dumping of all but the antique-quality items. Did the visceral  
entertainment value of the Big Dig result in a true recovery for posterity? Only  time 
will tell.
 
Back in the 1979-1981 time period, California land developers and real  
estate lobbyists made a push to remove the word "archaeology" from the  California 
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA, as noted by "shrineinfo," is our  local 
equivalent of NEPA). Leaders of the Society for California Archaeology  (SCA) held 
an emergency meeting at the San Jose Airport and then a follow-up  meeting in 
Fresno, California at the SCA Annual Meeting to raise BIG money to  hire 
Ternes & Houston, a professional lobby firm in Sacramento, who  would help counter 
the devastating propaganda spread by the developer's  lobbyists. We hatched a 
plan to return home and dream up catchy archaeology  projects to get news 
coverage and then ship the stream of articles to Ternes  & Houston to be 
strategically plopped on key lawmaker's desks just before  committee hearings on what 
would be known as "AB 952." Assembly Bill 952 was  written to remove 
archaeology from CEQA and sponsored by Assemblyman Waddie  Deddeh, who had been promised 
funding for his senatorial run if he pushed the  bill. My contribution was to 
generate news coverage on an all volunteer  (100-person crew) "Lost Spanish 
Fort Dig" on the Naval Submarine Base in  San Diego. And a steady stream of 
news coverage it was for the summer of 1981  (not to mention 1982-1996). By 1996, 
we had about 400 boxes of artifacts that  needed to be processed, conserved, 
catalogued, and reported. I had my hands full  for the following 25-years, and 
this was in my "spare time." As I have reported  elsewhere on HISTARCH, the 
whole collection has been cared-for professionally  (although with nearly no 
funding) and is now in a nice HVAC facility with  excellent security and is used 
for academic research. And, we published a series  of papers and an online 
series of articles. But my point here is not to wax on  about the discoveries, 
or even how we fueled thousands of citizens to stand  behind archaeology in our 
darkest hour in Sacramento, or even how the State  Legislature managed to 
retain archaeology in CEQA. My point is that no matter  why we rush out to do an 
emergency dig, we need to be prepared to devote a large  part of our lives to 
see the project through to the end. It is my hope Buffalo's  Big Dig will 
accomplish the same in the years to come.
 
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.