Stephen P. Austin-  Thank you for your response to my message, I was
afraid that the thread had turned entirely to metallurgical products.  I
apologize to others for including the message text of my original post
but I wanted to make sure others had the entire text to judge my response.
1. I never claimed "that there was not a financial issue."  Indeed there
is a financial issue.  I would never claim that there is not a financial
element in any issue.  My point is that in political economy finances
are sometimes over emphasized as the driving force, rather than other
political and economic considerations.  For instance what is the
financial component in the equation of building new warehousing for
specimens in Tucson (cost of land, climatic controls, salaries) versus
adaptive reuse of existing suitable facilities at Gallup?  The answer to
the question is complex depending on various scenarios (long term versus
short term costs, ambient temperatures, citizen views about the relative
importance of science and education, national defense, cultural tourism
and intangibles (the value of the past).
2.  You state that ..."no Federal agency would step forward with a plan
for curation."  This is absolutely correct, and as it should be.
Federal agencies are constrained by congressional authorization and
annual appropriations.  As one who was an activist citizen  more than a
decade ago when the implications of the Base Closure Act on the Wingate
Depot became apparent, I can tell you how rare it is in retrospect for
concern citizen leaders to have a notion and the ear of the
Congressional delegation willing to appropriate the resources to the
appropriate federal agencies to take the leadership role they are
charged with.  In my view this was the case in the late 1980's at
Wingate: Citizens with clout in the community urging an interested
Congressional delegation to draft legislation authorizing the National
Park Service, The US Army Corps of Engineers, The Bureau of Land
Management, the US Forest Service in Cooperation with the State of New
Mexico, the City of Gallup, The Navajo Tribe and the Zuni Tribe to
convert Wingate into a curatorial facility and archeological park  (you
don't mention that there is an impressive Chacoan Outlier on the former
Depot too).
3.  I am far to close to the issue (though many miles and years separate
me) to not take umbrage at the patronizing tone that maybe "Now, if some
 > enterprising person (like yourself) wanted to contact the local
 > redevelopment authority and propose a business development use of these
 > facilities as an artifact curation facility, have the capital to do
all of
 > the modifications required to make the facility meet the conditions of
 > 36CFR79, and get a commitment from Federal agencies to send the
material to
 > this repository (probably at the objection of individual states), you may
 > actually be able to pull it off."  At some percieved (at least on my
part) personal risk for my career and federal ethics considerations I
was an involved advisor to the citizen committee in Gallup that tried to
promote the curatorial adaptive reuse proposal.  There were times when
it seemed like it really might have a chance to succeed.  The leadership
of the City of Gallup was supportive.  Based on this the Congressional
Delegation was very supportive, waiting for a clear consensus from
State, Federal, Tribal and Educational Institution Museum professionals.
  My perspective is that it was the lack of interest on the part of most
of these Museum professionals to even give preliminary objective
consideration of the notion that caused it to failover a decade ago.
Wingate is no longer in my back yard, and when the Museum "experts"
would say nothing to the Congressional Delegation (not this is a bad
idea because, but complete silence) the window of opportunity almost
evaporated.  I say "almost" because I believe it is still not too late
for the current tennets at Wingate (some of whom are the Navajo and Zuni
Tribes) to re-invent the idea with their own notions of political economy.

4. I think the issue you raise that Wingate is not the only surplus
military facility that might be suitable for curatorial purposes is an
important one, and was on some more than just my mind a decade ago when
I was trying to help get consideration of Wingate for repository use.
The fact that several federal agencies (NPS, COE, BLM and BOR) have
regional repositories already that in at least some 'provincial'
instances have support from State owned institutions of higher education
contradicts your own apparent suspicion that it might be difficult to
"...get a commitment from Federal agencies to send the material to
 > this repository (probably at the objection of individual states)...".
5. Finally for the moment, and for any reader that has had the
forbearance to come this far, the story I recount I believe is worth
telling because if there were ever to be a network of regional
repositories established in disused military munitions storage bunkers,
it would not be because "...you [I] may
 > actually be able to pull it off."  It would because "we"
professionals in the field could reach consensus to give the notion a
fair objective consideration, again reach consensus that the idea had
economic benefits, again reach consensus that there was a need, again
reach consensus on what should be culled at the same time that
non-professional community leaders (the only criterion that was partly
met)and the Congressional delegation were clear on the consensus and a
spending mood.-Mark
Mark Henderson
Ely, Nevada





Austin, Stephen P SWF wrote:

> You are correct in that the ECMs (earth covered magazines or sometimes
> "igloos) at Wingate were considered for "artifact storage."  Incorrect in
> that there was not a financial issue.  Climate control, accessibility of the
> facility, the ability to manage and retrieve material from a thousand
> separate ECMs, the cost of transferring material to Gallup, staffing costs,
> environmental cleanup costs, addition of sprinkler systems (including the
> laying of miles of water and water return lines), and ultimately - who would
> pay for all of this?  The first offer (by the law) of these facilities
> closed as part of BRAC was to other Federal agencies.  None stepped forward
> for reuse as curation facilities.  The next offer must be to a local
> redevelopment agency.  Part of Wingate is going to the redevelopment
> authority, part is (supposedly) going to BLM, and part is currently being
> used by BMDO as a test launch facility.  Wingate is not the only facility
> that was closed that the NPS could have jumped on if they really wanted to
> store material, there was the Detroit tank plant at one million square feet
> in one building, the excess Savanna (IL) Army Depot (another facility with
> ECMs), Seneca (NY) Army Depot (also ECMs), and others with just warehouses
> and other buildings such as Lexington (KY) Depot, Jefferson (IN) Proving
> Ground,  or the Indiana Ammunition Plant.  All came with a cost for
> conversion and no Federal agency would step forward with a plan for curation
> in these facilities. The facilities are typically more productive as local
> redevelopment projects for manufacturing and other uses.  Now, if some
> enterprising person (like yourself) wanted to contact the local
> redevelopment authority and propose a business development use of these
> facilities as an artifact curation facility, have the capital to do all of
> the modifications required to make the facility meet the conditions of
> 36CFR79, and get a commitment from Federal agencies to send the material to
> this repository (probably at the objection of individual states), you may
> actually be able to pull it off.
>
> Stephen P. Austin
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Henderson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 12:06 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Culling & Selling artifacts
>
>
> "Dendy, John" wrote:
>
>> Okay, just a reminder, anything done under an ARPA permit or in lieu of an
>> ARPA permit or financerd by the federal government requires the "in
>> perpetuity" curation and compliance with 36 CFR 79. Selling, culling, etc.
>> cannot be permitted. Selective accession is about as far as anyone can go
>> legally. We can, of course, limit our collection strategies, but our
>> excavations must adhere to ARPA regs.
>>
>> John Dendy
>
>
> I believe there is another often used (abused?) method of culling ARPA
> materials found in 43 CFR 7.33 "Determination of loss or absence of
> archaeological interest." This process takes place routinely (although
> possibly not with strict adherence to the letter of the regulations)
> when remaining archeological resources are damaged or destroyed after
> archeological treatment has taken place.  My experience has been that
> the lithic materials, glass and metal left after "treatment" projects
> are sometimes substantial.  I have occaisionally been quizzed about this
> by development project employees who wonder why the archeologists left
> arrowheads, bottles and other "collectibles" on their completed
> projects.  This is of course different from items that were targets for
> collection, but were missed during treatment.
>         On a slightly different tangent, I think there is often a
> presumption
> that we don't have storage space, based on economics, when we have
> actually not activated ourselves on some opportunities to expand storage
> capacity.  The military in the US has surplused thousands of war
> material storage bunkers that by my reckoning have great potential for
> archeological material bulk storage.  We have not lobbied effectively
> for archeological adaptive re-use of these largely WWII and Cold War era
> facilities as part of a National Repository System.  Over 12 years ago
> for example some of us thought that Wingate Army Depot near Gallup New
> Mexico with nearly 1,000 bunkers might make an ideal regional repository
> as part of a National Archeological Repository system.  The major
> obstacle I believe was not financial but conceptual.  That is the
> established archeological interests saw this as a threat to the current
> system of research repositories.  I perhaps very naively, believe that
> there was, and maybe still is, opportunity to convert some of these
> facilities as storage repositories, if there was consensus in the
> archeological community that this was a reasonable idea.  The
> establishment didn't like it for reasons that I can expand on if this
> post promotes further discussion.  Let me say that I believe there were
> Congressmen that would have been very supportive if they had seen
> concensus. -Mark
> Mark Henderson
> Ely, Nevada