George - I agree with Anita, you need to take it to some other discussion.
These postings contribute nothing and it is difficult to follow your logic
sometimes (how did you get from HABS/HAER recordation in the Panama Canal to
a UXO discussion).  Now, a discussion of UXO issues is something that would
be of interest here, shall we delve into this very sensitive area?

Stephen P. Austin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: George Myers [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 1999 5:18 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: Administrivia and the Canal Question
>
> In a message dated 10/20/99 2:59:42 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> << If you wish to discuss the political ramifications of the Panama Canal
>  transfer, please do so off the list. Histarch is for the discussion on
>  historical archaeology and not current events.
>  Anita Cohen-Williams
>  Internet Trainer and Consultant
>  Listowner of HISTARCH, SUB-ARCH, SPANBORD >>
>
> Since I started this question about the HABS/HAER recording of the Panama
> Canal Zone I wish to protest this objection, though the list owner is the
> list owner. Let me play anthopologist/historical archaeologist for a
> moment
> since I only have a BA and two years of graduate work back in 1978-80.
>
> 1) My first impressions with archaeologists is that they secretly fear the
> ordnance they find, and they do find it on Federal properties or former
> Federal installations.
>
> 2) There is no training in what to do in these circumstances and the
> field-tech is not an expendable commodity. If the field director says
> anything, he's as ignorant as the tech about the situation I have found.
>
> 3) Ordnance has been exploding around the West Point Academy during fires
> started by lightning this July 1999. I have worked in areas, without
> foreknowledge of the risks involved, that were or should have been
> considered
> just as dangerous and each of these examples has stories associated with
> them
> I will not drag out here in public. Fort Drum, NY; Gateway National
> Seashore,
> NY; Fort McHenry National Shrine, MD; The Historic West Point Foundry,
> Cold
> Spring, NY; The areas near Camp Smith and Iona Island, in the vicinity of
> Bear Mountain Park, NY. Left behind "stuff" along the Saint Lawrence
> Seaway
> by troops on some sort of maneuver. Officers relating that "powder blue"
> is
> no longer the color of "duds" but high explosive rounds. Let's not forget
> one
> of the most important Paleolithic sites, Debert, was found on a firing
> range
> in Nova Scotia. I consider the archaeological establishment just as guilty
> as
> the lead agency, when I can pick up an American Heritage history book that
> knows more about a site than the researchers.
>
> 4) I have worked in HAZMAT sites, where I think, then, the
> "archaeologists"
> were more prepared to evaluate the hazards than the experts! Imagine
> showing
> up where the lead agency, hands you a contour map of hand held
> measurements
> from a radium contaminated site. Yet this is considered the "science" of
> remediation. One thing I've found is that the people not involved with the
> archaeology always have at least a layer more of protection away from the
> contaminant, i.e. equipment such as a backhoe, etc., whereas the
> archaeologists are "hands-on" kind of labor, the lowest paid in the strata
> of
> remediation making a lot of health and safety plans for the "Social
> Praxis"
> and not those closest to who knows what because it obviously, from the
> previous argument, not known.
>
> 5) What really burns me on these sites is that an absolute "chain of
> title"
> is not attempted, and  historical reports filter through the local Museum,
> people in town, or old newspapers and photos i.e., of a fire requiring
> hundreds of firefighters for 24 hours, "chlorine?", craters in old aerial
> photos in an adjacent National Audubon area, weak logic about the movement
> of
> contaminants around the site, "discoveries" of varying levels during the
> work.
>
> So what I was asking was really not about the Canal directly but as part
> of
> the historical record keeping that involves what has been my experience.
> "How
> many times must the cannonballs fly?" asked Bob Dylan (Zimmerman) at the
> West
> Point Foundry, over 1 million were made I learned much later.
>
> George J. Myers, Jr.