I have worked on and directed data recovery projects in several urban areas on the mainland, in Hawaii, and in Guam. The issue of pothunting, with or without metal detectors, before, during, and after these projects has come up several times. Most recently it emerged in Honolulu. We designed as thorough a data recovery project as was possible. Included in this plan were provisions to protect the site from potential looters before we were actually on site as well as during our stay on it - approximately three months. We knew before we started through informants that some of the hunters were going to try to get onto the property. Hence, with the cooperation of the client, the State Historic Preservation Division, and other agencies, we took preventive action - primarily a high fence and a 24 hour guard. There was no incident before or during the data recovery. It was and is my personal and professional feeling that when we were done, i.e. when we had compeleted our field data recovery operations, we were finished. We had done all we could have and any further operations would have been redundant and been an unnecessary waste of taxpayer dollars. Other than having a staff archaeologist on site during excavation for the future building's below ground parking facility to insure that no additional human skeletal remains or significant features (we defined these very carefully for we had recovered all the known ones during data recovery), we released the site. We knew, however, that the "hunters", some of whom were on the construction crew, had been seeking permission to collect materials after we finished data recovery. We discussed the situation with State, City/County agencies, and the client. We all concurred that we had fulfilled our legal, ethical, and moral obligations in gathering information, reporting it, and affording protection to the recovered materials. Beyond that we could not go, especially since the site was to be 100 percent destroyed. We decided that we could not give approval for any hunting that might take place after the data recovery was concluded, and that we could and did express disapproval, but neither could we justifiably prevent public access. I personally saw no reason to; we had done our job. In this, I may be out of sync with many of my colleagues. There is a real world practical result that seems to derive from this position; if the professional "hunters/looters" know that they might - and I stress might -- have access to discarded back dirt or to sites slated for total destruction (as mine was) after the archaeologists have completed their work, they might leave such sites alone before hand and wait until we are finished. I am totally opposed to looting archaeological sites and completely support tough prosecution, fines, and jail for looters - even heavier than those currently on the books. But, when we have have completed data recovery operations on a site and when the remainder of site is going to be completely destroyed, it is no longer a significant archaeological site. Through data recovery, we captured the significance, removed it, and preserved it elsewhere. In such situations where my two conditions obtain (we have done data recovery; the site is to be destroyed), what possible justification do we as archaeologists have to prevent the public from having access to our leavings? I am sure that this position will provoke varying degrees of outrage among some colleagues while others, privately if not publicly, will have varying degrees of concurrance. >