Reburial ordered

A 10-year-old battle over the fate of 8,000-year-old human remains in the Bolsa Chica wetlands has taken a new turn, with a state commission ruling that all outstanding remains must be buried within weeks.

Out of 174 sets of remains that a developer has reported finding on the Bolsa Chica wetlands site, about half have been reinterred.

The California Native American Heritage Commission unanimously ruled Friday that the remainder — casually stored in as many as 6,000 bags in trailers on the site, the commission said — must be buried in the next two months, after being properly documented and sorted. The commission also will look into preserving six acres on the mesa.

Ed Mountford, senior vice president of Hearthside Homes, said Tuesday that he was unaware of the ruling, but that the company is working on reburying the remains as soon as possible. Critics say the remains, found on the Brightwater residential development site on the Bolsa Chica mesa, have languished in storage containers for years instead of being properly treated.

They also claim developer Hearthside Homes concealed their discovery in order to ease their development process. The developer plans to construct 356 single-family homes on the site, which will also include 37 acres of open space and conservation areas.

But the developers say that the two tribes are quibbling over exactly which items should be buried with the bones, and that they’re just waiting for the groups to achieve a compromise.

Morales said not enough of the items classified as “grave goods,” which should be reburied with the bones, are being treated as such.

“It’s a very difficult situation, because you have two different tribal groups making different recommendations, and they have two different perspectives,” Mountford said.

The descendants asked the Coastal Commission on Nov. 13 to revoke its permit based on the site’s significance, but lost the appeal due to the commission’s legal constraints. Commissioners said that they were unable to conclude the developer lied about the remains when the permit was granted in 2005.

The activists said they had tried a similar move back in 2000, with the same results.

The developer has received all necessary permits, so stopping the project isn’t an option, activists have said. Twenty-year-old permits stipulate that the remains must simply be buried elsewhere on the site.

Patricia Martz, a professor of anthropology at Cal State Los Angeles, has taken up the cause of what she has called the most significant architectural site in coastal Southern California.

The Juaneño and Gabrielino tribes once lived on the mesa in a sizable village settlement, known now as ORA 83. A burial ground also lies on the site, where the largest quantity of cog stones (or “star stones”) ever found was discovered, Martz said.

The cog stones served an unknown purpose, but were believed to be used in rituals. The stones were believed to have been manufactured in the Bolsa Chica settlement, then distributed throughout the region.

The area was named a historical site by the Native American Heritage Commission in 1983, but the nomination was never completed.

Since then, the land trust has tried several times to cement the designation, although it would not prevent development. Remains have been found several times over the years, with more than 100,000 artifacts collected, the Coastal Commission’s report read.

In 2006, Hearthside said it would work with descendants of both tribes to determine how to properly bury the remains; the commission also ruled that the remains must be buried at that time.