Yuba Indian remains up levee cost

The discovery of American Indian artifacts along the Feather River could add more than $1 million to the cost of building new levees to protect south Yuba County homes and businesses.

Three Rivers Levee Improvement Authority directors will discuss the cultural site at a special meeting today, and could approve a contract amendment for about $453,000 with a consulting group, related to work done at the site.

Authority Executive Director Paul Brunner said discussions about the site began after a crew pulling up a walnut tree near the river last December discovered artifacts in the roots that included shells, beads and human remains.

Brunner said experts determined the artifacts likely came from ancestors of Enterprise Rancheria tribal members, whose predecessors frequently established small settlements along waterways like the Feather.

He would not identify the site's location, citing concerns over possible thieves or vandals disturbing it. Ren Reynolds, an EPA planner with Enterprise Rancheria, said authority officials and builders have to be sensitive because such sites represent settlements that go back as far as 1,000 years ago.

The site found last year, he said, may have been at one time a village of 50 to 75 tribe members.

"It's just an age-old problem, because these sites are all over the place," Reynolds said.

And state and federal law requires a measured response, according to TRLIA.

"There's a federal requirement that we have to do this," Brunner said. "I believe we've found a cost-effective approach to deal with the site."

Levee builders will widen the levee on top of the site and have a levee base on more secure ground than the cultural site itself. That widening will add about $1 million to the cost of the levee project, Brunner said.

Levee construction is funded through a combination of state and local money, with about 80 percent of the cost coming from the state of California, Brunner said.

Reynolds said tribal members will re-bury the remains before the levee is built over them.

By doing so, he said, the levee will prevent any future disturbance of the site. Tribes frequently discover looting at such sites because remains and artifacts can bring a steep price on eBay.

"There's a tremendous amount of looting that goes undiscovered," he said, adding the tribe is working with federal officials to protect other sites on the Feather and Bear rivers.

Though this site was previously unknown, TRLIA has encountered and dealt with such sites in the past, Brunner said. Crews working on the Sutter County side of the Feather have also encountered such a site, he added.

"This is not necessarily uncommon," he said.

TRLIA board member Don L. Graham said he hadn't encountered such a situation before, either on the authority's board or as a member of Reclamation District 784's board.

"It's one of those things where no one planned to have it there, but it's been there a whole lot longer than anyone else around here has," Graham said. "The appropriate thing to do is take care of it, but it will cost some coin."

Reynolds said he acknowledges the cost, but has a simple answer for those who question it: "What would you do if it was your ancestors?"

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Ben van der Meer at 749-4709 or bvandermeer@appealdemocrat.com.