LAGUNA NIGUEL : City Halts Grading at Rich Fossil Site

City officials have halted grading in a silty area near Aliso Creek, considered one of the richest prehistoric animal graveyards on the continent, because of accusations that marine fossils may have been destroyed.

The grading work, being done by the Mission Viejo Co. on a site owned by Shapell Industries, was ordered stopped on Nov. 15 after Planning Commission Chairman James Olmsted visited the area and said it was not being properly monitored.

“At first, I saw the grading equipment and didn’t remember us issuing a permit for any grading at the site,” Olmsted said. “I then found out that it was a permit issued by the county. But I saw no (archeological) monitor on the site in an area I knew was rich in significance.”

The area, just north of the Chet Holifield Federal Building or “Ziggurat,” is within a quarter of a mile of the Plaza de La Paz site where bones from a 40-foot prehistoric baleen whale and thousands of other marine fossils were uncovered in 1989. “It’s a very, very important site,” said Lawrence Barnes of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Wendy Wetzel, spokeswoman for the Mission Viejo Co., said the company has always been sensitive to the historical richness of the area and disputed the contention that the grading was not properly monitored. A report from the company explaining their monitoring process was presented to the city Planning Commission Wednesday night.

Wetzel said the grading was being watched by Archaeological Resource Management, a Fullerton-based company.

“We have followed the county guidelines right down the line and are ready to make a full report,” Wetzel said.

Hugh Wagner, a spokesman for Archaeological Resource Management, said company representatives were on the site from the day the work began, Aug. 17, to the completion of the first phase of grading in September.

“I was placed on that job 10 hours a day, five days a week, for a month,” Wagner said. “We collected over 2,000 specimens, including sharks’ teeth, parts of fish, mammal materials, sea lions, birds, whale material and dolphin material.”

Wagner said he spent time walking behind the graders and scrapers. At other times he simply monitored the work, he said. He said the problem with the city might lie in a lack of understanding of how he approached the job.

“Basically, this comes down to how you collect material in a job like this,” he said. “The city set up its own guidelines independent of the county’s.”

City Planner Micki Harris described the area as a “borrow site” from which Mission Viejo Co. graders have moved about 400,000 cubic yards of dirt to another project. The graded area will eventually be used as part of a final link of Alicia Parkway, Harris said.

The second phase of the grading project, during which the Mission Viejo Co. wants to move another 130,000 cubic yards of dirt, will be held up “at least one or two weeks” while the city staff studies the company’s report, Olmsted said.