Fossils Dumped Out With Trash Mistakenly

A valuable collection of fossils thousands of years old, including newly identified species of sea lions and dolphins plus ancient horses and bison, was thrown out with the trash at a Newport Beach school, officials revealed Tuesday.

The fossils had been collected during the excavation of a reservoir in the east part of Costa Mesa and had been stored temporarily at the closed Lindbergh Elementary School, said Karl Kemp, general manager of the Mesa Consolidated Water District.

On Aug. 31, they were discovered missing. A cleaning crew at the school mistakenly tossed them in Dumpsters, Kemp said. The fossils are presumed to be in the Sand Canyon Landfill under tons of garbage.

The lost fossils included 17 boxes of specimens, many dating back to the Pleistocene Era, Kemp said. The collection included 87 species of shore and marine birds, plus mammals and camels, Kemp said.

A collection of conifer fossils from the site had already been sent to UC Berkeley and other bones had been sent to a museum in Los Angeles County for study, Kemp said.

“The loss occurred in July and we became aware of it in August while I was on vacation,” Kemp told a meeting of the district board of directors Tuesday night.

The lost specimens were more than half of the 3,000 fossils gathered during the excavation.

A water district official pointed out that an estimated 4,500 tons of waste is discarded daily at the Sand Canyon Landfill.