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Preservation Sub-Par

Residents and local Muwekma are teed off over plans to plunk a golf course on a rare archaeological site in the Santa Teresa Hills.

By Laura Stuchinsky

When Father Junipero Serra and his fellow Franciscan monks arrived in Santa Clara County in the late 1770s, they exhibited scant regard for Native American culture.

They called the indigenous residents "bestias" (beasts), characterizing them as lazy, lewd and idolatrous. The Franciscan's mission, as they saw it, was to convince the Ohlone people--through reason or force--to abandon their way of life and adopt the religion and culture of the Spaniards.

In some ways, little has changed.

Late last week the Santa Clara County Planning Commission gave a developer the go-ahead to thread an 18-hole golf course through an ancient Ohlone archaeological site atop a ridge in the Santa Teresa Hills. The commission said it felt the safeguards the county has imposed will protect the historic remains.



What information about archeological sites is being withheld from the public and why?



Opponents disagree. They said the golf course will destroy the integrity of a rare, complex archaeological site, made even more precious by the fact that more than half of the county's known archaeological locations have already been damaged or destroyed by development.

Property owner Rocke Garcia, who has been trying to develop the site since the early 1980s, claimed he is committed to preserving Indian archaeological artifacts. That's "what we accomplished," he said. "That's why the golf course was designed the way it was. The golf course was designed to protect the archeology."

Not so, say others.

"I can say until I'm red in the face you have to protect this, it's our culture and our history you're destroying," said Rosemary Cambra, elected leader of the Muwekma, an approximately 300-person Ohlone tribe ancestrally linked to the site. But "the tribe knows better than to fight with the landowner," she continued. "If anyone's rights are going to be protected, it's not [going to be] ours."

Local archaeology professor Linda King is also concerned. "In the brief span of 25 years I have lived in this valley, a time of rapid development and construction, I have seen a significant portion of our best archaeological sites bulldozed," wrote King, who teaches archeology and anthropology at West Valley College. "These sites represent thousands of years of prehistory which can never be replaced. Future generations will be appalled at our lack of comprehension of their value."

Sacred Ground

Bill Helmer studies the ground as he walks. The brim of his baseball cap shields his eyes from the sun. His long, gray-streaked hair is pulled back into a pony tail.

Every so often he picks up a stone, brushing it clean as he examines it. He shows one of the small rocks to his companions. The sharply cut chert rock may be a lithic left behind by the Ohlone, he says: a flake of stone chipped from a larger rock for a tool. Helmer has found many of these flakes on Boulder Ridge. He puts the rock back precisely where he found it.

For Helmer, Boulder Ridge is sacred territory.

The 45-year-old national park ranger stumbled onto the area 16 years ago when he was hired as an archaeological technician on a housing tract that sits below the ridge. Ever since, the San Jose native has made repeated pilgrimages back to the area, often dragging friends along to savor the natural beauty of the sandstone and tree studded ridge. Wandering among the archaeological remains of the Ohlone, Helmer imagines he can peer back into time. His sees a people who lived in harmony with the environment, a vision that stands in sharp contrast to the dense development that swirls around this green island.

Perched on San Jose's southeast border on unincorporated county lands, the ridge is part of the Santa Teresa Hills. Although the property is privately owned, for years area residents have treated Boulder Ridge as a public park. Feet and mountain bicycles have worn trails through the 202-acre crescent-shaped parcel. At the apex of the property is a concentrated sandstone outcropping, housing a cave with rare pictographs, and a number of archaeological artifacts. A housing subdivision sits below the rock monoliths, both places where artifacts have been found.

Archaeologists haven't been the only ones to discover this area. Broken bottles litter the ground and the caves; graffiti adorns the rocks. Still, the looming boulders lend an other-worldly beauty to the area. A trained eye sees even more.

Deep holes, called bedrock mortars, have been cut into dozens of the boulders. Historians note that the Ohlones often used mortar and pestle to grind acorns--a staple of their diet. The hillside is populated with old oak trees.

Two sandstone caves have been recorded on the hill, one whose interior walls were covered with drawings. Small mortars--cupsules--are carved into the floor of both caves possibly for grinding herbs and pigments or as receptacles for religious offerings.

Soot from fires lit by vandals inside the cave have obscured the ancient paintings, but not before the artwork was documented by archaeologists.

Allen Pastron, an archaeologist with Ph.D. from UC Berkeley was hired by property owner Garcia to survey the area several times in the last 14 years. Consulting an expert in aboriginal art to help record and evaluate the pictographs, he describes one as a rake: eight vertical lines, five of which are connected by a horizontal line. Some believe the motif symbolizes rain. Others believe it represents "masculine fertility inherent in sunlight," Pastron wrote in his report.

Another panel on the cave's ceiling includes a circle, a curvilinear "fish hook" and a short vertical line. Pastron suggested that if the cave is viewed as a uterus, the fishhook might represent an umbilicus. In fact, the archaeologists believe that much of the artwork utilizes female symbols and that the cave was used by women for ceremonial activities. Pastron called the cave "one of the best examples of aboriginal rock art yet recorded in Santa Clara County."

Along with the rock art, there have been a number of other important finds in the area. Archaeologists also documented the presence of three bedrock mortars on the border of the property, one of which is believed to be a rain rock often associated with magic, religion and fertility rites. Then, 64 burials--bodies and related artifacts--were found adjacent to Garcia's parcel, on the land now occupied by the housing tract.

In archaeology, there are always unknowns. Before construction on the housing project, for example, lead archaeologist Pastron concluded that it was unlikely Indian artifacts or burial sites would be found when the site was developed. But construction crews subsequently unearthed massive burials, most of which were found at the base of Boulder Ridge. Pastron later characterized the site as an "extensive prehistoric habitation and cemetery complex" dating back to approximately 1,000 AD.

With the approval of Native American observers, the bodies were re-buried elsewhere in the area. Construction resumed.

Other construction projects to the north of the area unearthed more burials, although typically fewer in number. The remains of a village were discovered about a mile down the road.

In fact, the valley, which for thousands of years was inhabited by the Ohlone people, is dotted with archaeological remains.

According to Mark Hylkema, state archaeologist for Caltrans, there are more than 700 recorded archaeological sites in Santa Clara County. Yet, Hylkema estimates that 75 percent of them have been damaged by development; 50 percent of those have been completely destroyed.

Boulderdash

Residents of the adjoining subdivision have fought the Boulder Ridge Golf Course for years, well before emergence of the archaeological issue.

Twice, in 1993 and again in 1994, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors approved developer Rocke Garcia's plans to build an 18-hole semiprivate golf course on Boulder Ridge.

But environmentalists joined forces with the neighbors, who organized under the banner the Coalition to Save Open Space (SOS), to protest the development which they argued would dramatically alter the natural terrain. SOS's attorney estimated that the project would require 500 trees to be cut down and 750,000 cubic yards of soil to be moved. The county and the owner reasoned that a golf course was a permitted use and would preserve open space.

The neighbors were also angered because they felt the deal had been greased. Between 1990 and 1993, Garcia, his land-use attorney Norm Matteoni and Garcia's civil engineer donated $5,500 to Supervisor Mike Honda's campaign chest. Although he ran as an advocate for open space, Honda led the campaign for the golf course. Supervisor Rod Diridon acknowledged a personal friendship with Garcia, yet voted on the project. The controversy ultimately prompted the county to adopt a code of ethics.

Dissatisfied with the Supervisors' decision to approve the project, the neighbors took their case to the California Supreme Court. The judge invalidated the county's decision and ordered it to reconsider its environmental protection plan. Bowing to public pressure, the county required the developer to dedicate 98 acres of the property for open space. The easement allowed Garcia to build his golf course, but restricted his ability to build housing on the land in the future, a principal concern of the neighbors. Because the project sits on the border of San Jose, Mayor Susan Hammer interjected that the project, which includes nine acres of pavement for streets and parking lots and a 22,000-square-foot clubhouse, was "inappropriate" in an unincorporated area. Ignoring the city, the Board of Supervisors approved the project unanimously once again.

Garcia filed suit against the county, charging that the conditions imposed would rob him of future development rights. SOS also sued the county arguing that they hadn't adequately complied with the court's order to analyze the project's effect on open space. And both plaintiff's, dissatisfied with parts of the Superior Court Judge's decision, appealed the earlier ruling. All of the suits have yet to be decided. In the meanwhile, plans for the Boulder Ridge Golf Course have proceeded apace.

In mid-September, the county granted Garcia an Architectural and Site Approval permit, with provisions designed to protect the archaeological artifacts on his property. Believing the conditions were insufficient, SOS and archaeological technician Helmer appealed the committee's decision to the planning commission, which rejected their concerns last week.

Discreet Matters

The county based its decision on information provided by Pastron, the archaeologist hired by the developer. On the basis of research he conducted on the property in 1981, 1985 and 1992, he concluded that there were only three archaeologically sensitive spots on the developer's property. So long as the backhoes avoid these "discrete areas," Pastron wrote in his final report, "there's no reason to suggest that plans for construction of the golf course at Boulder Ridge should not go forward as scheduled..."

Along with avoiding the immediate vicinity of these sensitive areas, Pastron recommended that Garcia install a locked gate at the entrance to the painted cave to ward off vandals. Authorized visitors would be able to gain access with the permission of the golf club manager. The ASA committee incorporated Pastron's suggestions in the conditions attached to the permit.

Garcia said Pastron's suggestions were also incorporated into the golf course's design. With a golf course, unlike a building or a street, "you can save trees, a rock outcropping, you can save an archaeological area," he said. "The artifacts have to be protected, which is what we accomplished. Plus, we hired the foremost archaeologist in the Bay Area, Dr. Pastron."

But Helmer was skeptical of Pastron's report. Although he lives in Death Valley, Helmer arranged a special trip north to revisit the site and research its history. What he discovered confirmed his suspicions that the entire area, not just the sites identified by Pastron, should be protected, as one contiguous area.

Pastron, Helmer charged in a letter to the county, "did not fully disclose and/or misrepresented relevant information" about Boulder Ridge--information that Helmer believed could have affected the county's decision.

First, Helmer said, Pastron reported there were no previously recorded archaeological sites on Garcia's property. According to records stored at the Northwest Information Center at Sonoma State University--a state clearinghouse for archaeological records--there had been.

In the 1970s, two archaeological teams identified archaeological sites on Garcia's property. On a 1974 foray with her archeology class, Linda King reported finding archaeological artifacts--primarily stone flakes--in an area near the rock-art cave. In 1977, archaeologists conducting a preliminary survey of the property now occupied by an Almaden housing tract, defined an archaeological area that began at the edge of the project parcel and continued up the slope to include "numerous bedrock mortars, at least one rock shelter, and possibly small cemetery areas."

This larger zone, which incorporated King's site, was labeled CA-SCl-131. In 1992, after being hired by the developer to prepare an environmental report for the golf course at Boulder Ridge, Pastron recommended that the parameters of SCl-131 be reduced.

The smaller site now fell mostly outside of Garcia's property. The new SCl-131 was confined to the gravesite in the subdivision and the three bedrock mortars on the perimeter of Garcia's property. At the same time, Pastron identified three small archaeological sites on Garcia's land, all in or around the sandstone outcropping--the two caves and an open area where the archaeologist uncovered numerous chipped stone items. With the archaeological material confined to discrete spots, the golf course could move forward.

According to Garcia's plans, fairways and greens for holes 11 and 17 will be installed on either side of the rock-art cave. The second small cave will sit between the 10th and 18th fairway. And a putting green will be built alongside the concentrated deposit, an area Pastron classified as "potentially significant."

Pastron declined to answer questions, citing the advice of Garcia's attorney. But in a letter to the county, Pastron said prior maps of the site were erroneous. "Until the late 1970s, the precise boundaries and cultural characteristics of this potentially significant archaeological entity remained more a matter of conjecture and informed speculation than established fact," Pastron wrote.

Still, he insisted he wasn't directly responsible for voiding the original SCl-131. He only "recommended" that the Northwest Information Center do so.

"Ultimately, after due consideration of the data I submitted, my request was granted," he wrote.

But according to center staff, the repository relies exclusively on field archaeologists to update the maps. Refinements and additions are made as a matter of routine. The Northwest Information Center may have exercised the changes, but their actions were directed by Pastron.

Even if Pastron's changes were correct, the archaeologist should have revealed he'd altered the parameters of the archaeological site and provided his reasons for doing so, opined SOS's attorney Michael Reedy. Otherwise, he says, the public is acting in a vacuum.

According to a copy of memo filed at the Northwest Information Center, Pastron changed the map because he found no cultural materials between the three discrete spots he found on Garcia's property and the graveyard. However, on a return visit earlier this year, Helmer said he easily spotted 12 bedrock mortars not mentioned in Pastron's report, and lithic concentrations between Pastron's "discrete" sites. Although the discovery isn't significant in itself, Helmer reasoned it suggested that more artifacts might be hiding beneath the surface.

Bedrock mortars are "very good indications of buried material," concurred archaeologist Linda King. In a letter to the county, King wrote that in her opinion the site should be treated as one integrated archaeological complex.

"When you have this much sensitive material, when you begin to move earth there's a good chance of finding something else," King told the planning commissioners at the Nov. 2 hearing. More research is needed to "give us more confidence that nothing more will be found," she said.

State archaeologist Mark Hylkema concurred with the King and Helmer's call for further study. After being read portions of Pastron's report, Hylkema characterized Patron's research as "meager," although not atypical.

"They need to do a little more testing to be sure of this proclamation that there's no [larger] site there," he said.

But the county expressed confidence in Pastron's findings. "It won't damage the bedrock mortars to have a fairway nearby," County Planner Juanell Waldo asserted in an interview. "We think we're doing the right thing. We only have one person who is telling us we're not."

At the planning commission hearing, and in a letter written in response to Helmer's criticisms, Pastron refuted the need for additional research.

"That site has probably received more scrutiny than any other site of its size that I know of in Santa Clara County," Pastron insisted. Most of which, he noted, had been done by himself.

That may be part of the problem. The county has no means of ascertaining the quality of Pastron's reports, Hylkema asserted. The state archaeologist said for years he'd pressed the county to hire its own archaeologist or contract with an independent consultant.

"They don't have anyone at the county qualified to evaluate this type of material," Hylkema said. "They have no means of doing quality control."

Too late

Ultimately, the planning commission's decision on Boulder Ridge was reduced to a narrow legal question: whether Helmer's discoveries--on Boulder Ridge and at the Northwest Information Center--were "not known and could not have been known with the exercise of due diligence" before the county adopted the EIR in 1994.

Since the "alleged artifacts had been lying about the property for hundreds of years," Garcia's attorney Norm Matteoni argued in a letter to the commission, Helmer could have discovered them before the EIR was approved. "The same is true as to Mr. Helmer's research efforts regarding the history of CA-SCl-131." Now, he said, it's too late and SOS is simply seizing the archaeological issue in order to block the golf course.

But SOS's attorney Michael Reedy countered that SOS was sincere in its efforts to protect the archaeological site. He noted that despite Pastron's "diligent" efforts, Helmer found artifacts--the lithics and 12 bedrock mortars--that Pastron missed in his earlier survey's. Consequently, Reedy said, the commission should order a subsequent EIR--the follow-up study sought by SOS, Helmer and King

The commission sided with the developer, voting unanimously to deny the appeal. SOS said they will appeal the decision to the Board of Supervisors.

"Money talks and culture walks," Cambra said, predicting the commission's decision the day before the hearing. "Natives want preservation, but the reality is we have no weapons to fight the fight here. We can barely survive ourselves with the fights we are faced with.

"The laws of this country do not recognize the rights of indigenous people. Unless they change, this will happen repeatedly."

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