Sep 06, 2008 - 04:06:29 CDT
Mandan city officials are still calculating construction delays after two caskets and an undetermined number of human remains were found at Mandan's south side water reservoir dig site.It all depends on how quickly the graves can be identified and permitted by the state for reburial.
Construction of the $8 million project halted late Wednesday afternoon after construction crews ran into something wooden.
North Dakota State Historical Society officials later confirmed the find involved a number of wooden caskets and human remains.
North Dakota State Health Department officials said Friday most of the responsibility for identifying the remains will lie with Morton County. It is the county who must file with the health department to disinter and rebury the remains.
"A majority of the work involves the county. The state's only function is to permit the transfer to happen," said Darin Meschke, director of Vital Records for the health department. "At this point, the activities will be coordinated through (Morton) County."
He said it will be the county's responsibility to go through the process of identifying the bodies through available burial records.
"They will have to their best to find out who they are. The county would then provide the health department a list of who they are and the state would issue the permit to bury them."
Meschke said if all remains cannot be identified, the county may have to assign them numbers and categorize them.Then the county could file for permits for reburial.
"It's not going to be an overnight process," he said. "It could take a while. We don't know how many remains are involved."
Mandan City Administrator Jim Neubauer said earlier this week that the city is complying with protocol set by the state Century Code. He said preliminary testing of the dig site indicated there were no graves at the site.
Neubauer was not in his office Friday and was unavailable for comment.
"We have no updates," Mandan Mayor Tim Helbling said late Friday afternoon. "The area has been all tarped off. All work has stopped. The State Historical Society, the health department and the county coroner are doing an evaluation. We will await their report before we make any decisions."
Paul Picha, chief archaeologist for the State Historical Society, said all entities involved are taking caution to handle the remains with dignity as spelled out by the North Dakota Century Code. He also said Friday that no new information would be released about the remains.
Work on the new reservoir site began in late August and was planned to be used by the fall of 2009. The 4-million-gallon reservoir near the Heart River will replace a 50-year-old water storage facility on Collins Avenue in Mandan. The water processed is drawn from the Missouri.
The project's cost also includes a new water transmission line and sewer treatment improvements.
(Reach reporter LeAnn Eckroth at 250-8264 or leann.eckroth@;bismarcktribune.com.)
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