Of the few hundred acres of exposed reef remaining, almost all are already irretrievly committed to similar development, Ziegler notes. Ziegler and others have been pressing the state to acquire the eight-acre site for preservation. Campbell Estate itself has acknowledged the site's significance. Whether the sink holes will be preserved in perpetuity or studied intensively and then destroyed to make way for development is not known. In the past, the Natural Area Reserves Commission had considered adding the site to its inventory of unique ecological or geological areas.
Acquisition is essential if that is to occur.
Early quotes had been high, which accounts for the delay, he said. The estate plans to preserve the site for now and continue to make it available for research, he said. To the distress of Unocal, its shipment of a barge of oil-laced soil to the Marshall Islands was not unaccompanied by publicity. Unocal executives professed not to know that the employee who had arranged this deal also appears to have had a financial interest in it. As documents provided by Greenpeace show, that employee, Bruce Huddleston, is a principal in Consolidated Environmental Inc., the company that brokered the deal.