I d love to do it. But, she said, her team of archeologists is already operating at a big financial deficit this year. There is much work to do simply to meet the demands of cleaning up and assessing the fire damage, along with their regular duties to preserve the park s archeological treasures. The park archeologists are also busy writing grant proposals. Because emergency rehabilitation funds cannot be used to work on new sites, according to BAER team leader Anderson, outside funds must be raised to protect the newly identified sites.
Money is the big, big stumbling block.
To cope with these demands, the park has been slowly building its archeological staff. The permanent archeology staff has doubled from two to four in the last five years, and four additional full-time temporary archeologists have been hired. But even this increased staff faces a backlog of responsibilities. But this is a real change to have an active backcountry program working on the sites. However, under federal law, archeologists are expected to write reports.