http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/more/MGB3BAELF2D.html County removing remains from graves BY BOB PIAZZA TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Jun 14, 2002 http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/more/MGB3BAELF2D.html Several weeks ago, Hanover County officials began quietly removing the remains from about 25 graves threatened by a future sewage-treatment plant expansion. A family member of some of the deceased said Wednesday that relatives and the county agreed not to invite publicity about the exhumation, partly from fear that the graves might be disturbed by thieves. The remains are expected to be shifted to a fenced part of the site within a few months. The project became news last year when the family objected to a county proposal to have the remains studied at Radford University for as much as a year. The county later backed off the study at Radford. "The family has been more than pleased at the way the county has cooperated with us," said family member Robert Tate. "Now, you might look at it with cynicism and question what their motivation might be after the initial problems we went through, but they did everything in the world they could to appease us and help us." Tom Harris, a public information officer for Hanover, said the archaeological firm contracted for the project finished the field work for the exhumation last Friday. Harris said the remains from 26 bodies will be reinterred in individual containers and placed in a vault at the sewage-treatment plant site at Pole Green Park. In the meantime, the remains are being housed in a locked room at an administration building for the plant, Tate said. He said the workers who exhumed the remains spent about four weeks on the dig, using shovels, trowels, paint brushes and other tools. He said they were "very, very careful, and they were very thorough." He said that among other items, the diggers recovered buttons, a gold wedding ring, broaches and stick pins from some of the graves. He said the possessions would be reburied with the remains. "There was nothing of any value, other than maybe sentimental value from a family standpoint," Tate said. The graves were in the way of a treatment plant expansion expected to be needed by 2014. Harris said the exhumation and reburial are expected to cost the county about $99,000. The county hired John Milner Associates for the project last year after learning that an earlier consultant had failed to immediately notify the county in October 2000 that it had unearthed two skulls at the site. The skulls will be joined with their skeletons and reburied, Harris said. Contact Bob Piazza at (804) 559-8408 or [email protected]