By ROD WALTON
Tulsa World
11/17/2002
SKIATOOK -- Smoke rose up around Skiatook Lake in more ways than one last week as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prepared to look for American Indian artifacts on shoreline land proposed for the $10 million CrossTimbers resort
and golf course.
Corps rangers intentionally burned 300 acres Friday near Skiatook Point on the southeast shore. The burn will clear vegetation, allowing the Osage Nation and the corps to conduct an extensive survey for artifacts as early as this week.
Skiatook Town Administrator Blu Hulsey, meanwhile, raised questions about his community being intentionally excluded from the survey, even though the Skiatook Economic Development Authority is the prospective leasing agent for the CrossTimbers deal.
Osage leaders will be there because they have raised concerns about possible artifacts in the area.
"I thought it was pretty clear," Hulsey said. "We just want to be there. They (corps officials) said this was between them and the tribe."
Hulsey was upset that the corps told him this was a "government-to-government" communication which would include the tribe, but not his Skiatook officials. "We are a government," he pointed out.
Corps spokesman Ross Adkins said officials were legally bound to keep third parties out of the government-to-government process. He was not certain whether that also meant municipal organizations like the development authority.
"We could invite them," Adkins said, "but I'm not sure it's in the best interests of what we're trying to do."
StateSource, a private development company from Tulsa, and the development authority seek approval for the CrossTimbers development sometime this year. If approved, they would build a lodge, conference center, camp ground, golf course and trails along the lake by 2005.
The corps would lease its land to the development authority at no cost, according to reports. Then the development authority would sublease the same land to StateSource, also free of charge.
Proponents believe the resort would spark economic development in the area. In fact, Cross-[ 4] Timbers was initiated by the corps several years ago because of a national plan to encourage private-public partnerships on federal lakes.
The Osage Nation originally was StateSource's government partner in the CrossTimbers deal. Last year, then-Chief Charles Tillman opted to get out of the planned development because the tribe wanted to pursue other business opportunities.
Current Chief Jim Gray unsuccessfully tried to get his tribe back in as a lease partner for CrossTimbers, replacing the Skiatook group.
But StateSource developers Ron Howell and Kevin Coutant opted to stick with Skiatook.
Since then, tribal officials have raised concerns about an 11-foot-tall "healing rock" and other possible artifacts within the proposed golf course boundaries.
The corps found an unspecified "mound" just outside the proposed CrossTimbers site. Although that potential artifact is not where the golf course would be, its presence forces corps officials to look further, Adkins said.
"We're trying to fulfill the requirements of the law," he said. "When this (mound) came to our attention, then we were required to do this survey."
The survey will be a walk-through by the corps and Osage leaders looking for other possible sites. Friday's burnings removed vegetation that might obscure other mounds.
CrossTimbers developers originally hoped for corps approval by Sept. 30. The decision has been delayed until the Osage Nation's questions are answered.
Since then, StateSource and development authority officials said, the corps has distanced itself from the developers while it deals with the tribe.
"I have no clue (what they are looking for)," Hulsey said. "They won't tell us."
Osage Chief Gray could not be reached for comment Friday.
A cultural resource survey contracted by StateSource found no artifacts earlier this year.
The man who did that walk-through, University of Tulsa anthropology professor Don Henry, said he has talked to corps offi cials.
"We both agree it's quite possible I could have missed something," he said. "They may find something, or they may not."
Henry did some contract work for the corps in the 1970s before Hominy Creek was dammed to form the lake. He uncovered some cultural sites within the valley and even excavated small materials such as fragments of tools and carbonized seeds, some of which are at TU.
The main sites themselves, he said, are now under water.
The healing rock originally was located near the Hominy Creek bottoms and was moved by the corps to higher land near its project office, Henry said.
Adkins, meanwhile, said the corps will keep StateSource and Skiatook informed. The corps plans to wrap up its approval process quickly if no other artifacts are found, he said.
"We want to see this thing go," he said.
Hulsey, however, believes that the corps' attitude toward the project has seemed peculiar at times.
"It's rush, rush, rush (at first to approve the project) and now it's about not rushing," he said.