MAT-SU -- Four Knik-area residents testified at the Mat-Su Borough Assembly meeting Tuesday, hoping to persuade assembly members to reconsider approving a project they believe would have excavated numerous historical graves in the Knik area, including several Native Alaskan graves.

"Today you passed a resolution allowing a certain group to apply a foundation to the Herning warehouse," said Star Hein-Drake. "Those graves were buried in dirt and [due to an ordinance] passed by you people, they can place a foundation on top of those graves."

But according to information from Historical Preservation Commission chairman LeRoi Heaven, excavation of graves was never part of the plan, and the testimony at the Sept. 17 assembly meeting was largely due to a misunderstanding.

The Herning warehouse, once used as the Knik Trading Company by Knik resident O.G. Herning, now sits on blocks behind Knik Museum. The Historical Preservation Commission requested funding to put the warehouse on a permanent foundation, but some fear the foundation will be placed on gravesites. Photo by RINDI WHITE/Frontiersman.

At issue is a project placed seventh on a list for potential funding through the Mat-Su Borough Municipal Matching Grant program, a state funding mechanism through which the borough will get an estimated $800,000 during fiscal year 2004. Also placed on the list for funding are improvements to the Garden Terrace Water System, a small, borough-maintained and operated system serving a subdivision on Fairview Loop Road; rehabilitation of the Palmer and Wasilla public pools; a study of water and sewer systems in the core area; phase one of a new library and community center in Sutton and several other items.

This is the first time the Herning warehouse project has moved from the commission's list of projects that need to be completed to the borough-wide list of capital projects.

"This is just one of the many projects that came up for restoration," Heaven said.

The project would move the Herning warehouse from where it currently sits on blocks near the Knik Museum to an area Heaven identified as in line with the back door of the museum building.

"It's being moved forward away from there," Heaven said, "not because there are bodies there, but because that was never intended to be a permanent location."

Nancy Sult, vice president of Friends of Old Knik and also a member of the commission testified at the Sept. 17 meeting. She said relocation was not indicated on the original grant application.

Fran Seager-Boss, cultural resource specialist for the Mat-Su Borough, said the warehouse has been up on blocks at its present location longer than the 13 years she has been at the borough. It was moved there from a location near what's now a Tesoro gas station at the intersection of Main Street and the Parks Highway in Wasilla. Like the Teeland store, now known as Mead's Coffeehouse, the building was moved to preserve its historical value. But if that value is not protected soon, it could be lost altogether.

"It's been on blocks for a number of years," Seager-Boss said. "It's subject to continued degradation and eventual collapse."

The project would relocate the building, once used as the Knik Trading Company by Knik resident O.G. Herning, then as a warehouse by the Teeland family. Plans are to put it on a permanent foundation. It's the first phase of a two-phase renovation -- the second phase would fund interior restoration of the building. Eventually, Heaven said, the warehouse would be used to show off items that, due to spatial limitations, can't be displayed.

"We moved it back to Knik because that's where we can use it further to display native artifacts that we can't display in the museum," Heaven said.

Sult told assembly members the intended location conflicts with a 1983 report completed by archaeologist Doug Reger for the state's Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys.

"An added note is that Alice Theodore also reported as many as 40 graves in the area immediately behind the Knik Hall," Reger wrote in the report. "That area apparently was filled in at the time the present Knik Road was built. Any graves which existed there are now covered by fill."

A map included with Reger's report shows a circle about 50 feet behind the museum where the estimated 40 graves are located. Heaven said the warehouse's relocation will not cross into that area.

"It's not anywhere near that circle," Heaven said.

Seager-Boss said even if it was, there are mechanisms set up to protect a culturally significant site.

"The first item on the application ... said that all borough permits and codes would be first adhered to," Seager-Boss said, "and there would be money for that process to take place."

The review that ensures no cultural resources are disturbed, Seager-Boss said, is part of that procedure.

The budget for the project does include between $1,000 and $2,000 for a survey, legal procedures code review, compliance permit and other contingencies.

When asked if the matter, then, came down to a misunderstanding, Seager-Boss said she believed that was the case.

"It's more just a matter of educating the public," Seager-Boss said. "They're not aware of all our processes."

But Sult said she and others concerned about the placement of the warehouse did not feel comfortable waiting for another survey to be done to determine grave locations, when the 1983 survey was already on hand.

"The survey's been done," Sult said. "We don't feel it's necessary for them to be poking around and digging 20 feet in front of them or 20 feet behind them."

Sult's testimony and that of the others before the assembly at the meeting last week paid off, as assembly member Jim Colver put forward a motion to assess whether graves were present at the intended Herning warehouse location and, if present, find another suitable location.

Although assembly member Jody Simpson said that assessment was already part of the grant, Colver said the resolution would serve to back up the grant's intent.

"I don't think it hurts to back that with legislative intent," Colver said.

Colver's motion passed unanimously, and Sult said Friends of Old Knik planned to do what it could to help with that assessment.

"We're going to provide all the information that we have," Sult said.

She added that she hopes the assembly follows through on concerns raised at the meeting that gravesites are presently not designated as cemeteries and protected as such.

"I hope that someone can designate these cemeteries," Sult told the assembly, "so, in the future, when we're not around, the backhoes don't find them."

Assembly member Kelly Lankford Ladere said she would like to help find a way to designate sacred areas.

"We have plenty enough land not to destroy something that important to these people," Ladere said. "I will look into it."