The authority in charge of a water project in Fluvanna County is now investigating a consultant’s archaeological work on the contentious project, after a former employee came forward with allegations of unethical practices by the consultant.
Last month, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources wrote in a letter to the James River Water Authority that Carol Tyrer, an archaeological consultant on the water intake and pump station project, was unqualified. The department later clarified that Tyrer misrepresented her degree on her resume.
The issue has intensified after Eric Mai, a former employee at Tyrer’s firm, Circa, sent a statement to VDHR reporting “an urgent concern” about what he believes to be “illegal, unethical, unprofessional and unscientific practices by Circa in its work generally and at Point of Fork specifically.”
“These practices include lying to government officials, assigning unqualified and untrained personnel to perform sensitive investigations, failing to supervise unqualified personnel, misrepresenting professional and academic qualifications in official filings, falsifying research data, failing to use appropriate technology to obtain reliable data and then massaging the data to look scientific, plagiarizing the work of unaffiliated professionals, minimizing archaeological discoveries and handling cultural resources inappropriately in the field and in the laboratory,” Mai wrote in the declaration.
The water intake and pump station is part of a larger project to bring water from the James River to a water treatment facility in Louisa County. The effort ultimately would serve the Zion Crossroads area in Fluvanna and Louisa counties.
The site for the intake and pump station is Point of Fork at the confluence of the Rivanna and James Rivers, which played a role in the Revolutionary War and also is known as Rassawek, the historic capital of the Monacan Indian Nation.
In a news release, the JRWA said that it “takes those allegations very seriously” and is conducting an investigation.
“At the conclusion of that investigation, JRWA will take any necessary and appropriate action to protect the public’s investment in this water supply project,” the statement said.
In Mai’s eight-page declaration, he states he was an employee of Circa for six years beginning in 2012 and was assigned to the JRWA project from May 2017 until January 2018.
“Even if the Army Corps of Engineers somehow determines that excavating this site in advance of its destruction is appropriate, a full and scientific excavation would require far more work, and far more careful and costly work, that is proffered in the proposed treatment plan,” he said.
Mai also alleges mishandling on other Circa projects he worked on, such as a survey in Nokesville; work in advance of a housing project in Mechanicsville; and construction of the Redskins training camp in Richmond.
“I was present for all excavations at this site, as well as machine monitoring,” he said of the Redskins project. “I believe that the archaeological investigations undertaken were rushed and features ignored.”
He also alleges that Tyrer edited a copy of his resume that was sent to VDHR and that it “grossly mischaracterizes and exaggerates my experience with prehistoric sites.”
“My expertise is not in Native American archaeology as the resume states; my master’s thesis focused on enslavement of African Americans on Virginia plantations in the antebellum period,” Mai said.
Marion Werkheiser, managing attorney of Cultural Heritage Partners and counsel to the Monacan Indian Nation, said it would “now be contrary to federal law for the Corps to grant a permit to JRWA for this project.”
“JRWA’s consultant’s ‘study’ at Point of Fork was so purposefully deceptive and inappropriate in its approach, and so lacking in integrity, that the resulting ‘testing’ adversely affected the site,” Werkheiser said in a letter directed to Steven VanderPloeg, an environmental scientist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
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