By Katherine Heerbrandt
Frederick News-Post Staff

FREDERICK -- Archeological work will begin on Site C along Carroll Creek in early November and, depending on the findings, cleanup could cost the city $290,000 or more, according to planning director Chuck Boyd.

The cost would be recouped from the sale of the property, currently under contract to be sold to a Rockville developer for $770,000.

After the city negotiated the sale, it discovered that a portion of Site C was home to two graveyards. The $290,000 price tag is the high end of an estimate by archeological consultant, R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, and includes the cost of exhumation and reinterment of bodies and documentation of other significant findings.

Bid proposals for the archeological work are due Oct. 17, and the first November meeting of the mayor and aldermen is the earliest the bid can be awarded.

The work will be done in two phases, Mr. Boyd said. Phase one will be a four- to six-week investigation of the property and will cost between $30,000 and $50,000. Depending on the findings, phase two would involve recovery of artifacts and the reinterment of bodies.

According to the consultant's report, the area that might contain graves is limited to the western portions of Site C.

The property could contain "the remains of two historic churches and their cemeteries, as well as other evidence of domestic activity from the nineteenth century," read the report.

Mr. Boyd conjectured that if evidence of a privy is found, the find may be historically significant. "People tossed things into old outhouses to fill them in. Today they are most valuable," he said.

Between 1980 and 1986, the city purchased six properties that make up Site C for the Carroll Creek flood control project. Federal Housing and Urban Development money provided 94 percent of the funding. Originally, the city wanted to use part of the land for low- to moderate-income housing. In 1981, the city applied to HUD to build a 100-unit Section 8 project.

Because the city changed the use of the property, the federal funds have to be repaid to the Community Development and Block Grant (CDGB) program. In anticipation of the sale, the city moved $470,000 from its general fund to CDGB. As HUD money, it must be used for affordable housing or slum and blight control.

"The original purchase price was $200,000, so CDGB is getting paid more than it put in," Mr. Boyd said. At last week's city workshop, the board agreed that the money should be used for its intended purpose, affordable housing.

If the city does not have to pay the full estimated cost of archeological recovery, it plans to keep the additional $300,000 from the sale in its general fund, which has no restrictions on its use.

"The city should not be a land baron. That is why we are putting it (the land) back into the private sector," Mr. Boyd said.

kheerbrandt@fredericknewspost.com