Good news from the Western Front!

[Tompaleo@aol.com]

Hello Everyone,

Finally some good news to report. But first my compliments to Ray Stanford 
for another productive week in the Patuxent Fm. I wish I had the time to 
spend plying the streams as you do Ray but I hear the call of the site 
beckoning! Keep up the work. Now you need to publish some of this stuff!
I too had mad a foray into the field today (and will do so tomorrow too). Not 
a whole lot to speak of,

2 croc teeth,
1 bulbous-looking tooth which resembles some amiid fish teeth we now have 
here, or the distal apex of an atoposaur tooth . It's unusual to say the 
least. 
And the piece' de resistance'  - 1 beautiful dromaeosaur lateral tooth.
Also recovered the usual fragmentart scraps and some encrusted bone, one of 
which is small, ovoid and about 2 x 3 cm, kind of rnds me of a scute of some 
type. 

To the good news. This is hastily written and it's late so please excuse the 
grammar, spelling punctuation etc.
Yesterday, I received a call from Mr. Curtis Bentley  of the 
_Paleobiologiocal_Fund. Mr. Bentley has been interested from the beginning in 
helping to resolve the current crisis regarding the dispositon of my site now 
that the quarry is shutting down. Almost from the oputset he has been trying 
to contact the owner to offer the Fund as a vehicle by which the owner, the 
fund, myself and science can all come away with something. Only this week was 
he able to get through to the owner, or rather, his represntative there. Upon 
hearing this I also called and spoke to a very nice lady who explained that 
the owner travels often and is often out of the country on busness and this 
has been the main reason why no one has been able to speak directly with him. 
Anyway, she did confirm that the State of Maryland/DNR had approached them 
but went on to assure me that he ideed is truly in "no hurry" to make a deal 
on this property for at least another "year to year and a half"! So for the 
interim, (or meantime as stated by that DNR person), we can continue with our 
work. Furthermore, I was also assured that the owner, would first call  me  
when a decision has been reached. And it gets even better, I was further 
reassured that my work "will be in the forefront" of that decision, when it 
is made! So it does seem that all the reports of the owner being a major 
philanthropist and supporter of science are true. The lady with whom I spoke, 
spoke very highly of the owner, so much so that I was convinced that there is 
not much to worry about on _their_ end! we have a good reprieve to continue 
working and to get more allies behind us. 

However, this of course has nothing to do with the poltical aspect of the 
battle which, I have still, not heard a peep from! So please, keep those 
emails and letters flowing. And the gov, has the power of _emminent_domain_ 
to condemn and otherwise take property they want though it has bnever been 
used in cases like this. 

On this political note, I will add that today, while prospecting at the 
quarry, a  four wheel drive, "official" vehicle pulled up behind my pickup 
truck containing a person from "the other side" and their main land appraisal 
specialist.  While technically my opponents as they are the ones now charged 
with getting the Dinosaur Park on line (preferrably with my site appended to 
it) this lady is my one ally there. It's not DNR or the Stae but a bi-county 
parks and planning commision the lower tier of the governmental food chain. I 
pretty much have thi person convinced that to allow access to anyone but 
experienced paleotnologists on this site, should they aquire it, is a bad 
idea. But hey, she will have to do her job even if that means the worse case 
scenario. So I' not being naive either.  Moving right along, I did my part 
for good neighborly relations. I took about and hour and a half giving them 
the 5-dollar tour of the site, explaining the advantages of opening a second 
outcrop and the geological reasoning behind that, the disadvantages of any 
Joe Blow running rough shod on this small area, and even held fairly deep 
discussion on the paleoenvironment, age, occurrence and taphonomy of the 
site. We also had discussed  my recent field digs of the last couple of 
summers and what has resulted from those efforts which piqued their curiosity 
for starting up a microvertbrate screen washing project of their own. The guy 
seemed very impressed to the point that he even openly agreed with me on all 
my points of contention! 

But they still want the site!

Moreover, I have learned that they are about to commence exploratory coring 
on their side of the land to determine to what extent the Arundel underlies 
the property. I have asked to be advised when this commences and if i could 
be on hand  and she had in fact wanted my presence to be there to help site 
each station. But, if they proceed as they want to, to save money, they willl 
likely not core deep enough to penetrate the horizon- which is what we want 
to hit!  I told them as much so they need to work out the costs of going 
deeper (30-40 ft as opposed to a uniform 20 feet). They are also planning 
some aerial photography of the site at a fine scale to supplement this data. 
Another sidebar to this issue is some really good GIS data being generated, 
some of which has already been provided to me in te form of printed maps 
since I too would like to incorporate GIS applications to mapping and 
recording the entire areal extent of the Arundel.  This is the kind of 
cooperation that would benefit two concurrent projects rather than just some 
park. 
Of course the subject repeatedly came up on how best can they "prove" to the 
owner and to the scientists that they are not the enemy. So I went into my 
spiel, very nicely, not revealing any of the aforementioned info and cogently 
of course, that this place cannot be a kiddy park first and formeost. They 
both agreed and that elicited a responce about a site in the Brightseat Fm 
(late-K, Masstrichtian) that they "preserved" nearby. Apparently once word 
gets out that a site is being saved, everyone and their brother wants to have 
outings and field trips on these new parks and to my surprise the guy said 
that they ahd to close it off to everyone as a result. I don't know if that 
means scientists as well and that would be very stupid but we are dealing 
with a quasi governmanetal agency. So they do know what they are in for once 
word gets out and I guarantee that it will (not by me though).
Again, I wish to reiterate that this lady is my only known ally on that side 
of the issue and my only hope of having any say or influence should they win 
out. We have discussed the possibility of cross-cooperation should we prevail 
and keep it from being acquired. The only reason I will not name names  at 
this time is to keep her from getting any flack or repercussions. I feel that 
I have cultivated a good working relationship with my many talks and meetings 
with her. I had previously arranged for and gave her a personal tour of the 
site last month to help instill a better appreciation of our side of the 
picture and to drive home my points. All in all this unplanned and very 
impromptu meeting with the 'other side' at the outcrop was very cordial and 
productive. It's too bad there is so much government overhead involved as I 
believe that together we could really work out things quite amicably.

Anyway, that's what I have for now. Since I lost about two hours of 
prospecting yesterday, I have one more free day to spend at the site so maybe 
I'll hav'e more cool finds to report upon my return!

Thanks again everyone!

Tom

Thomas R. Lipka
Geobiological  Research
2733 Kildaire Drive
Baltimore, Md. 21234 USA