“Some underwater comprehensive surveys have been done in front of the old Dean Hardwoods site,” said Nathan Henry, assistant state archaeologist serving New Hanover and Pender counties.
“The whole river (in that area) has been surveyed under water,” he said.
But nothing has been done on land in area of Wilmington’s north riverfront development, Henry said. One reason is that development has been a little piece at a time.
Also he said that the site has been used as a dumping ground for centuries, but it doesn’t have “much integrity.”
“One of the ways we look at the potential significance are things being intact rather than like a trash dump,” Henry said.
Unless it’s a CAMA permit or an Army Corp of Engineers wetland concern, “we don’t get involved,” he said. (CAMA stands for the Coastal Area Management Act, a North Carolina law passed in 1974.)
Date posted: April 28, 2010
User-contributed question by:
Kitty Fitzgibbon
A portion of the site is an old Superfund Site. According to NC DENR the former Almont Shipping Terminal site is where the current construction is located. I don’t think you would want to be playing around in that area looking for artifacts.