Cost of sewer project goes up more than $500K after remains of 68 people discovered at site

WASHINGTON (TND) — The cost of a sewer project in an Indiana city has increased by more than half a million dollars after the remains of 68 people were found at the job site, according to a report.

WFIE recently noted that records show the area in Evansville where the remains were discovered is registered as a cemetery.

The discovery was reportedly made in March.

Now, the cost of the work has drastically gone up, as the media outlet said "the construction contract was amended and approved for more than $566,000" -- with at least half the money being used to excavate remains.

As of Tuesday, WFIE said crews removed 63 of the remains. Five are still in the ground.

”It’s not unheard of to have dozens of graves in a city cemetery even at that time, although, it may have only been a river town,” Andrew Martin, who is the director of operations for Cultural Resource Analyst Inc., told WFIE. “It was growing and certainly people were living and dying here, so they had to put them somewhere and in this cemetery was the most likely spot. It’s not surprising that there’s that many graves. What is kind of surprising is that they haven’t been moved since then or disturbed by other activity -- construction activity -- in those 150, almost 200 years.”

WFIE reported that the "water utility company approved a 178-day extension on the project, and 58 of those days are set aside for the removal and documentation of the cemetery remains."