A booming real estate and construction industry means that ancient burials and Hawaiian artifacts are coming up more frequently in backhoe buckets, leading to tension in the Hawaiian cultural community and a new determination by the state to address those issues.

State preservation officials and Hawaiian cultural experts are hoping that a new state law will increase awareness and halt possible abuse of native burial sites by imposing stiffer fines.

In addition, Melanie Chinen, administrator of the state Historic Preservation Division, said her office is proposing a series of other measures to promote compliance with the law, from charting regions where burials are likely to be found to fully staffing the state Burial Sites Program so construction delays are minimized.

"We're very pro-enforcement," Chinen said. "The rules do require developers to report, and we have said that we will revoke archaeologists' permits if we find evidence that they haven't." A revoked permit means an archaeological firm would be unable to conduct any work that requires state review.

The new state law imposes a daily fine of $25,000 for knowingly damaging burial sites or discovering remains and then failing to stop work and report their findings. Previously, the daily fine was set at $10,000.

Chinen said she is aware of cases where homeowners have found iwi, or bones, on their properties without reporting them, mainly because of a lack of understanding of the law. But she said her office hears of more serious violations.

Some fear that developers just don't care.

"We know for sure among some developers there's a don't-care attitude. If nobody knows, we can get rid of it. Don't know, don't show," said Ku Kahakalau, a member of the Hawai'i Island Burial Council.

Industry officials counter that licensed professional builders maintain high standards, although they concede there may be newcomer developers and homeowners who may not understand the cultural sensitivities involved.

Fred Moore, president of the Building Industry Association of Hawai'i, the local affiliate of the National Association of Home Builders, said in addition to maintaining high industry standards, his colleagues are sensitive to concerns surrounding burial sites.

"I believe that my contractor and development friends have great respect for the huna — the spiritual way of Hawaiian society," Moore said.

Under existing state policy, found burials are typically dealt with more quickly and less expensively when they are "inadvertent" finds rather than those that are unearthed by a pre-construction archaeological survey, or whose existence is predicted by such a survey. The survey can lead to requirements for design changes to allow burials to remain undisturbed instead of, for instance, being moved to a convenient corner of the property.

Chinen said her office hopes to provide county planners with maps of regions where human remains are likely to be found—so that counties are able to mandate pre-construction surveys to determine whether special efforts may be needed to protect burials.

Halealoha Ayau, who was the state's first Burial Sites Program manager, said that the Ke'eau-moku Street Wal-Mart project on O'ahu illustrates how things can go awry. Because the site had been previously developed, he said, there was an assumption that a survey was not necessary, and one was not done. Subsequently, though, some 60 sets of iwi were dug up during construction.

"After all the bad publicity they got about that, from a developer's standpoint, wouldn't you have wanted to know?" said Ayau, who is also a member of Hui Malama I Na Kupuna O Hawai'i Nei, an organization that has been active in the repatriation of Hawaiian bones held in far-away museums, and in the reburial of funerary cultural objects.

Chinen hopes that the handling of burial sites will be further improved when the state Burial Sites Program catches up on its workload with a full staff. The program is part of the state Historic Preservation Division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

"Staffing has been a long-standing issue," said Chinen, who noted that because of staff shortages she has been forced to personally respond to some calls about found bones, even though she has no archaeological, cultural or history training.

The state Burial Sites program, on its Web site, says it responds to two to three burial reports weekly, up to 250 a year, and some 3,000 in the past 15 years.

The Burial Sites Program currently has no archaeologist for O'ahu. The Kaua'i archaeologist also covers Moloka'i. Clerical shortages mean there are multi-year backlogs in writing up the minutes of some island burial council meetings, which provide the public with updates on how burials are being processed. Some complain that it has taken months to process family members' claims to burial remains, or to decide how to deal with specific burials.

But Chinen said active job recruiting is under way, that all positions in the division will be filled by the end of the year, and several positions will be added.

To call attention to the handling of Hawaiian burials, hula teacher Kehaulani Kekua last week helped lead a 24-hour cultural vigil on Kaua'i. She said it's important for developers to understand that many Hawaiians consider it an unpardonable sin not to process unearthed human remains in a culturally appropriate way.

"There are ways to sensitively deal with it, but we want people to have respect and honor what is primal and archaic to the land. We want people to be cautious and responsible," Kekua said. "It's just another construction site to some of these people. To some, it's like, 'What's the big deal?' It is a big deal. It is a big deal."

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.