of enslaved persons of African descent and free African-Americans, and the historic ground surface is under several feet of sediment. When the spillway gates are opened, the cemeteries are flooded. The location of the gravesites was a mystery until May 1975, when the US Army Corps of Engineers excavated a ditch in the spillway. During that process, a tombstone and casket were discovered. In 1986, the corps ordered a historical study of the spillway and discovered a second cemetery. The two cemeteries were placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. The artifacts discovered during the 1986 study included coffin furniture, coffins, grave markers, cultural remains, and human remains. The archaeological district consists of the two cemeteries. Additional research on the cemeteries was done in 2002–2005 and archaeological investigations in 2008–2009. The cemeteries, named the Kenner Cemetery and the Kugler Cemetery, are black burial plots which appear to date from the early 1800s and were in use until 1929. Several African-American US Army Civil War veterans were moved from the spillway cemeteries to Chalmette National Cemetery in 1930. The total number of burials in either cemetery is unknown. The sites adjoin 19th- and early 20th-century sugar plantations in St. Charles Parish. According to oral histories and as confirmed by GIS analysis, both cemeteries were located in the midst of the cane fields of their respective plantations. The Kenner Cemetery, located on the former Roseland Plantation, was reported to be marked by iron and wooden crosses during its period of use. No such markers were confirmed archaeologically, but one granite US veteran headstone was recovered from the site. The Kugler Cemetery, located on the former Hermitage Plantation, was reported to contain iron crosses and a metal fence. One such iron cross and remnants of what could have been the fence were recovered during the 1986 archaeological investigations. At present, the cemetery sites have been demarcated by young live oak trees. Natural resource management In 2007, extraction operations began on a square section of spillway property. The spillway, designed to divert rising water out of the Mississippi River during flooding seasons, long has been a major source of sand and clay that is used in construction projects throughout the area. But in the post-Katrina era, clay extracted from the spillway will be crucial to raising the levees in St. Charles Parish and east Jefferson Parish. The spillway's secondary function is