"It is seriously doubtful that the museum can complete the work no matter how much money they're paid," Williams said. "They just don't have the organization or the ability to do it."
Jeffrey A. Bell, the museum's senior vice president and chief financial officer, today said the museum "has an excellent staff in place, and we will produce quality reports."
He said the museum since August has produced 51 archaeological reports on the project. And he said the Federal Highway Administration, which is paying 90 percent of the cost, "has been supportive and satisfied with our work throughout."
Williams, who worked from 1988 to 1991 on the Windward archaeological study, was fired in 1991. "They were looking for a fall guy, basically," he said.
The earlier managers of H-3 archaeological work had also been fired, and he was viewed as a remnant of that earlier group, Williams said.
Under a later contract that called for him to move to the mainland to be free of distractions that had plagued him here, he finished drafts of several reports, he said. But the contract was terminated. "The museum and I mutually agreed to terminate that contract. They basically became next to impossible to work for," he said.
Williams said he has been trying to negotiate a new arrangement to finish those reports, but to no avail. "There hasn't been much interest on the museum's part, and that is basically because if I do it, that means less money for them. It's just gotten ridiculous at this point."
State highway chief Hugh Ono sent Bell a letter on May 13 halting museum archaeological work until a new contract is signed. The state has paid the museum $17.3 million since work began in 1984. It had been paying the museum $240,000 a month during recent contract negotiations, but it stopped those monthly payments until a final cost figure is worked out.
The work was to be completed by next year, but the museum now says it will take until 1998.
The museum blames H-3 construction delays and design changes that affected archaeological work.
But Williams says the problem is mismanagement. "It's kind of about time that somebody looked into how much has been charged and what is being done for that money," he said. "For $17.3 million, it better be an awfully good archaeological report."
Bob Spear, another former field director for the Bishop Museum, agrees. "I think it's about time somebody checked into what the Bishop Museum was doing," he said.
He hopes the state Department of Transportation and state Historic Preservation Division will "get a firm handle on the actual costs that it's going to take to get all the projects completed."
State archaeologist Tom Dye has said about seven reports still must be put in final form and a North Halawa Valley inventory is about three years behind schedule.
"It's my opinion that the Halawa work should be finished for a whole lot less than they've appeared to ask for, though I'm not privy to all the numbers or anything like that," said Spear, now president and principle investigator for Scientific Consultant Services. "I ran the Halawa Valley project roughly from August 1987 until I quit Dec. 1, 1991."
Since then, he has been involved in contracting through an engineering firm to do consulting work on H-3 with Bishop Museum, Spear said.
The state has suspended museum archaeological work while negotiations proceed on the final scope and cost. The two sides held a brief, cordial meeting yesterday and agreed to meet again early next week.
According to the museum, an agreement is expected in about three weeks. The museum said it has had two contracts with the state Department of Transportation based on a cost-plus arrangement.
An initial figure of $700,000 was only for limited work to begin the project, and until this year, state procedure was to amend the contract according to the developing highway design and construction schedule, the museum said. It said the H-3 is the largest archaeological endeavor ever undertaken in Hawaii.