As anyone who regularly reads this blog knows (and contrary to what I suspected before I placed traffic trackers, there's actually quite a few of you), I spend alot of time looking into regulations and case law to try to figure out how to apply historic preservation laws to specific projects. Right now I am particularly confounded, though.
See, I have a project in the southern San Joaquin Valley. This project involves historic-era archaeological sites that are related to the early use of the oil fields. Now, back in the late 90s, the Department of Energy sold Naval Petroleum Reserve 1 (which is about two miles north of my project area) to a private company, and in the process had to go through the environmental revue process. During this process, rumor holds that they developed a good set of criteria for determining whether or not a historic-era oil field site was eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, and therefore would gain some (admittedly minor) level of protection, and that the State Office of Historic Preservation agreed to these criteria in a programmatic agreement.
Now, the project that I have is not on the old Naval Petroleum Reserve grounds, and therefore these criteria would not be directly applicable to my project, but they can provide guidance on how to apply the regulations in similar environments within the vicinity of the Petroleum Reserve grounds. It is, essentially, a matter of hunting down precedent.
Which makes my current task as necessary as it is frustrating.
You see, the studies and documents that I need to find were produced in the late 90s, as federal agencies were beginning to gain a strong online presence, but before the early 2000s shuffling of various federal responsibilities under Bush. In other words, it came into being during that magical internet time when all web sites had blue balls to illustrate bullet points (mind out of the gutter!), Geocities and Angelfire were where it was at, and federal agencies were sure that they needed to do something with this internet thingy, even though they weren't sure what, exactly. So, I can find the Record of Decision in the Federal Register that describes the project and the documents, I can find the public comments to the documents, and I can find agency comments for the documents from the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Energy...but I can not find the document itself. I can't even find PDF copies of one of the several documents to which the document I need would have been an appendix or attachment!
Now, this wouldn't be bad if I could get a hard copy of the document. But here's the problem - if I make a formal request to OHP or DOE, my project will be due before I actually hear about the possibility of receiving the document. I could conceivably call one of my contacts at an agency that works with the documents, but I have already found that most of them are out of the office for extended periods of time on their own projects. And the people I know at private companies who could get me a copy are currently so buried under their own work that they rarely respond to emails or phone calls anyway.
So, I continue trying to find it by some other sneaky way. Oh joy!
Showing posts with label Government Agencies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Government Agencies. Show all posts
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
How the System Works
A friend of mine recently forwarded me a newspaper article about a land developer that was doing work on lands held by the Bureau of Land Management, and the BLM had bowed to political pressure and this developer had been "allowed" to hire their own company to do the environmental impact report. She was livid that the BLM was making an exception for this company and allowing it to hire the people who would determine whether or not the company's activities would have negative environmental impacts.
You can only imagine her reaction when I informed her that the BLM was not bowing to political pressure, that project proponents (that is, the people or organizations wanting to do a land development project) typically hire their own consultants to to the environmental impact statements (in fact, that's a primary reason why companies such as mine exist), and that this was not a case of a large company getting something special because of political ties, but rather was simply the normal mechanics of how a land development project proceeds.
This does, admittedly, sound pretty bad. Even when nothing nefarious is going on (and after many years experience in this field, I have learned that things are usually on the up and up), the fact that the people performing the environmental analysis for a project were hired by the people who want the project to go through does look pretty...well, strange. There are three things that one should know about this, however.
The first is that those of us who do the environmental work are consultants to, and not employees of, the proponents. This may seem like a fine distinction, but it is actually quite important. We are expected to understand the relevant laws and regulations, and to explain to our clients how they have to behave to keep in compliance with them. If the regulations say that "activity X must be proceeded by precaution Y" then we explain this to our clients. Our environmental review documents are just as much prescriptive ("in order to avoid impacts, the project proponent must take these precautions...") as descriptive (simply describing the environmental impacts of a project). Now, that's not to say that there isn't room for corruption in the system, there certainly is (and I know of a few archaeologists who I suspect are on the take, based on some of the results that they have put into reports), but it does mean that we don't have the same pressures on us that a direct employee of the company would. So, yes, there is room for corruption, and the fact that a project proponent is paying for the environmental review does look rather off, but it should be understood that the purpose of the environmental review process is to document potential problems, relevant regulations, and define the terms under which problems will be avoided or mitigated, not simply to give a thumbs up or thumbs down to the potential for a project to have environmental impacts.
The second thing is that these reviews are not done in a vacuum. As part of the review process, stakeholders must be identified - community groups, Native American organizations, individuals whose homes or property might be impacted by the project, historic societies, recreation groups that make use of an area, etc. The outreach to these groups can be done poorly, and often has been, but it is something that is part of the environmental review process. When you hear about how a project was halted because of environmental concerns, it's usually because one of these stakeholders (or somebody who should have been identified as a stakeholder) has terminated consultation and is seeking legal action. Identified stakeholders are given the ability to review documents, to ask questions, and to provide comments that can (and often do) result in further review or mitigation work being done. In other words, just because a large company hires the consultant to do the environmental review doesn't mean that the documents stay between the consultant and their client, they are reviewed by stakeholders, and often put out for broad public review, in order to allow for comments to be received regarding the level of effort, and anything that might have been missed (or excluded) by the consultant who prepared the document.
The third thing that should be kept in mind is that this review process is not unsupervised. All documents must be received and reviewed by the government agency that is providing the permits/money/donkey rides/whatever that the project proponent needs. Normally the documents are reviewed by a specialist at the agency (so, an archaeologist who works at the agency will review all archaeology materials, a biologist all biology reports, etc.), and the agency must sign off on the report before it is finalized. In some cases, the agency may hire a consultant of their own to help with this oversight, which often results in a rival company overseeing the work of the other - having been on both sides of this, I can tell you from experience that it does lead to a heightened sense of responsibility on the part of the proponent's contractor. Consultants who have a tendency towards corruption tend to draw the attention of the federal agencies, and there have been cases of people being pushed out because of this (probably not as many cases as there should be, but still), so most consultants feel a stronger need to keep on the good side of the federal regulators than to keep on the good side of any one client.
Now, there has been talk of ways of reforming this system, such as the proponent paying a fee to the agency and the government agency hiring the consultant who does the review, to remove the appearance of subservience to the proponent. These sorts of solutions all have problems of their own, but I appreciate the notion behind them. Regardless, the system, as it exists, is not simply a matter of "proponent hires consultant to say what proponent wishes" - the system is more complicated. Not to say that there isn't room for vast improvement, but it's not the horrific mess that many people seem to feel.
You can only imagine her reaction when I informed her that the BLM was not bowing to political pressure, that project proponents (that is, the people or organizations wanting to do a land development project) typically hire their own consultants to to the environmental impact statements (in fact, that's a primary reason why companies such as mine exist), and that this was not a case of a large company getting something special because of political ties, but rather was simply the normal mechanics of how a land development project proceeds.
This does, admittedly, sound pretty bad. Even when nothing nefarious is going on (and after many years experience in this field, I have learned that things are usually on the up and up), the fact that the people performing the environmental analysis for a project were hired by the people who want the project to go through does look pretty...well, strange. There are three things that one should know about this, however.
The first is that those of us who do the environmental work are consultants to, and not employees of, the proponents. This may seem like a fine distinction, but it is actually quite important. We are expected to understand the relevant laws and regulations, and to explain to our clients how they have to behave to keep in compliance with them. If the regulations say that "activity X must be proceeded by precaution Y" then we explain this to our clients. Our environmental review documents are just as much prescriptive ("in order to avoid impacts, the project proponent must take these precautions...") as descriptive (simply describing the environmental impacts of a project). Now, that's not to say that there isn't room for corruption in the system, there certainly is (and I know of a few archaeologists who I suspect are on the take, based on some of the results that they have put into reports), but it does mean that we don't have the same pressures on us that a direct employee of the company would. So, yes, there is room for corruption, and the fact that a project proponent is paying for the environmental review does look rather off, but it should be understood that the purpose of the environmental review process is to document potential problems, relevant regulations, and define the terms under which problems will be avoided or mitigated, not simply to give a thumbs up or thumbs down to the potential for a project to have environmental impacts.
The second thing is that these reviews are not done in a vacuum. As part of the review process, stakeholders must be identified - community groups, Native American organizations, individuals whose homes or property might be impacted by the project, historic societies, recreation groups that make use of an area, etc. The outreach to these groups can be done poorly, and often has been, but it is something that is part of the environmental review process. When you hear about how a project was halted because of environmental concerns, it's usually because one of these stakeholders (or somebody who should have been identified as a stakeholder) has terminated consultation and is seeking legal action. Identified stakeholders are given the ability to review documents, to ask questions, and to provide comments that can (and often do) result in further review or mitigation work being done. In other words, just because a large company hires the consultant to do the environmental review doesn't mean that the documents stay between the consultant and their client, they are reviewed by stakeholders, and often put out for broad public review, in order to allow for comments to be received regarding the level of effort, and anything that might have been missed (or excluded) by the consultant who prepared the document.
The third thing that should be kept in mind is that this review process is not unsupervised. All documents must be received and reviewed by the government agency that is providing the permits/money/donkey rides/whatever that the project proponent needs. Normally the documents are reviewed by a specialist at the agency (so, an archaeologist who works at the agency will review all archaeology materials, a biologist all biology reports, etc.), and the agency must sign off on the report before it is finalized. In some cases, the agency may hire a consultant of their own to help with this oversight, which often results in a rival company overseeing the work of the other - having been on both sides of this, I can tell you from experience that it does lead to a heightened sense of responsibility on the part of the proponent's contractor. Consultants who have a tendency towards corruption tend to draw the attention of the federal agencies, and there have been cases of people being pushed out because of this (probably not as many cases as there should be, but still), so most consultants feel a stronger need to keep on the good side of the federal regulators than to keep on the good side of any one client.
Now, there has been talk of ways of reforming this system, such as the proponent paying a fee to the agency and the government agency hiring the consultant who does the review, to remove the appearance of subservience to the proponent. These sorts of solutions all have problems of their own, but I appreciate the notion behind them. Regardless, the system, as it exists, is not simply a matter of "proponent hires consultant to say what proponent wishes" - the system is more complicated. Not to say that there isn't room for vast improvement, but it's not the horrific mess that many people seem to feel.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Alleged Worst Case
When I worked in Santa Barbara County, I would frequently be called out to consult on City of Santa Barbara projects. these were public work projects such as the construction of roads, replacement of sidewalks, construction of sewer lines, etc. One of the planners, a fellow whose name I can not recall (which is just as well, as my sense of ethics would prevent me from including it here without his permission), would always ask the same question:
"What is the worst case scenario, from a historic resources standpoint?"
Each time the conversation would play out the same way. He'd ask the question, and I would talk about what was likely to be found. For example, I was once asked to explain the "worst case scenario" for a new sidewalk installation. I explained that the proposed sidewalk was on a road that traversed a steep hillside with no rock outcrops or caves, meaning that the odds of there being an archaeological site was very, very low. Therefore, I couldn't conceive of a "worst case scenario."
"Well, what if we find an Indian cemetery while working?"
I then explained that this was rather unlikely, as people who don't have heavy equipment tend not to bury their dead on 60 degree slopes with no caves or rock outcrops.
"What if this was the exception? What if there was someone really important and special, and they made the effort? What if this was a group that thought it was religiously very important that everyone be buried in a steep hillside?"
And so it went.
This was typical, I would be asked to give a worst case scenario, and when I explained why the situation wasn't dire, I would be faced with a question about an absurd situation which I could pretty much guarantee would never happen, and I was asked to provide a full plan for how to deal with it, complete with budget and schedule (seriously, I was sometimes asked for a budget and schedule for dealing with things that didn't even exist).
The problem is that if you are going to play the "we have to think everything through, no matter how unlikely" game you will never reach an end point.
What if you find the site that provides actual, legitimate proof that the Knights Templar fled France and settled in California? What if you encounter the remains of a neanderthal who managed to migrate to the Americas? What if you find a site that contains clearly unearthly material, proving aliens landed? It's absurd, it's silly, it's stupid to waste time considering it, but if you are going to consider every possibility, no matter how far-fetched, you can't rule it out.
The problem is that, in archaeology, even things that are likely can't be worked out until they are certain. If we do find a burial ground, I can't say how it will be dealt with until the most likely descendants are contacted and consulted, the number of burials is known, and the potential for modifying the project to avoid impacts is assessed. In other words, asking for a "worst case scenario" before anything has been identified in an area is a bit like going to the doctor and asking for a worst-case scenario before he has been able to examine you or heard you describe the symptoms. And you know, I can kind-of forgive construction contractors or land developers when they ask these questions. they may not have dealt with this before, and they may simply be trying to wrap their minds around it. But a city planner who has dealt with countless archaeological consultations? Different story.
This is a situation that I don't find myself in very often, but it does happen, and it's always annoying.
"What is the worst case scenario, from a historic resources standpoint?"
Each time the conversation would play out the same way. He'd ask the question, and I would talk about what was likely to be found. For example, I was once asked to explain the "worst case scenario" for a new sidewalk installation. I explained that the proposed sidewalk was on a road that traversed a steep hillside with no rock outcrops or caves, meaning that the odds of there being an archaeological site was very, very low. Therefore, I couldn't conceive of a "worst case scenario."
"Well, what if we find an Indian cemetery while working?"
I then explained that this was rather unlikely, as people who don't have heavy equipment tend not to bury their dead on 60 degree slopes with no caves or rock outcrops.
"What if this was the exception? What if there was someone really important and special, and they made the effort? What if this was a group that thought it was religiously very important that everyone be buried in a steep hillside?"
And so it went.
This was typical, I would be asked to give a worst case scenario, and when I explained why the situation wasn't dire, I would be faced with a question about an absurd situation which I could pretty much guarantee would never happen, and I was asked to provide a full plan for how to deal with it, complete with budget and schedule (seriously, I was sometimes asked for a budget and schedule for dealing with things that didn't even exist).
The problem is that if you are going to play the "we have to think everything through, no matter how unlikely" game you will never reach an end point.
What if you find the site that provides actual, legitimate proof that the Knights Templar fled France and settled in California? What if you encounter the remains of a neanderthal who managed to migrate to the Americas? What if you find a site that contains clearly unearthly material, proving aliens landed? It's absurd, it's silly, it's stupid to waste time considering it, but if you are going to consider every possibility, no matter how far-fetched, you can't rule it out.
The problem is that, in archaeology, even things that are likely can't be worked out until they are certain. If we do find a burial ground, I can't say how it will be dealt with until the most likely descendants are contacted and consulted, the number of burials is known, and the potential for modifying the project to avoid impacts is assessed. In other words, asking for a "worst case scenario" before anything has been identified in an area is a bit like going to the doctor and asking for a worst-case scenario before he has been able to examine you or heard you describe the symptoms. And you know, I can kind-of forgive construction contractors or land developers when they ask these questions. they may not have dealt with this before, and they may simply be trying to wrap their minds around it. But a city planner who has dealt with countless archaeological consultations? Different story.
This is a situation that I don't find myself in very often, but it does happen, and it's always annoying.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Drafting
All of the reports that we produce are submitted to the lead agency (the state or federal agency responsible for licensing, permitting, or funding a given project) for comments. The purpose of this practice is to provide the agency a chance to give feedback on the environmental review process before we finalize the work. Ideally, the report is done well enough that the agency provides few, if any, comments. Realistically, if all else fails, the agency folks will provide comments (sometimes accurate, sometimes not) about the grammar. Really, some of these folks are that bored.
More substantive comments are also common. When, as is not uncommon, one or two people produce a 400-page report (complete with all of it's appendices) in the space of two weeks, it is inevitable that something will be unclear or missing from the report, and agency comments will point this out.
On other occasions, an agency will allow someone who has no knowledge of the relevant subjects to review a document. In those cases, the comments are often nonsensical. For example, one report that my company submitted to a state agency was returned with a comment stating that the report had failed to explain how the proposed project would impact a known Native Californian village site. We responded by contacting the agency and explaining that the village site in question was six miles from the project location and was separated from the project location by a mountain range, and therefore there were no impacts. The agency responded by demanding that we explain how the proposed project would impact the village. We responded again by explaining the distance and the mountain range, the agency demanded that we explain the impacts (apparently failing to grasp that six miles and a mountain range is sufficient buffer to keep a graded dirt road from impacting a site), and so on for several months.
One state agency, which shall remain un-named, has even elevated abusive comments into an art form. I once received a comment from this agency informing me that a report I had written "has a whining, petulant tone that the reviewers found offensive." If you have ever read one of these documents then you'll know that the notion that they can have a tone other than "dry and boring" is comical. This same agency, one seeing the field schedule for an excavation project, wrote that "a quadriplegic without his wheelchair could dig faster than this!"
As amusing as those comments are, at least that particular agency has a reputation for knowing their own regulations and applying them evenly, correctly, and fairly across the board. In order to provide a contrast, I have to explain that when a report is submitted to an agency, it is called a "Draft" report, and will become a "Final" report once comments have been received and incorporated into the document.
Now for the contrasting agency. We work, routinely with a federal agency (that shall also go un-named) that has offices throughout California, and most of the people in most of these offices are good at their jobs and pleasant to work with. But every now and again we hit up against someone who isn't. In this case, we submitted a draft report for agency comments. The agency archaeologist took exception to this, apparently viewing it as an insult that we would submit a draft report and not a final report. So, they shredded the document and demanded a final report.
Of course, going by this agency's own processes, we can't actually generate a final report until after the agency has commented on the draft report. The report was, therefore, re-submitted with an explanation that we were waiting on comments so that we could issue a final report. The agency shredded that one and demanded a final report.
And so, we find ourselves in a position where we are being held responsible for actually following the agency's own requirements.
Fnord!
More substantive comments are also common. When, as is not uncommon, one or two people produce a 400-page report (complete with all of it's appendices) in the space of two weeks, it is inevitable that something will be unclear or missing from the report, and agency comments will point this out.
On other occasions, an agency will allow someone who has no knowledge of the relevant subjects to review a document. In those cases, the comments are often nonsensical. For example, one report that my company submitted to a state agency was returned with a comment stating that the report had failed to explain how the proposed project would impact a known Native Californian village site. We responded by contacting the agency and explaining that the village site in question was six miles from the project location and was separated from the project location by a mountain range, and therefore there were no impacts. The agency responded by demanding that we explain how the proposed project would impact the village. We responded again by explaining the distance and the mountain range, the agency demanded that we explain the impacts (apparently failing to grasp that six miles and a mountain range is sufficient buffer to keep a graded dirt road from impacting a site), and so on for several months.
One state agency, which shall remain un-named, has even elevated abusive comments into an art form. I once received a comment from this agency informing me that a report I had written "has a whining, petulant tone that the reviewers found offensive." If you have ever read one of these documents then you'll know that the notion that they can have a tone other than "dry and boring" is comical. This same agency, one seeing the field schedule for an excavation project, wrote that "a quadriplegic without his wheelchair could dig faster than this!"
As amusing as those comments are, at least that particular agency has a reputation for knowing their own regulations and applying them evenly, correctly, and fairly across the board. In order to provide a contrast, I have to explain that when a report is submitted to an agency, it is called a "Draft" report, and will become a "Final" report once comments have been received and incorporated into the document.
Now for the contrasting agency. We work, routinely with a federal agency (that shall also go un-named) that has offices throughout California, and most of the people in most of these offices are good at their jobs and pleasant to work with. But every now and again we hit up against someone who isn't. In this case, we submitted a draft report for agency comments. The agency archaeologist took exception to this, apparently viewing it as an insult that we would submit a draft report and not a final report. So, they shredded the document and demanded a final report.
Of course, going by this agency's own processes, we can't actually generate a final report until after the agency has commented on the draft report. The report was, therefore, re-submitted with an explanation that we were waiting on comments so that we could issue a final report. The agency shredded that one and demanded a final report.
And so, we find ourselves in a position where we are being held responsible for actually following the agency's own requirements.
Fnord!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Super Happy Form Filling Out Time
I am, once again, in the desert, archaeologizing as I am wont to do. In this particular case, we are recording archaeological sites, which means filling out forms. Lots of forms. Lots of boring, repetitive forms.
I am also in the field with some new field technicians, meaning that these people have yet to grasp just how boring and repetitive the paperwork can be, and are therefore attempting to rebel against what is common practice. You see, every archaeological site recorded in California is recorded on a set of forms that are issued from the Department of Parks and Recreation and approved by the Office of Historic Preservation. These forms, known as the DPR forms, are not particularly well-designed. Rumor has it that they were designed by an architectural historian, which would explain why they aren't that great for recording archaeological sites. But they are what we have, and we're required to use them so whatcha' gonna' do?
At any rate, the new field techs have come to the conclusion that they are going to fill out the forms in such a manner that information regarding each site is only reported on one place in any given packet of forms. The problem is that the forms are designed in a way that indicates that information such as the vegetation surrounding a site or a site's condition vis-a-vis erosion should be (although technically doesn't need to be) in multiple places. And I have had to disabuse them of the notion that they are allowed to follow such a common sense approach. After spending several days lecturing them on the need for redundant information, I have finally found a more efficient way of getting them to do what I want them to.
First off, I explain that the hand-written forms are going to be sent to one of our other regional offices, where digital forms will be created by someone who may or may not have dealt with a site record before. This person will find the redundancy useful, as they will then be able to produce their new version of the form with a clear idea of which aspects of the site are important.
Second, and more important, the forms will be sent along with the report to the government agencies with which we are working for comment. Different agencies tend to hire different caliber of archaeologists. For example, the California Department of Transportation, the Bureau of Land Management, and the USDA Forest Service generally hire very good archaeologists who tend to know what they are about. On the other hand, one agency that shall remain un-named hired an archaeologist who once refused to provide me with agency guidelines for archaeological fieldwork until after fieldwork had been completed (apparently I was supposed to apply them after the fact, leading me to wonder if that agency secretly controls a time machine). An archaeologist from another agency that will remain un-named once demanded that my boss explain how a project would impact an archaeological site that wasn't even in the same county as the project, and therefore would not be impacted in any way shape or form.
Add to this that many clients will wish for reports and site records to be reviewed by people who don't know the first thing about archaeology. I have, on more than one occasion, had clients attempt to remove information from reports or site records because they didn't like it, even thought it was true. I have also had clients attempt to edit the records in ways that seemed wise and clever to them, but didn't make a damn bit of sense to the archaeologists. Again, simplification of language and redundant information on forms can often reduce the amount of stress one has to deal with from one's clients. My current client knows better than to get up to such nonsense, but many don't.
So, yeah. There are some truly excellent government archaeologists...and then there are some who seem to be trying their damndest to convince the world that the Libertarians are right about government being bad and inept.
But, what this means is that I can tell stories of the horrible agency archaeologists to the crew. I discovered this evening that simply explaining the types of things that some agency archaeologists can get up to is sufficient to convince the crew that, as frustrating as it is, redundancy and simplification of language may, in fact, be necessary. More importantly, the new folks came to understand that there is more to archaeology than simply being in the field and finding things. We have to work through large government and private corporate bureaucracies, and they often involve having our work being scrutinized by people who, at best, know nothing about archaeology, and at worst are arrogant about their ability to adjudicate on technical matters on which they have no knowledge. Filling out the forms correctly may be frustrating and boring, but it saves you trouble down the road.
I am also in the field with some new field technicians, meaning that these people have yet to grasp just how boring and repetitive the paperwork can be, and are therefore attempting to rebel against what is common practice. You see, every archaeological site recorded in California is recorded on a set of forms that are issued from the Department of Parks and Recreation and approved by the Office of Historic Preservation. These forms, known as the DPR forms, are not particularly well-designed. Rumor has it that they were designed by an architectural historian, which would explain why they aren't that great for recording archaeological sites. But they are what we have, and we're required to use them so whatcha' gonna' do?
At any rate, the new field techs have come to the conclusion that they are going to fill out the forms in such a manner that information regarding each site is only reported on one place in any given packet of forms. The problem is that the forms are designed in a way that indicates that information such as the vegetation surrounding a site or a site's condition vis-a-vis erosion should be (although technically doesn't need to be) in multiple places. And I have had to disabuse them of the notion that they are allowed to follow such a common sense approach. After spending several days lecturing them on the need for redundant information, I have finally found a more efficient way of getting them to do what I want them to.
First off, I explain that the hand-written forms are going to be sent to one of our other regional offices, where digital forms will be created by someone who may or may not have dealt with a site record before. This person will find the redundancy useful, as they will then be able to produce their new version of the form with a clear idea of which aspects of the site are important.
Second, and more important, the forms will be sent along with the report to the government agencies with which we are working for comment. Different agencies tend to hire different caliber of archaeologists. For example, the California Department of Transportation, the Bureau of Land Management, and the USDA Forest Service generally hire very good archaeologists who tend to know what they are about. On the other hand, one agency that shall remain un-named hired an archaeologist who once refused to provide me with agency guidelines for archaeological fieldwork until after fieldwork had been completed (apparently I was supposed to apply them after the fact, leading me to wonder if that agency secretly controls a time machine). An archaeologist from another agency that will remain un-named once demanded that my boss explain how a project would impact an archaeological site that wasn't even in the same county as the project, and therefore would not be impacted in any way shape or form.
Add to this that many clients will wish for reports and site records to be reviewed by people who don't know the first thing about archaeology. I have, on more than one occasion, had clients attempt to remove information from reports or site records because they didn't like it, even thought it was true. I have also had clients attempt to edit the records in ways that seemed wise and clever to them, but didn't make a damn bit of sense to the archaeologists. Again, simplification of language and redundant information on forms can often reduce the amount of stress one has to deal with from one's clients. My current client knows better than to get up to such nonsense, but many don't.
So, yeah. There are some truly excellent government archaeologists...and then there are some who seem to be trying their damndest to convince the world that the Libertarians are right about government being bad and inept.
But, what this means is that I can tell stories of the horrible agency archaeologists to the crew. I discovered this evening that simply explaining the types of things that some agency archaeologists can get up to is sufficient to convince the crew that, as frustrating as it is, redundancy and simplification of language may, in fact, be necessary. More importantly, the new folks came to understand that there is more to archaeology than simply being in the field and finding things. We have to work through large government and private corporate bureaucracies, and they often involve having our work being scrutinized by people who, at best, know nothing about archaeology, and at worst are arrogant about their ability to adjudicate on technical matters on which they have no knowledge. Filling out the forms correctly may be frustrating and boring, but it saves you trouble down the road.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Fun with Lead Agencies
Note: The previous version of this post ended up getting deleted accidentally, so I thought I would re-post it. As there are many new readers (at least according to the comments that I receive), I thought that it might be worthwhile to put it up.
I have a livelihood because archaeological work is required by a set of federal, state, and local laws when construction is going to be performed in areas considered archaeologically sensitive. It is the responsibility of the agency issuing the permits to determine the parameters of archaeological work to be done, and to tell applicants what those parameters are so that the applicant can produce an application that meets the agency’s standards and regulations.
That seems pretty straightforward, right? The agency knows the rules, they tell the applicant the rules, and the applicant complies.
But what happens when the agency doesn’t tell the applicants the rules?
Case in point - I have a project that requires permits from a particular government agency. We were asked to perform a survey of a right-of-way (ROW) for transmission lines, and we needed to know how large an area the agency required be surveyed (the California Energy Commission, for example, requires that a corridor made up of the ROW plus 50 feet on either side of the ROW be surveyed). I went to look up the agency’s regulations, and could not find them anywhere. So, I called the agency to ask, and found myself speaking with the head of their environmental office.
Me: "Hi. I’m an archaeologist who is working on project such-and-such, and I am trying to work out the survey plan. How wide a corridor do you require?"
Her: "Well, it depends on the project’s ROW size. A larger ROW requires a larger survey."
Me: "Yes, I’m aware of that. But how do you determine that? The CEC requires 50 feet on either side of the right-of-way, do you have a similar method of determination?"
Her: "No."
Me: "So, how do you work it out?"
Her: "Well, we know the width of the ROW for different projects, and we base it on that."
Me: "Okay. Well, for project such-and-such, do you know how large a corridor you want to see surveyed?"
Her: "I can’t answer that."
Me: "Why not?"
Her: "Well, if I tell you that I want a survey corridor of X-width, then you’ll survey X-width."
Me: "Well, yes, that’s the point."
Her: "Well, if we decide afterwards that we would rather have a wider corridor, then you can hold us to our original determination."
Me: "Why not specify a wide corridor to begin with?"
Her: "That’s not our role."
Me: "But you’re the lead agency. Defining terms for licensing is both your role and your responsibility."
Her: "We decided that we no longer want that role."
Me: "So, is someone else the lead agency now?"
Her: "No, we’re legally required to be the lead agency."
Me: "Then it’s still your role and responsibility to define the terms of the license."
Her: "We choose to wait until the applicant has completed the studies before we define those terms."
Me: "But those terms define the parameters of the studies."
Her: "That’s not our problem."
At this point, I decided to change tactics.
Me: "Okay, it’s a 100-foot wide ROW. What if we survey a 200-foot wide corridor. That would be in keeping with the CEC regulations, would that also satisfy your agency?"
Her: "Unofficially, I think that that sounds reasonable."
Me: "And officially?"
Her: "Officially, I have no comment, we do not determine the parameters of the studies until after we have received the application."
Me: "But the regulations requires that the study results be included as part of the application."
Her: "Yes."
Me: "How are we supposed to conduct studies to include the results as part of the application if you will not define the parameters of the study until after the application?"
Here: "That’s not our problem."
And Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, Rinse, Repeat....
And then there’s the joy of dealing with the folks at county planning offices. I just had a frustrating conversation with a fellow at one of the local counties. They have been referring land developers to us, and they have been telling the developers "you need an archaeological report."
The problem is that everything we do involves an archaeological report. Do they need monitoring? Do they need survey? Do they need significance testing? Do they need data recovery?
I told the fellow at the county that we needed for them to tell the applicants what kind of report they needed (I should add that I have been trying to contact this fellow for a few weeks, and the fellow only got around to returning a phone call today, so calling the county for clarification appears to not be an option). His response: "we do tell them. We tell them that they need a report!"
Me: "Well, that’s pretty vague. Everything we do results in a report."
Him: "Well, I don’t know much about archaeology, so I don’t think that I can answer the question."
Me: "I’m not asking you a question about archaeology, I’m asking you to explain the county regulations, which you are supposed to be an expert on, to the applicants so that they will know what kind of work the county needs."
Him: "Well, the county regulations are online."
Me: "Yes, and they require that I know which county planning zone a project falls into, but you folks don’t make that information public, so I can’t determine what the client needs based on that."
Him: "Well, it’s going to vary based on the area that they are in."
Me: "Yes, but you have requirements for each area, and you issue permits, and that indicates that you know what you are looking for for each area."
Him: "Well, we have to look through the databases, and all of that, to figure out what they need."
Me: "Yeah, but you know what they need so that you can issue the permits. Can you just tell the applicants specifically what they need?"
Him: "It’s not that simple."
Me: "Why not?"
Him: "Well, we have to go through the databases..."
Me: "Yes, yes, I know, but you have requirements, which indicates that you know what those requirements are, which indicates that you can tell them what those requirements are so that they can tell us."
Him: "Well, it’s not that simple, you see, the database..."
Me: "You have requirements for permits?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "You know what those requirements are when the permits are requested?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "You know whether that includes survey or monitoring for a specific project?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "Then you can tell the applicant what you need them to submit."
Him: "Well, I don’t know anything about archaeology."
Me: "I’m not asking you about archaeology, I’m asking you what the county requires for permits."
Who’s on first? What’s on second? And so on, ad naeseum...
I have a livelihood because archaeological work is required by a set of federal, state, and local laws when construction is going to be performed in areas considered archaeologically sensitive. It is the responsibility of the agency issuing the permits to determine the parameters of archaeological work to be done, and to tell applicants what those parameters are so that the applicant can produce an application that meets the agency’s standards and regulations.
That seems pretty straightforward, right? The agency knows the rules, they tell the applicant the rules, and the applicant complies.
But what happens when the agency doesn’t tell the applicants the rules?
Case in point - I have a project that requires permits from a particular government agency. We were asked to perform a survey of a right-of-way (ROW) for transmission lines, and we needed to know how large an area the agency required be surveyed (the California Energy Commission, for example, requires that a corridor made up of the ROW plus 50 feet on either side of the ROW be surveyed). I went to look up the agency’s regulations, and could not find them anywhere. So, I called the agency to ask, and found myself speaking with the head of their environmental office.
Me: "Hi. I’m an archaeologist who is working on project such-and-such, and I am trying to work out the survey plan. How wide a corridor do you require?"
Her: "Well, it depends on the project’s ROW size. A larger ROW requires a larger survey."
Me: "Yes, I’m aware of that. But how do you determine that? The CEC requires 50 feet on either side of the right-of-way, do you have a similar method of determination?"
Her: "No."
Me: "So, how do you work it out?"
Her: "Well, we know the width of the ROW for different projects, and we base it on that."
Me: "Okay. Well, for project such-and-such, do you know how large a corridor you want to see surveyed?"
Her: "I can’t answer that."
Me: "Why not?"
Her: "Well, if I tell you that I want a survey corridor of X-width, then you’ll survey X-width."
Me: "Well, yes, that’s the point."
Her: "Well, if we decide afterwards that we would rather have a wider corridor, then you can hold us to our original determination."
Me: "Why not specify a wide corridor to begin with?"
Her: "That’s not our role."
Me: "But you’re the lead agency. Defining terms for licensing is both your role and your responsibility."
Her: "We decided that we no longer want that role."
Me: "So, is someone else the lead agency now?"
Her: "No, we’re legally required to be the lead agency."
Me: "Then it’s still your role and responsibility to define the terms of the license."
Her: "We choose to wait until the applicant has completed the studies before we define those terms."
Me: "But those terms define the parameters of the studies."
Her: "That’s not our problem."
At this point, I decided to change tactics.
Me: "Okay, it’s a 100-foot wide ROW. What if we survey a 200-foot wide corridor. That would be in keeping with the CEC regulations, would that also satisfy your agency?"
Her: "Unofficially, I think that that sounds reasonable."
Me: "And officially?"
Her: "Officially, I have no comment, we do not determine the parameters of the studies until after we have received the application."
Me: "But the regulations requires that the study results be included as part of the application."
Her: "Yes."
Me: "How are we supposed to conduct studies to include the results as part of the application if you will not define the parameters of the study until after the application?"
Here: "That’s not our problem."
And Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, Rinse, Repeat....
And then there’s the joy of dealing with the folks at county planning offices. I just had a frustrating conversation with a fellow at one of the local counties. They have been referring land developers to us, and they have been telling the developers "you need an archaeological report."
The problem is that everything we do involves an archaeological report. Do they need monitoring? Do they need survey? Do they need significance testing? Do they need data recovery?
I told the fellow at the county that we needed for them to tell the applicants what kind of report they needed (I should add that I have been trying to contact this fellow for a few weeks, and the fellow only got around to returning a phone call today, so calling the county for clarification appears to not be an option). His response: "we do tell them. We tell them that they need a report!"
Me: "Well, that’s pretty vague. Everything we do results in a report."
Him: "Well, I don’t know much about archaeology, so I don’t think that I can answer the question."
Me: "I’m not asking you a question about archaeology, I’m asking you to explain the county regulations, which you are supposed to be an expert on, to the applicants so that they will know what kind of work the county needs."
Him: "Well, the county regulations are online."
Me: "Yes, and they require that I know which county planning zone a project falls into, but you folks don’t make that information public, so I can’t determine what the client needs based on that."
Him: "Well, it’s going to vary based on the area that they are in."
Me: "Yes, but you have requirements for each area, and you issue permits, and that indicates that you know what you are looking for for each area."
Him: "Well, we have to look through the databases, and all of that, to figure out what they need."
Me: "Yeah, but you know what they need so that you can issue the permits. Can you just tell the applicants specifically what they need?"
Him: "It’s not that simple."
Me: "Why not?"
Him: "Well, we have to go through the databases..."
Me: "Yes, yes, I know, but you have requirements, which indicates that you know what those requirements are, which indicates that you can tell them what those requirements are so that they can tell us."
Him: "Well, it’s not that simple, you see, the database..."
Me: "You have requirements for permits?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "You know what those requirements are when the permits are requested?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "You know whether that includes survey or monitoring for a specific project?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "Then you can tell the applicant what you need them to submit."
Him: "Well, I don’t know anything about archaeology."
Me: "I’m not asking you about archaeology, I’m asking you what the county requires for permits."
Who’s on first? What’s on second? And so on, ad naeseum...
Monday, December 15, 2008
Plane Crash - Part 2
Welcome to a series of entries on one of the most bizarre projects that I have been involved with. This is Part 2, which involves corpse-sniffing dogs and my car becoming a human remains transport. Go here for Part 1, which describes how this all began. If you've already read Part 2, go here for Part 3.
************************************
One of the first steps in executing our plan for recovering the human remains from the wreckage was bringing in trained forensics dogs and their equally trained (and very professional) handlers. These folks were really quite patient and delightful to work with. Unfortunately, lack of sleep and an abundance of stress made me not so pleasant, and I hope that I did not leave a permanently bad impression, though I suspect I may have.
Regardless, these folks claimed that the dogs could not only find relatively recent bodies, but also could find older bone. I was skeptical of this claim, and the first day was certainly inauspicious. The dogs were having a good deal of difficulty finding anything, which we later learned was due to the large amount of petroleum vapor in the air (the smell was overpowering even for those of us who don’t have sensitive noses). When the dogs returned a few days later, they pin-pointed even small pieces of bone with an almost eerie accuracy and sped us up considerably. However, on that first day, we were left with little to go on. So, we began to work out which piles of excavated soil belonged with the layer that contained the wreckage, and which belonged to the pile that contained only the over-burden.
I was also short-staffed on that first day. Our original plan had been to sort through the soil containing the materials by hand, scraping soil out of the pile with our trowels and looking for bone. We had underestimated the amount of soil that we would have to deal with, or over-estimated our soil-scraping prowess. Regardless, we moved more slowly than we had previously assumed. Luckily, we were assisted by the forensic professor from the university and her 14 year-old daughter, who proved to be quite handy with the trowel and bone identification.
Please indulge me in a bit of an aside. I remember that, when I was 14, parental bonding usually took the form of catching a movie, going for a walk, or working on some sort of craft project together. I valued these experiences, certainly, and see their value more and more the older I get. However, I have to say, I would probably have much clearer memories of these events (not to mention better stories) if I had helped my parents recover corpses. I can just see the high-school hallway discussions now:
Teen 1: “So, my dad and I went out camping this weekend. It was okay. What did you do?”
Teen 2: “I helped my mom recover a corpse from a field, and then collected specimens from the maggot population to determine time of death. We then handed them over to the coronerwith field observation notes to further determine whether the death was due to a fall, or a screwdriver sticking out of the torso.”
Teen 1: “Uuuhhhhmmm…yeah…”
…ahh, those halcyon days of youth. But I digress…
At any rate, the professor and her daughter were extremely helpful and their participation was greatly appreciated. However, I decided by the end of the day that we would return to the field on the second day with the standard archaeological screens and an additional field technician (which would, with the help of the professor and two graduate students, speed us up and increase our accuracy immensely).
During the course of the day, we also encountered numerous unfired bullets from the plane’s machine guns – this was after a military unexploded ordnance “expert” surveyed the scene and announced that there were no bullets in the area. Several people, none of them experts themselves, assured me that old bullets were harmless – but after hearing the stories of a former military police officer who had some experience with UXO, I was not inclined to take their word for it. We took each bullet and put it in a bag that was a good distance away from us, and behind a thick berm.
Early in the day, a coroner’s detective came out to the field to talk with us about proper treatment of the human remains that we anticipated encountering. At the end of the day, I called the detective, sent the rest of the crew home, and waited in the field for the detective to arrive. It was kind of nice, it was quiet, I could hear the breeze blowing over the strawberry fields, and I got my first quiet rest for the day. A short while later, I saw the Sherriff’s cruiser coming up the dirt road towards where I was working. At the wheel of the car was the detective from earlier in the day.
After the car parked, the detective got out and walked towards the wreckage. I joined him, and we spoke for a few minutes about what had occurred that day and what my plans were for the rest of the week. He had no problem with my change in approach, and was pleased with the methods that we intended to implement. After we had finished that, I showed him the boxes that contained the material that we had recovered that day, and I asked if he wanted me to put the boxes int eh car that he had brought.
“No.”
I was a bit dumbfounded. After all, human remains go to the coroner – why was the coroner telling me that he didn’t want them in the car? Was he expected some other vehicle to do the pick up? A coroner’s van? An unmarked vehicle? An airlift? A deer-drawn sleigh looking for some extra money during the off-season, perhaps? So, I asked “what would you like me to do with them?”
“Well,” the detective looked off and appeared to be somewhat annoyed, though it wasn’t clear what he was annoyed with, “you only have a small portion of what is in there” he indicated the partially-buried wreckage.
“Yes.”
“So, you will have more in the next few days.”
“True.”
“It makes more sense for us to take custody all at once than to take it in parts.”
While the detective was making sense, I wasn’t keen on transporting relatively recent body parts around. Still, I didn’t know what else to say, so I said “I see.”
“So, you should keep ahold of them until you’re finished out here. Also, that’ll give us time to work things out with the Navy. They haven’t wanted to get involved yet, and that’s pretty strange.”
And so my car – a strangely-colored Ford Escort hatchback – become a human remains transport. There are few people who have carried human remains around in their trunks, and fewer still, I’ll wager, who did so at the instructions of the coroner’s office.
The detective left, and I had to wait for another hour yet for a deputy to show up and take possession of the unfired bullets. When he arrived, he had a few other deputies with him. When they first showed up, they seemed to be going out of their way to appear macho and in charge – hips thrust forward, walking with exaggerated steps, hands on their hips, next to their guns and pepper spray (no coincidence there, I suspect). But after a few minutes out there, they all took on a demeanor more like excited schoolboys, asking questions about the plane crash, what we know the plane, of the pilot and gunner, and of the processes that resulted in the plane being buried. In all, they were pretty cool guys who just needed to remember that they don’t need to try to intimidate everyone that they encounter. Regardless, by the end of their visit, they had decided to work the crash site into the night-time patrols of the area, meaning that it would have better security.
And with that, the deputies left, and I followed. I headed back to the office to drop stuff off, then I headed home for a shower. After the shower, I headed over to a friend’s house for the evening. I sat down at the table next to another visitor – a friend named Thomas. Thomas had been on an internet chat site earlier in the day, and someone had brought up the plane crash – it was a fairly prominent local news story. In the ensuing discussion, someone had begun to comment that the plane crash “sure sounded like the work of a Japanese sleeper cell” (in fact, when one knows the facts, it sounds more like mechanical failure) and then proceeded to use this to try to produce a justification for the Japanese internment. It’s amazing how the paranoid delusions of the present can be used to justify the crimes of the past.
And so ended the first day. The rest of the week was a bit of a blur, and I should be able to cover it in one or two more entries, but the first day stands out in my memory. So, look out soon for Part 3.
************************************
One of the first steps in executing our plan for recovering the human remains from the wreckage was bringing in trained forensics dogs and their equally trained (and very professional) handlers. These folks were really quite patient and delightful to work with. Unfortunately, lack of sleep and an abundance of stress made me not so pleasant, and I hope that I did not leave a permanently bad impression, though I suspect I may have.
Regardless, these folks claimed that the dogs could not only find relatively recent bodies, but also could find older bone. I was skeptical of this claim, and the first day was certainly inauspicious. The dogs were having a good deal of difficulty finding anything, which we later learned was due to the large amount of petroleum vapor in the air (the smell was overpowering even for those of us who don’t have sensitive noses). When the dogs returned a few days later, they pin-pointed even small pieces of bone with an almost eerie accuracy and sped us up considerably. However, on that first day, we were left with little to go on. So, we began to work out which piles of excavated soil belonged with the layer that contained the wreckage, and which belonged to the pile that contained only the over-burden.
I was also short-staffed on that first day. Our original plan had been to sort through the soil containing the materials by hand, scraping soil out of the pile with our trowels and looking for bone. We had underestimated the amount of soil that we would have to deal with, or over-estimated our soil-scraping prowess. Regardless, we moved more slowly than we had previously assumed. Luckily, we were assisted by the forensic professor from the university and her 14 year-old daughter, who proved to be quite handy with the trowel and bone identification.
Please indulge me in a bit of an aside. I remember that, when I was 14, parental bonding usually took the form of catching a movie, going for a walk, or working on some sort of craft project together. I valued these experiences, certainly, and see their value more and more the older I get. However, I have to say, I would probably have much clearer memories of these events (not to mention better stories) if I had helped my parents recover corpses. I can just see the high-school hallway discussions now:
Teen 1: “So, my dad and I went out camping this weekend. It was okay. What did you do?”
Teen 2: “I helped my mom recover a corpse from a field, and then collected specimens from the maggot population to determine time of death. We then handed them over to the coronerwith field observation notes to further determine whether the death was due to a fall, or a screwdriver sticking out of the torso.”
Teen 1: “Uuuhhhhmmm…yeah…”
…ahh, those halcyon days of youth. But I digress…
At any rate, the professor and her daughter were extremely helpful and their participation was greatly appreciated. However, I decided by the end of the day that we would return to the field on the second day with the standard archaeological screens and an additional field technician (which would, with the help of the professor and two graduate students, speed us up and increase our accuracy immensely).
During the course of the day, we also encountered numerous unfired bullets from the plane’s machine guns – this was after a military unexploded ordnance “expert” surveyed the scene and announced that there were no bullets in the area. Several people, none of them experts themselves, assured me that old bullets were harmless – but after hearing the stories of a former military police officer who had some experience with UXO, I was not inclined to take their word for it. We took each bullet and put it in a bag that was a good distance away from us, and behind a thick berm.
Early in the day, a coroner’s detective came out to the field to talk with us about proper treatment of the human remains that we anticipated encountering. At the end of the day, I called the detective, sent the rest of the crew home, and waited in the field for the detective to arrive. It was kind of nice, it was quiet, I could hear the breeze blowing over the strawberry fields, and I got my first quiet rest for the day. A short while later, I saw the Sherriff’s cruiser coming up the dirt road towards where I was working. At the wheel of the car was the detective from earlier in the day.
After the car parked, the detective got out and walked towards the wreckage. I joined him, and we spoke for a few minutes about what had occurred that day and what my plans were for the rest of the week. He had no problem with my change in approach, and was pleased with the methods that we intended to implement. After we had finished that, I showed him the boxes that contained the material that we had recovered that day, and I asked if he wanted me to put the boxes int eh car that he had brought.
“No.”
I was a bit dumbfounded. After all, human remains go to the coroner – why was the coroner telling me that he didn’t want them in the car? Was he expected some other vehicle to do the pick up? A coroner’s van? An unmarked vehicle? An airlift? A deer-drawn sleigh looking for some extra money during the off-season, perhaps? So, I asked “what would you like me to do with them?”
“Well,” the detective looked off and appeared to be somewhat annoyed, though it wasn’t clear what he was annoyed with, “you only have a small portion of what is in there” he indicated the partially-buried wreckage.
“Yes.”
“So, you will have more in the next few days.”
“True.”
“It makes more sense for us to take custody all at once than to take it in parts.”
While the detective was making sense, I wasn’t keen on transporting relatively recent body parts around. Still, I didn’t know what else to say, so I said “I see.”
“So, you should keep ahold of them until you’re finished out here. Also, that’ll give us time to work things out with the Navy. They haven’t wanted to get involved yet, and that’s pretty strange.”
And so my car – a strangely-colored Ford Escort hatchback – become a human remains transport. There are few people who have carried human remains around in their trunks, and fewer still, I’ll wager, who did so at the instructions of the coroner’s office.
The detective left, and I had to wait for another hour yet for a deputy to show up and take possession of the unfired bullets. When he arrived, he had a few other deputies with him. When they first showed up, they seemed to be going out of their way to appear macho and in charge – hips thrust forward, walking with exaggerated steps, hands on their hips, next to their guns and pepper spray (no coincidence there, I suspect). But after a few minutes out there, they all took on a demeanor more like excited schoolboys, asking questions about the plane crash, what we know the plane, of the pilot and gunner, and of the processes that resulted in the plane being buried. In all, they were pretty cool guys who just needed to remember that they don’t need to try to intimidate everyone that they encounter. Regardless, by the end of their visit, they had decided to work the crash site into the night-time patrols of the area, meaning that it would have better security.
And with that, the deputies left, and I followed. I headed back to the office to drop stuff off, then I headed home for a shower. After the shower, I headed over to a friend’s house for the evening. I sat down at the table next to another visitor – a friend named Thomas. Thomas had been on an internet chat site earlier in the day, and someone had brought up the plane crash – it was a fairly prominent local news story. In the ensuing discussion, someone had begun to comment that the plane crash “sure sounded like the work of a Japanese sleeper cell” (in fact, when one knows the facts, it sounds more like mechanical failure) and then proceeded to use this to try to produce a justification for the Japanese internment. It’s amazing how the paranoid delusions of the present can be used to justify the crimes of the past.
And so ended the first day. The rest of the week was a bit of a blur, and I should be able to cover it in one or two more entries, but the first day stands out in my memory. So, look out soon for Part 3.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Another Field Work Lesson Learned
As regular readers know, I was out of touch for two weeks at the beginning of the month, digging holes in the forest. I will be going back out next week to finish some work. I will be dealing with two different sites, one of which is a six mile hike along a rough trail from the nearest road, and I will be performing archaeological survey in a location that, for a variety of reasons, could not have been dealt with before. The reason that I am digging holes in these two sites is to examine what is present below the surface and make a determination as to whether or not these sites qualify for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. If the qualify, then the federal agencies involved in the project that is justifying this work will have to manage these sites as historic resources. If they do not qualify for listing, the agencies might be able to ignore the sites from here on out (depending on the agreements that they reach with other stakeholders in the project).
One of the sites that I will be dealing with was originally recorded as a historic archaeological site. It represents the remains of a shepherd’s cabin (the building is no longer standing) and the debris associated with life at the cabin (food cans, beer cans, the remains of a bed that have inexplicably been cut in two and placed at two separate locations, and some weird early-20th century electronic equipment – this really is the setting for a bad sci-fi novel). While we were digging, we found evidence of a prehistoric component to the site – so, it’s not just the historic cabin remains and it’s trash, we were also finding arrowheads, spearpoints, bifaces (a type of stone tool that has been worked on two faces to create an ovoid blade shape), and a few by-product flakes from making the tools.
Well, when we were out there the first time, we dug a few shovel probes (relatively small holes dug at 20-centimeter intervals to get a rough idea of what is under the ground) in the central portion of the site, and a few on the western edge, as that is where any construction from the project would be hitting the site. We found nothing on the western edge, and only a small amount in the central portion, and we dug very little on the southeastern edge, where the prehistoric materials seemed to be concentrated because that area would not be impacted by the construction project. We figured that we were good – if the site was eligible for listing, and it didn’t look like it was, then we had confirmed that this particular project would not impact the site. We figured that our work was done.
I get back to the office, and tell my boss about our results. He asks if we had enough information to give a confident assessment of the boundaries of the prehistoric component. I responded that we did not, as we had concentrated on the portions of the site likely to 1) hold the materials that would allow us to assess the eligibility to the National Register, and 2) the site boundaries in the area likely to be impacted. I had thought that my boss would be impressed at my foresight and targeted use of resources.
He was not.
My boss, who has a hell of a lot of experience in dealing with these types of issues, pointed out a few things to me. The first is that, while it is true that I had made a determination as to the likelihood of the project to impact the site, AND I may have the information necessary to determine National Register eligibility, the two federal agencies with which we were dealing may nonetheless elect to manage the site as a historic resource due to either public pressure or pressure from stakeholders (such as historical societies, Native American groups, etc.). This being the case, the boundary of the site would become important.
The second was that, even if the agencies chose not to manage the site, our client (itself a county agency) might decide to do so for the same types of reasons that the agencies might rely on. So, we were once again in a position where more information would be helpful, even if the site was not eligible for listing.
The third was that, even in the absence of register eligibility, the federal agencies would see the acquisition of site boundary information as valuable and as evidence that our client had made a good-faith effort to meet the federal agency’s needs. This was likely to make matters easier for our client even if the site itself was ultimately regarded as unimportant.
And so I learn a lesson on how both the regulations and politics of a project can have impacts on fieldwork that are not obvious from the get-go. A valuable lesson, if one that can be a bit embarrassing to learn.
One of the sites that I will be dealing with was originally recorded as a historic archaeological site. It represents the remains of a shepherd’s cabin (the building is no longer standing) and the debris associated with life at the cabin (food cans, beer cans, the remains of a bed that have inexplicably been cut in two and placed at two separate locations, and some weird early-20th century electronic equipment – this really is the setting for a bad sci-fi novel). While we were digging, we found evidence of a prehistoric component to the site – so, it’s not just the historic cabin remains and it’s trash, we were also finding arrowheads, spearpoints, bifaces (a type of stone tool that has been worked on two faces to create an ovoid blade shape), and a few by-product flakes from making the tools.
Well, when we were out there the first time, we dug a few shovel probes (relatively small holes dug at 20-centimeter intervals to get a rough idea of what is under the ground) in the central portion of the site, and a few on the western edge, as that is where any construction from the project would be hitting the site. We found nothing on the western edge, and only a small amount in the central portion, and we dug very little on the southeastern edge, where the prehistoric materials seemed to be concentrated because that area would not be impacted by the construction project. We figured that we were good – if the site was eligible for listing, and it didn’t look like it was, then we had confirmed that this particular project would not impact the site. We figured that our work was done.
I get back to the office, and tell my boss about our results. He asks if we had enough information to give a confident assessment of the boundaries of the prehistoric component. I responded that we did not, as we had concentrated on the portions of the site likely to 1) hold the materials that would allow us to assess the eligibility to the National Register, and 2) the site boundaries in the area likely to be impacted. I had thought that my boss would be impressed at my foresight and targeted use of resources.
He was not.
My boss, who has a hell of a lot of experience in dealing with these types of issues, pointed out a few things to me. The first is that, while it is true that I had made a determination as to the likelihood of the project to impact the site, AND I may have the information necessary to determine National Register eligibility, the two federal agencies with which we were dealing may nonetheless elect to manage the site as a historic resource due to either public pressure or pressure from stakeholders (such as historical societies, Native American groups, etc.). This being the case, the boundary of the site would become important.
The second was that, even if the agencies chose not to manage the site, our client (itself a county agency) might decide to do so for the same types of reasons that the agencies might rely on. So, we were once again in a position where more information would be helpful, even if the site was not eligible for listing.
The third was that, even in the absence of register eligibility, the federal agencies would see the acquisition of site boundary information as valuable and as evidence that our client had made a good-faith effort to meet the federal agency’s needs. This was likely to make matters easier for our client even if the site itself was ultimately regarded as unimportant.
And so I learn a lesson on how both the regulations and politics of a project can have impacts on fieldwork that are not obvious from the get-go. A valuable lesson, if one that can be a bit embarrassing to learn.
Monday, September 15, 2008
The Scotts Valley Site
The Scotts Valley Site, which is luckily located down the street from my apartment and no so luckily nearly destroyed, is one of the oldest archaeological sites known in California. Radiocarbon and obsidian hydration dates place the earliest occupation of the site at between 10,500 and 12,000 years old. As an early site that had been continuously used over several millennia, the Scotts Valley Site has the potential to yield information on major changes to the cultural patterns of California, information on environmental changes (and how humans dealt with environmental changes) throughout the Holocene (approximately the last 10,000 years of time), and also answer some puzzling questions about why there are so many more early sites in arid southern California than in the relatively resource-rich Bay Area.
Or, at least, it had that potential until some guy took a bulldozer to it.
The story of the destruction of the Scotts Valley Sites is an odd mix of history, civic pride, institutional arrogance, and religious fundamentalism. It’s also both tragic and funny. I have been unable to track down written sources detailing all that went on – official documents so often downplay the basic wackiness of so much of the human behavior that creates events – so I am having to rely on what I have heard from the people involved. I keep digging for more information however, and if I find anything that contradicts what is written here, I’ll post an update.
The site is in Scotts Valley, and covers a large area in the northern part of town. When it was first settled during the late Pleistocene, the early site sat on a lakeshore (Scotts Valley, like many other parts of California, is filled with cyclical lakes – they’ve been dry for 8,000 years, but will eventually fill up again). As the lake expanded and contracted in time with rain cycles, eventually settling into a creek as precipitation and snow-pack melt slowed at the end of the last ice age, the people who occupied the site moved with the water, resulting in a huge site that covers a large part of the Carbonero Creek drainage’s floodplain.
The site became the center of a controversy in the late 1970’s. The City of Scotts Valley needed to build new public administration buildings, and the early stages of the Silicon Valley computer boom had entrepreneurs scrambling for any land that was driving distance from San Jose. The Scotts Valley Site was on some prime real estate.
As with any project, the construction of new buildings in Scotts Valley was subject to an environmental review process. In the course of this process, it came to the attention of the City of Scotts Valley that this ancient and huge archaeological site was present right where they and the private investors were wanting to build. Historic preservationists, “small town” folks opposed to growth, archaeologists, Native American groups and individuals, and people who realized there was legal trouble on the horizon were either urging caution in dealing with the site or outright opposed to the construction.
On the other side, business interests, residents who saw (admittedly real) economic opportunity in the construction, and the city government all wanted the construction to start.
These two sites squared off for some time, arguments in favor of preserving one of the oldest archaeological sites in North America vying with arguments for economic development, getting nowhere.
Finally, the stalemate was broken. The mayor of Scotts Valley at the time was a young-Earth creationist, someone who believes that the entire Universe was created 6,000 years ago, with all animals in their present form. He decided that he was sick of scientists trying to tell him that there was anyone on the planet, much less Scotts Valley, 10,000 years ago. And so, one fateful day, with great personal aplomb, the mayor climbed on top of a bulldozer and plowed into the site. Those who were around at the time report that the mayor made it clear that he thought of himself as a hero, standing up for his city and his faith.
The State of California had a different attitude, however. When the City was faced with repercussions for the mayor’s actions, they agreed to allow and pay for archaeological excavation (though I am told that even in the face of an impending lawsuit and review agency actions, the city was still reluctant). Nonetheless, excavation was performed, and a very nice volume was produced (check it out: http://www.amazon.com/The-Scotts-Valley-Site-CA-SCr-177/dp/B000H3YKBK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221500137&sr=8-1), and the City of Scoots Valley is A LOT more cautious about how they treat archaeological sites nowadays.
Or, at least, it had that potential until some guy took a bulldozer to it.
The story of the destruction of the Scotts Valley Sites is an odd mix of history, civic pride, institutional arrogance, and religious fundamentalism. It’s also both tragic and funny. I have been unable to track down written sources detailing all that went on – official documents so often downplay the basic wackiness of so much of the human behavior that creates events – so I am having to rely on what I have heard from the people involved. I keep digging for more information however, and if I find anything that contradicts what is written here, I’ll post an update.
The site is in Scotts Valley, and covers a large area in the northern part of town. When it was first settled during the late Pleistocene, the early site sat on a lakeshore (Scotts Valley, like many other parts of California, is filled with cyclical lakes – they’ve been dry for 8,000 years, but will eventually fill up again). As the lake expanded and contracted in time with rain cycles, eventually settling into a creek as precipitation and snow-pack melt slowed at the end of the last ice age, the people who occupied the site moved with the water, resulting in a huge site that covers a large part of the Carbonero Creek drainage’s floodplain.
The site became the center of a controversy in the late 1970’s. The City of Scotts Valley needed to build new public administration buildings, and the early stages of the Silicon Valley computer boom had entrepreneurs scrambling for any land that was driving distance from San Jose. The Scotts Valley Site was on some prime real estate.
As with any project, the construction of new buildings in Scotts Valley was subject to an environmental review process. In the course of this process, it came to the attention of the City of Scotts Valley that this ancient and huge archaeological site was present right where they and the private investors were wanting to build. Historic preservationists, “small town” folks opposed to growth, archaeologists, Native American groups and individuals, and people who realized there was legal trouble on the horizon were either urging caution in dealing with the site or outright opposed to the construction.
On the other side, business interests, residents who saw (admittedly real) economic opportunity in the construction, and the city government all wanted the construction to start.
These two sites squared off for some time, arguments in favor of preserving one of the oldest archaeological sites in North America vying with arguments for economic development, getting nowhere.
Finally, the stalemate was broken. The mayor of Scotts Valley at the time was a young-Earth creationist, someone who believes that the entire Universe was created 6,000 years ago, with all animals in their present form. He decided that he was sick of scientists trying to tell him that there was anyone on the planet, much less Scotts Valley, 10,000 years ago. And so, one fateful day, with great personal aplomb, the mayor climbed on top of a bulldozer and plowed into the site. Those who were around at the time report that the mayor made it clear that he thought of himself as a hero, standing up for his city and his faith.
The State of California had a different attitude, however. When the City was faced with repercussions for the mayor’s actions, they agreed to allow and pay for archaeological excavation (though I am told that even in the face of an impending lawsuit and review agency actions, the city was still reluctant). Nonetheless, excavation was performed, and a very nice volume was produced (check it out: http://www.amazon.com/The-Scotts-Valley-Site-CA-SCr-177/dp/B000H3YKBK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221500137&sr=8-1), and the City of Scoots Valley is A LOT more cautious about how they treat archaeological sites nowadays.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
From the Government and Here to Help
I have a livelihood because archaeological work is required by a set of federal, state, and local laws when construction is going to be performed in areas considered archaeologically sensitive. It is the responsibility of the agency issuing the permits to determine the parameters of archaeological work to be done, and to tell applicants what those parameters are so that the applicant can produce an application that meets the agency’s standards and regulations.
That seems pretty straightforward, right? The agency knows the rules, they tell the applicant the rules, and the applicant complies.
But what happens when the agency doesn’t tell the applicants the rules?
Case in point - I have a project that requires permits from a particular government agency. We were asked to perform a survey of a right-of-way (ROW) for transmission lines, and we needed to know how large an area the agency required be surveyed (the Calfiornia Energy Commission, for example, requires that a corridor made up of the ROW plus 50 feet on either side of the ROW be surveyed). I went to look up the agency’s regulations, and could not find them anywhere. So, I called the agency to ask, and found myself speaking with the head of their environmental office.
Me: "Hi. I’m an archaeologist who is working on project such-and-such, and I am trying to work out the survey plan. How wide a corridor do you require?"
Her: "Well, it depends on the project’s ROW size. A larger ROW requires a larger survey."
Me: "Yes, I’m aware of that. But how do you determine that? The CEC requires 50 feet on either side of the right-of-way, do you have a similar method of determination?"
Her: "No."
Me: "So, how do you work it out?"
Her: "Well, we know the width of the ROW for different projects, and we base it on that."
Me: "Okay. Well, for project such-and-such, do you know how large a corridor you want to see surveyed?"
Her: "I can’t answer that."
Me: "Why not?"
Her: "Well, if I tell you that I want a survey corridor of X-width, then you’ll survey X-width."
Me: "Well, yes, that’s the point."
Her: "Well, if we decide afterwards that we would rather have a wider corridor, then you can hold us to our original determination."
Me: "Why not specify a wide corridor to begin with?"
Her: "That’s not our role."
Me: "But you’re the lead agency. Defining terms for licensing is both your role and your responsibility."
Her: "We decided that we no longer want that role."
Me: "So, is someone else the lead agency now?"
Her: "No, we’re legally required to be the lead agency."
Me: "Then it’s still your role and responsibility to define the terms of the license."
Her: "We choose to wait until the applicant has completed the studies before we define those terms."
Me: "But those terms define the parameters of the studies."
Her: "That’s not our problem."
At this point, I decided to change tactics.
Me: "Okay, it’s a 100-foot wide ROW. What if we survey a 200-foot wide corridor. That would be in keeping with the CEC regulations, would that also satisfy your agency?"
Her: "Unofficially, I think that that sounds reasonable."
Me: "And officially?"
Her: "Officially, I have no comment, we do not determine the parameters of the studies until after we have received the application."
Me: "But the law requires that the study results be included as part of the application."
Her: "Yes."
Me: "How are we supposed to conduct studies to include the results as part of the application if you will not define the parameters of the study until after the application?"
Here: "That’s not our problem."
And Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, Rinse, Repeat....
And then there’s the joy of dealing with the folks at county planning offices. I just had a frustrating conversation with a fellow at one of the local counties. They have been referring land developers to us, and they have been telling the developers "you need an archaeological report."
The problem is that everything we do involves an archaeological report. Do they need monitoring? Do they need survey? Do they need significance testing? Do they need data recovery?
I told the fellow at the county that we needed for them to tell the applicants what kind of report they needed (I should add that I have been trying to contact this fellow for a few weeks, and the fellow only got around to returning a phone call today, so calling the county for clarification appears to not be an option). His response: "we do tell them. We tell them that they need a report!"
Me: "Well, that’s pretty vague. Everything we do results in a report."
Him: "Well, I don’t know much about archaeology, so I don’t think that I can answer the question."
Me: "I’m not asking you a question about archaeology, I’m asking you to explain the county regulations, which you are supposed to be an expert on, to the applicants so that they will know what kind of work the county needs."
Him: "Well, the county regulations are online."
Me: "Yes, and they require that I know which county planning zone a project falls into, but you folks don’t make that information public, so I can’t determine what the client needs based on that."
Him: "Well, it’s going to vary based on the area that they are in."
Me: "Yes, but you have requirements for each area, and you issue permits, and that indicates that you know what you are looking for for each area."
Him: "Well, we have to look through the databases, and all of that, to figure out what they need."
Me: "Yeah, but you know what they need so that you can issue the permits. Can you just tell the applicants specifically what they need?"
Him: "It’s not that simple."
Me: "Why not?"
Him: "Well, we have to go through the databases..."
Me: "Yes, yes, I know, but you have requirements, which indicates that you know what those requirements are, which indicates that you can tell them what those requirements are so that they can tell us."
Him: "Well, it’s not that simple, you see, the database..."
Me: "You have requirements for permits?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "You know what those requirements are when the permits are requested?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "You know whether that includes survey or monitoring for a specific project?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "Then you can tell the applicant what you need them to submit."
Him: "Well, I don’t know anything about archaeology."
Me: "I’m not asking you about archaeology, I’m asking you what the county requires for permits."
Who’s on first? What’s on second? And so on, ad nauseum...
That seems pretty straightforward, right? The agency knows the rules, they tell the applicant the rules, and the applicant complies.
But what happens when the agency doesn’t tell the applicants the rules?
Case in point - I have a project that requires permits from a particular government agency. We were asked to perform a survey of a right-of-way (ROW) for transmission lines, and we needed to know how large an area the agency required be surveyed (the Calfiornia Energy Commission, for example, requires that a corridor made up of the ROW plus 50 feet on either side of the ROW be surveyed). I went to look up the agency’s regulations, and could not find them anywhere. So, I called the agency to ask, and found myself speaking with the head of their environmental office.
Me: "Hi. I’m an archaeologist who is working on project such-and-such, and I am trying to work out the survey plan. How wide a corridor do you require?"
Her: "Well, it depends on the project’s ROW size. A larger ROW requires a larger survey."
Me: "Yes, I’m aware of that. But how do you determine that? The CEC requires 50 feet on either side of the right-of-way, do you have a similar method of determination?"
Her: "No."
Me: "So, how do you work it out?"
Her: "Well, we know the width of the ROW for different projects, and we base it on that."
Me: "Okay. Well, for project such-and-such, do you know how large a corridor you want to see surveyed?"
Her: "I can’t answer that."
Me: "Why not?"
Her: "Well, if I tell you that I want a survey corridor of X-width, then you’ll survey X-width."
Me: "Well, yes, that’s the point."
Her: "Well, if we decide afterwards that we would rather have a wider corridor, then you can hold us to our original determination."
Me: "Why not specify a wide corridor to begin with?"
Her: "That’s not our role."
Me: "But you’re the lead agency. Defining terms for licensing is both your role and your responsibility."
Her: "We decided that we no longer want that role."
Me: "So, is someone else the lead agency now?"
Her: "No, we’re legally required to be the lead agency."
Me: "Then it’s still your role and responsibility to define the terms of the license."
Her: "We choose to wait until the applicant has completed the studies before we define those terms."
Me: "But those terms define the parameters of the studies."
Her: "That’s not our problem."
At this point, I decided to change tactics.
Me: "Okay, it’s a 100-foot wide ROW. What if we survey a 200-foot wide corridor. That would be in keeping with the CEC regulations, would that also satisfy your agency?"
Her: "Unofficially, I think that that sounds reasonable."
Me: "And officially?"
Her: "Officially, I have no comment, we do not determine the parameters of the studies until after we have received the application."
Me: "But the law requires that the study results be included as part of the application."
Her: "Yes."
Me: "How are we supposed to conduct studies to include the results as part of the application if you will not define the parameters of the study until after the application?"
Here: "That’s not our problem."
And Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, Rinse, Repeat....
And then there’s the joy of dealing with the folks at county planning offices. I just had a frustrating conversation with a fellow at one of the local counties. They have been referring land developers to us, and they have been telling the developers "you need an archaeological report."
The problem is that everything we do involves an archaeological report. Do they need monitoring? Do they need survey? Do they need significance testing? Do they need data recovery?
I told the fellow at the county that we needed for them to tell the applicants what kind of report they needed (I should add that I have been trying to contact this fellow for a few weeks, and the fellow only got around to returning a phone call today, so calling the county for clarification appears to not be an option). His response: "we do tell them. We tell them that they need a report!"
Me: "Well, that’s pretty vague. Everything we do results in a report."
Him: "Well, I don’t know much about archaeology, so I don’t think that I can answer the question."
Me: "I’m not asking you a question about archaeology, I’m asking you to explain the county regulations, which you are supposed to be an expert on, to the applicants so that they will know what kind of work the county needs."
Him: "Well, the county regulations are online."
Me: "Yes, and they require that I know which county planning zone a project falls into, but you folks don’t make that information public, so I can’t determine what the client needs based on that."
Him: "Well, it’s going to vary based on the area that they are in."
Me: "Yes, but you have requirements for each area, and you issue permits, and that indicates that you know what you are looking for for each area."
Him: "Well, we have to look through the databases, and all of that, to figure out what they need."
Me: "Yeah, but you know what they need so that you can issue the permits. Can you just tell the applicants specifically what they need?"
Him: "It’s not that simple."
Me: "Why not?"
Him: "Well, we have to go through the databases..."
Me: "Yes, yes, I know, but you have requirements, which indicates that you know what those requirements are, which indicates that you can tell them what those requirements are so that they can tell us."
Him: "Well, it’s not that simple, you see, the database..."
Me: "You have requirements for permits?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "You know what those requirements are when the permits are requested?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "You know whether that includes survey or monitoring for a specific project?"
Him: "Yes."
Me: "Then you can tell the applicant what you need them to submit."
Him: "Well, I don’t know anything about archaeology."
Me: "I’m not asking you about archaeology, I’m asking you what the county requires for permits."
Who’s on first? What’s on second? And so on, ad nauseum...
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