I really appreciate all the endorsements people have been giving me on "LinkedIn," but I gotta say:
(a) Despite a couple of endorsements on the subject, I hardly even know how to spell "GIS." Unless the acronym means Gobbledigook In Spades, in which case, yeah, I'll claim some expertise;
(b) On the other hand, doesn't anyone want to endorse me for "writing?" Should this tell me something?
Tom King’s CRM Plus -- Ruminations on "cultural resource management," environmental impact assessment, and related esoteric topics, by a curmudgeon who seldom has anything good to say about anything.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Monday, February 11, 2013
The Perils of Pahrump
Introduction
The California Energy Commission is considering a new solar energy project in southeastern California, extending across the state line near Pahrump, Nevada. A local citizen concerned about the project's cultural impacts, Cindy MacDonald, asked me to review pertinent documents and write up some comments for her to pass on to the Commission. Because the case seems to be another one in which a "green" energy company and its cultural resource management consultants are making a mockery of good faith impact assessment, with Ms. MacDonald's permission I thought I'd share my comments. Here they are.
At the request of Ms. Cindy MacDonald, I have examined the "cultural resources" and "visual resources" sections of the Final Staff Assessment (FSA) prepared for the California Energy Commission (Commission). I have also examined the testimony of the Commission’s applicant on the same subject.
My qualifications for offering comments on these documents are outlined in the attached resume. In summary, I have worked within and outside government in the fields of cultural resource management (CRM) and environmental impact assessment (EIA) since the 1960s, authored ten books and a large number of professional articles and government guidelines relating to these subjects, and hold a PhD in anthropology with an emphasis on archaeology and experience in the California desert. I have no financial or other interests in the proposed Hidden Hills Solar Electric Generating System or its proposed siting. To the best of my knowledge, all facts contained in this memorandum, and all references to and citations of documents) are true and correct. The opinions offered are my own.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should also say that I am professionally acquainted with both the Commission's ethnographer, Dr. Thomas Gates, and the applicant's ethnographic consultant, Dr. Lynne Sebastian. I have long been impressed with Dr. Gates' abilities and integrity, and have been sadly disillusioned in recent years with Dr. Sebastian's.
Comments on the FSA
There are a number of things in the FSA with which I could quibble, but I generally find it to be quite a thoughtful document, and about as thorough as can be expected given the limited data with which the staff apparently had to work.
Like many documents of its kind, the FSA sometimes confuses and conflates terms like "cultural resource," "historic resource," and "archaeological site;" this tends to muddy its analysis and raise what may be unnecessary questions. It seems apparent from the ethnographic element of the FSA, for instance, that water is an important cultural resource for Indian tribes of the area, but by defining "cultural resource" as "tangible or observable evidence of past human activity” (p. 4.3-3, underscore added) the FSA seems to exclude water from consideration. "Historic (or "historical") resource" and more especially "archaeological resource" have statutory and regulatory definitions that rightly or wrongly suggest association with human activity. “Cultural resource" is not defined in law, and by conflating the term with those that do have explicit legal definitions, the FSA risks leading the Commission into ignoring serious impacts like those on the cultural value of water.
I also cannot tell why the staff has defined the Pahrump Metapatch Mesquite Woodland-Coppice Dune Landscape as "archaeological,” while characterizing and describing it largely with reference to ethnographic, geomorphological and hydrological variables. Nor do I understand -- given the unavoidable presumption that the "archaeological resources" of the area were the creations of Paiute ancestors -- why the staff does not seem to have felt it necessary to consult the tribes of the area when evaluating these resources. The tribes were very responsibly consulted in preparation of the "ethnographic" sections of the FSA, but seemingly not in addressing the “archaeology.” This seems strange and rather arbitrary, and may give the Commission a false impression of the area's cultural, historical, and archaeological significance. A more holistic approach might have been more fruitful.
Still, on the whole the "cultural resources" section of the FSA appears to me to be a responsible analysis that reaches respectable conclusions.
The "visual resources" section also appears to me to reflect responsible analysis, but I am puzzled by its rather abstract character. Visual impact analyses in which I have been involved in the past have recognized the seemingly obvious fact that visual impacts invariably involve the operation of eyes and brains. As a result, they have involved actual viewers of actual scenes -- asking people who regularly apply their eyes and brains to a viewshed to say what they value about it, and to react to mock-ups of proposed new constructions within the viewshed. The FSA gives the reader little idea of who regularly looks down onto or across the land where the project is proposed, and what they value (if anything) about the view. I wonder particularly about Native American spiritual practitioners and others who may use the area for religious or inspirational purposes -- do such people exist, and if they do, what burdens might the project place on their practice of religion? Similarly, I wonder who, if anyone, walks, rides or drives the route of the Old Spanish Trail to seek history-based inspiration, and what their impressions of the project's impacts may be. Again, this is not to say that the FSA is irresponsible or poorly constructed in its treatment of visual impacts -- only that it is rather bloodless and abstract, losing track of the viewers in its analysis of views.
Finally with reference to both sections, while I recognize that the Commission’s purview is limited to California, I understand that the project will involve activities in Nevada as well, which will have to be reviewed by federal agencies under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). I wonder how the Commission’s review will be coordinated with these reviews – particularly with the consultation-based review required under Section 106 of NHPA. The potential for costly and time-consuming complications appears to me to be high if provision is not made for coordination, and for ensuring that all studies carried out for EIA purposes are responsive to both state and federal guidelines. I raise this issue because of my concern about the lack of documented consultation with stakeholders – a core part of NHPA Section 106 review – in the FSA’s discussion of “archaeological resources” and of visual impacts.
Comments on the Applicant’s Testimony
The applicant's "cultural resources" analysis contrasts dramatically with the FSA's, and predictably enough seeks to deny any serious cultural value to the areas affected by the project.
This process of denial begins by not seeking anything but prehistoric and historic archaeological resources. As far as I can tell, the applicant's effort to identify impacts on "cultural resources" has amounted to reviewing readily available background documents and sending out archaeologists to perform "pedestrian" (i.e. walking) survey of the land surface, followed by excavation of some trenches to characterize subsurface conditions. Notably, despite a few unsubstantiated assertions to the contrary, I see no evidence that the applicant consulted any of the tribes in the area, or any of the people who may be interested in places like the Old Spanish Trail. The applicant's evaluation of the area's "cultural resources" is in fact an evaluation only of how significant the area's archaeological sites appear to be to archaeologists employed by the applicant.
Discussing the FSA’s conclusions, the applicant first asserts (on page 6) that the FSA simply lacks the "substantial evidence” necessary to form the basis for judging places like the Pahrump Metapatch to be eligible for the California Register of Historic Resources (CRHR). That may be true, but if it is, then surely someone needs to develop such information, and until it is developed, the Commission lacks a complete record upon which to base its decision about the project. I agree with the applicant that it is inappropriate to propose developing such information as mitigation; that would allow the project to be approved and go forward without full consideration of its environmental impacts. Such evidence, if needed, should be gathered and analyzed in advance of the Commission’s decision, to inform that decision.
The applicant also objects (on page 7) to the staff’s “assumptions” about the eligibility of places for the CRHR. I find this rather sadly amusing. In the 1980s I worked for the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), which oversees federal agency compliance with Section 106 of NHPA. In the early 1980s, the ACHP’s regulations followed NPS guidance in requiring that eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) be determined only by NPS, after multi-level review by federal agencies and State Historic Preservation Officers. During a revision of the regulations directed by the administration of then-president Ronald Reagan, and at the request of such disparate agencies as the U.S. Army and the Bureau of Land Management as well as private sector mining and energy interests, we included provisions allowing agencies to assume eligibility for the NRHP. This enabled agencies and applicants to reduce bureaucratic red tape and get on with deciding how to manage significant properties. It appears that the Commission’s staff is merely adopting the same sort of efficiency-enhancing approach to evaluation, and this outrages the applicant – who I assume must think that if it and the Commission just do not assume eligibility for the California Register, they can assume ineligibility and ignore the resources. It doesn’t work that way under the federal regulations, and I do not think it does under CEQA either. I note, in fact, that the State’s CEQA Handbook, at §15064.5(a)(4), says that—
“(t)he fact that a resource is not listed in, or determined to be eligible for listing….,does not preclude a lead agency from determining that the resource may be an historical resource…”
As I read this language, it seems to be consistent with federal guidance and practice. Confronted with a place that may be an “historical resource” per state law, an agency like the Commission can either (a) assume eligibility and get on with its decision-making, or (b) collect the data and go through the administrative processes necessary to formalize its determination. It cannot just avert its eyes and ignore a place because someone thinks it lacks sufficient information to reach a decision.
To rebut the FSA's ethnographic element, the applicant brings in Dr. Sebastian to perform what I have observed to be a common service she provides to clients. This is the third time I have seen Dr. Sebastian pursue what I have come to characterize as "the Sebastian Strategy;" the previous cases were those of the proposed Glamis Gold Mine in Imperial County (under federal law and the North American Free Trade Agreement) and of the proposed Liberty Quarry in western Riverside County (under CEQA). In neither case did her client prevail. The Sebastian Strategy works like this:
Step 1: First, one touts one's credentials (See pages 1 and 2 of Dr. Sebastian’s paper, “Ethnographic Landscapes and the Hidden Hills Solar Electric Generating System: “I am a nationally recognized expert..” etc. etc.).
Step 2: Then, either at the outset or woven through one's analysis, one characterizes the context of regulatory and other official guidance in which the analysis is performed, being very careful to do so in the most narrowly pedantic manner possible and to avoid any acknowledgement of alternative interpretations.
Step 3: Then, one reviews background ethnographic and historical documents, but one never, never in the course of doing so consults with the people upon whose cultural resources and views one is offering opinions.
Step 4: One assures the reader of one's great respect for the people, communities, and cultures that allegedly ascribe value to the project area, but explains, patiently, that:
(a) they simply do not know their own culture and history, and/or
(b) however valid their views may be, those views regrettably do not fit into the context of regulation and official guidance that one has carefully constructed at Step 2.
Step 5: Where the place or places involved comprise a somewhat extensive landscape, one goes on to suggest that even if such places are culturally significant, they constitute such large areas that the proposed project will really have only the most miniscule little impact on them – or that the places of real significance, in terms of the regulations and guidance to which one refers, are really pretty small and conveniently situated outside the area subject to effect.
In this case, Dr. Sebastian devotes much of her Step 2 discourse to a scholastic parsing of NPS guidance about characterizing historic, cultural, and “ethnographic” landscapes, emphasizing that the available official guidance tends to allude to evidence of human modification of such landscapes. Since Paiute communities did not make major, permanent changes to their landscapes (if one ignores things like trails and mesquite husbandry) -- and since those human modifications that are apparent in the landscape in this case have been filtered out of the ethnographic analysis by being characterized as "archaeological resources" -- why then, it's a real shame, but the Paiute just don't have any cultural landscapes, as the NPS guidance describes them.
Dr. Sebastian cannot quite ignore the fact that another NPS guideline document -- National Register Bulletin 38 on traditional cultural properties, of which I am a co-author and upon which my 2003 textbook Places That Count is based -- could give comfort to the notion that even a landscape without visible modifications may be culturally significant. She deals with this inconvenience by counting up the number of times my co-author and I used the word "landscape" in the bulletin. We used the word only four times (contrasted, incidentally, with 17 uses of the word "building," most often when quoting pre-existing NPS documents or in citations). Based on this observation she concludes that Bulletin 38 fails "to provide guidance on identifying and evaluating ethnographic landscapes" (Page 3).
In arriving at this conclusion Dr. Sebastian ignores the fact that as examples of known or hypothetical traditional cultural properties the bulletin includes mountains, lakes, canyons, and other substantial geographic features -- landscapes by other names. Because we did not use precisely the term in which Dr. Sebastian is interested (which as she notes came into use by NPS in 1991, a year after publication of Bulletin 38), Dr. Sebastian apparently finds that Bulletin 38 provides no official basis for the staff’s definition of cultural or “ethnographic” landscapes.
Having thus assured the Commission that there is simply no place in pertinent cultural resource law and regulation for consideration of a landscape like those discussed in the FSA, Dr. Sebastian goes on to assert, as usual, that even if such a landscape were viewed as eligible for the CRHR, it would comprise or be part of something so much larger that it would lose meaning, or the proposed project’s effects would be lost within it.
There may be good reasons to argue about the significance and character of the various cultural landscapes the Commission staff has defined in the FSA. It may be that more "substantial evidence" is needed before their eligibility for the CRHR can be confirmed or disconfirmed. It may be that the project will have little impact on them if they are eligible. There is, however, no basis I can think of for accepting Dr. Sebastian's analysis as authoritative. If the Commission is inclined not to accept the FSA's conclusions, what should be done is to consult more thoroughly, holistically, and systematically with the Paiute and other people who may ascribe cultural value to the landscapes. Only they can say what is significant to them, or what will affect that significance. That, incidentally, is the main thrust of National Register Bulletin 38.
The applicant’s treatment of visual resources suffers from what seem to me to be the same flaws as does the staff’s analysis – i.e. a failure to address the views (sic) of those who actually look at and may (or may not) value the viewshed within which the project is proposed. Predictably, the applicant regards the project’s visual impacts as less substantial than does the staff, but lacking reference to the opinions of actual viewers, I cannot see that either the applicant or the staff has a leg to stand upon.
The California Energy Commission is considering a new solar energy project in southeastern California, extending across the state line near Pahrump, Nevada. A local citizen concerned about the project's cultural impacts, Cindy MacDonald, asked me to review pertinent documents and write up some comments for her to pass on to the Commission. Because the case seems to be another one in which a "green" energy company and its cultural resource management consultants are making a mockery of good faith impact assessment, with Ms. MacDonald's permission I thought I'd share my comments. Here they are.
Review of cultural, historic, and visual resource assessments,
Hidden Hills Solar Electric Generating System
Thomas F. King
February 4, 2013
My qualifications for offering comments on these documents are outlined in the attached resume. In summary, I have worked within and outside government in the fields of cultural resource management (CRM) and environmental impact assessment (EIA) since the 1960s, authored ten books and a large number of professional articles and government guidelines relating to these subjects, and hold a PhD in anthropology with an emphasis on archaeology and experience in the California desert. I have no financial or other interests in the proposed Hidden Hills Solar Electric Generating System or its proposed siting. To the best of my knowledge, all facts contained in this memorandum, and all references to and citations of documents) are true and correct. The opinions offered are my own.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should also say that I am professionally acquainted with both the Commission's ethnographer, Dr. Thomas Gates, and the applicant's ethnographic consultant, Dr. Lynne Sebastian. I have long been impressed with Dr. Gates' abilities and integrity, and have been sadly disillusioned in recent years with Dr. Sebastian's.
Comments on the FSA
There are a number of things in the FSA with which I could quibble, but I generally find it to be quite a thoughtful document, and about as thorough as can be expected given the limited data with which the staff apparently had to work.
Like many documents of its kind, the FSA sometimes confuses and conflates terms like "cultural resource," "historic resource," and "archaeological site;" this tends to muddy its analysis and raise what may be unnecessary questions. It seems apparent from the ethnographic element of the FSA, for instance, that water is an important cultural resource for Indian tribes of the area, but by defining "cultural resource" as "tangible or observable evidence of past human activity” (p. 4.3-3, underscore added) the FSA seems to exclude water from consideration. "Historic (or "historical") resource" and more especially "archaeological resource" have statutory and regulatory definitions that rightly or wrongly suggest association with human activity. “Cultural resource" is not defined in law, and by conflating the term with those that do have explicit legal definitions, the FSA risks leading the Commission into ignoring serious impacts like those on the cultural value of water.
I also cannot tell why the staff has defined the Pahrump Metapatch Mesquite Woodland-Coppice Dune Landscape as "archaeological,” while characterizing and describing it largely with reference to ethnographic, geomorphological and hydrological variables. Nor do I understand -- given the unavoidable presumption that the "archaeological resources" of the area were the creations of Paiute ancestors -- why the staff does not seem to have felt it necessary to consult the tribes of the area when evaluating these resources. The tribes were very responsibly consulted in preparation of the "ethnographic" sections of the FSA, but seemingly not in addressing the “archaeology.” This seems strange and rather arbitrary, and may give the Commission a false impression of the area's cultural, historical, and archaeological significance. A more holistic approach might have been more fruitful.
Still, on the whole the "cultural resources" section of the FSA appears to me to be a responsible analysis that reaches respectable conclusions.
The "visual resources" section also appears to me to reflect responsible analysis, but I am puzzled by its rather abstract character. Visual impact analyses in which I have been involved in the past have recognized the seemingly obvious fact that visual impacts invariably involve the operation of eyes and brains. As a result, they have involved actual viewers of actual scenes -- asking people who regularly apply their eyes and brains to a viewshed to say what they value about it, and to react to mock-ups of proposed new constructions within the viewshed. The FSA gives the reader little idea of who regularly looks down onto or across the land where the project is proposed, and what they value (if anything) about the view. I wonder particularly about Native American spiritual practitioners and others who may use the area for religious or inspirational purposes -- do such people exist, and if they do, what burdens might the project place on their practice of religion? Similarly, I wonder who, if anyone, walks, rides or drives the route of the Old Spanish Trail to seek history-based inspiration, and what their impressions of the project's impacts may be. Again, this is not to say that the FSA is irresponsible or poorly constructed in its treatment of visual impacts -- only that it is rather bloodless and abstract, losing track of the viewers in its analysis of views.
Finally with reference to both sections, while I recognize that the Commission’s purview is limited to California, I understand that the project will involve activities in Nevada as well, which will have to be reviewed by federal agencies under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). I wonder how the Commission’s review will be coordinated with these reviews – particularly with the consultation-based review required under Section 106 of NHPA. The potential for costly and time-consuming complications appears to me to be high if provision is not made for coordination, and for ensuring that all studies carried out for EIA purposes are responsive to both state and federal guidelines. I raise this issue because of my concern about the lack of documented consultation with stakeholders – a core part of NHPA Section 106 review – in the FSA’s discussion of “archaeological resources” and of visual impacts.
Comments on the Applicant’s Testimony
The applicant's "cultural resources" analysis contrasts dramatically with the FSA's, and predictably enough seeks to deny any serious cultural value to the areas affected by the project.
This process of denial begins by not seeking anything but prehistoric and historic archaeological resources. As far as I can tell, the applicant's effort to identify impacts on "cultural resources" has amounted to reviewing readily available background documents and sending out archaeologists to perform "pedestrian" (i.e. walking) survey of the land surface, followed by excavation of some trenches to characterize subsurface conditions. Notably, despite a few unsubstantiated assertions to the contrary, I see no evidence that the applicant consulted any of the tribes in the area, or any of the people who may be interested in places like the Old Spanish Trail. The applicant's evaluation of the area's "cultural resources" is in fact an evaluation only of how significant the area's archaeological sites appear to be to archaeologists employed by the applicant.
Discussing the FSA’s conclusions, the applicant first asserts (on page 6) that the FSA simply lacks the "substantial evidence” necessary to form the basis for judging places like the Pahrump Metapatch to be eligible for the California Register of Historic Resources (CRHR). That may be true, but if it is, then surely someone needs to develop such information, and until it is developed, the Commission lacks a complete record upon which to base its decision about the project. I agree with the applicant that it is inappropriate to propose developing such information as mitigation; that would allow the project to be approved and go forward without full consideration of its environmental impacts. Such evidence, if needed, should be gathered and analyzed in advance of the Commission’s decision, to inform that decision.
The applicant also objects (on page 7) to the staff’s “assumptions” about the eligibility of places for the CRHR. I find this rather sadly amusing. In the 1980s I worked for the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), which oversees federal agency compliance with Section 106 of NHPA. In the early 1980s, the ACHP’s regulations followed NPS guidance in requiring that eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) be determined only by NPS, after multi-level review by federal agencies and State Historic Preservation Officers. During a revision of the regulations directed by the administration of then-president Ronald Reagan, and at the request of such disparate agencies as the U.S. Army and the Bureau of Land Management as well as private sector mining and energy interests, we included provisions allowing agencies to assume eligibility for the NRHP. This enabled agencies and applicants to reduce bureaucratic red tape and get on with deciding how to manage significant properties. It appears that the Commission’s staff is merely adopting the same sort of efficiency-enhancing approach to evaluation, and this outrages the applicant – who I assume must think that if it and the Commission just do not assume eligibility for the California Register, they can assume ineligibility and ignore the resources. It doesn’t work that way under the federal regulations, and I do not think it does under CEQA either. I note, in fact, that the State’s CEQA Handbook, at §15064.5(a)(4), says that—
“(t)he fact that a resource is not listed in, or determined to be eligible for listing….,does not preclude a lead agency from determining that the resource may be an historical resource…”
As I read this language, it seems to be consistent with federal guidance and practice. Confronted with a place that may be an “historical resource” per state law, an agency like the Commission can either (a) assume eligibility and get on with its decision-making, or (b) collect the data and go through the administrative processes necessary to formalize its determination. It cannot just avert its eyes and ignore a place because someone thinks it lacks sufficient information to reach a decision.
To rebut the FSA's ethnographic element, the applicant brings in Dr. Sebastian to perform what I have observed to be a common service she provides to clients. This is the third time I have seen Dr. Sebastian pursue what I have come to characterize as "the Sebastian Strategy;" the previous cases were those of the proposed Glamis Gold Mine in Imperial County (under federal law and the North American Free Trade Agreement) and of the proposed Liberty Quarry in western Riverside County (under CEQA). In neither case did her client prevail. The Sebastian Strategy works like this:
Step 1: First, one touts one's credentials (See pages 1 and 2 of Dr. Sebastian’s paper, “Ethnographic Landscapes and the Hidden Hills Solar Electric Generating System: “I am a nationally recognized expert..” etc. etc.).
Step 2: Then, either at the outset or woven through one's analysis, one characterizes the context of regulatory and other official guidance in which the analysis is performed, being very careful to do so in the most narrowly pedantic manner possible and to avoid any acknowledgement of alternative interpretations.
Step 3: Then, one reviews background ethnographic and historical documents, but one never, never in the course of doing so consults with the people upon whose cultural resources and views one is offering opinions.
Step 4: One assures the reader of one's great respect for the people, communities, and cultures that allegedly ascribe value to the project area, but explains, patiently, that:
(a) they simply do not know their own culture and history, and/or
(b) however valid their views may be, those views regrettably do not fit into the context of regulation and official guidance that one has carefully constructed at Step 2.
Step 5: Where the place or places involved comprise a somewhat extensive landscape, one goes on to suggest that even if such places are culturally significant, they constitute such large areas that the proposed project will really have only the most miniscule little impact on them – or that the places of real significance, in terms of the regulations and guidance to which one refers, are really pretty small and conveniently situated outside the area subject to effect.
In this case, Dr. Sebastian devotes much of her Step 2 discourse to a scholastic parsing of NPS guidance about characterizing historic, cultural, and “ethnographic” landscapes, emphasizing that the available official guidance tends to allude to evidence of human modification of such landscapes. Since Paiute communities did not make major, permanent changes to their landscapes (if one ignores things like trails and mesquite husbandry) -- and since those human modifications that are apparent in the landscape in this case have been filtered out of the ethnographic analysis by being characterized as "archaeological resources" -- why then, it's a real shame, but the Paiute just don't have any cultural landscapes, as the NPS guidance describes them.
Dr. Sebastian cannot quite ignore the fact that another NPS guideline document -- National Register Bulletin 38 on traditional cultural properties, of which I am a co-author and upon which my 2003 textbook Places That Count is based -- could give comfort to the notion that even a landscape without visible modifications may be culturally significant. She deals with this inconvenience by counting up the number of times my co-author and I used the word "landscape" in the bulletin. We used the word only four times (contrasted, incidentally, with 17 uses of the word "building," most often when quoting pre-existing NPS documents or in citations). Based on this observation she concludes that Bulletin 38 fails "to provide guidance on identifying and evaluating ethnographic landscapes" (Page 3).
In arriving at this conclusion Dr. Sebastian ignores the fact that as examples of known or hypothetical traditional cultural properties the bulletin includes mountains, lakes, canyons, and other substantial geographic features -- landscapes by other names. Because we did not use precisely the term in which Dr. Sebastian is interested (which as she notes came into use by NPS in 1991, a year after publication of Bulletin 38), Dr. Sebastian apparently finds that Bulletin 38 provides no official basis for the staff’s definition of cultural or “ethnographic” landscapes.
Having thus assured the Commission that there is simply no place in pertinent cultural resource law and regulation for consideration of a landscape like those discussed in the FSA, Dr. Sebastian goes on to assert, as usual, that even if such a landscape were viewed as eligible for the CRHR, it would comprise or be part of something so much larger that it would lose meaning, or the proposed project’s effects would be lost within it.
There may be good reasons to argue about the significance and character of the various cultural landscapes the Commission staff has defined in the FSA. It may be that more "substantial evidence" is needed before their eligibility for the CRHR can be confirmed or disconfirmed. It may be that the project will have little impact on them if they are eligible. There is, however, no basis I can think of for accepting Dr. Sebastian's analysis as authoritative. If the Commission is inclined not to accept the FSA's conclusions, what should be done is to consult more thoroughly, holistically, and systematically with the Paiute and other people who may ascribe cultural value to the landscapes. Only they can say what is significant to them, or what will affect that significance. That, incidentally, is the main thrust of National Register Bulletin 38.
The applicant’s treatment of visual resources suffers from what seem to me to be the same flaws as does the staff’s analysis – i.e. a failure to address the views (sic) of those who actually look at and may (or may not) value the viewshed within which the project is proposed. Predictably, the applicant regards the project’s visual impacts as less substantial than does the staff, but lacking reference to the opinions of actual viewers, I cannot see that either the applicant or the staff has a leg to stand upon.
Congratulations to the Presidio Trust!
I’m delighted to learn that the Presidio Trust, which manages the National Historic Landmark Presidio of San Francisco (California – where hearts are left, etc.) has succeeded in becoming self-sufficient, no longer requiring federal subsidies (See http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Presidio-bridges-gap-to-be-self-sufficient-4266156.php?cmpid=emailarticle&cmpid=emailarticle). Creating the Trust as the Presidio’s manager, and charging it with gaining self-sufficiency, was a congressional gamble that many in the traditional historic preservation community (notably many in the National Park Service) said would never work. But it seems to have worked, in that the Trust is now making money through leasing and renting the Presidio’s historic buildings while – not without controversy – maintaining their character-defining features and creating a vibrant, diverse, historically evocative urban space. There’s plenty of room for argument over individual leasing, rehabilitation, and other management decisions made by the Trust, but overall I think the Trust is to be congratulated on achieving the goal that Congress set for it, and preserving the Presidio as one of San Francisco’s truly distinctive landscapes.
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
Blessed Decatur
Introduction
David Rotenstein, well known in the blogosphere as “Historian for Hire,” was in town the other day and asked me to look at and comment on the final report of a “Historic Resource Survey” of the City of Decatur, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta). David has worked in and around Decatur for the last few years and coincidentally, I was born there (fleeing to the west at age four months). The report was pretty sorry, but, I fear, not atypical of what’s being churned out as ostensibly professional products all over the country. So with David’s permission, I want to share the review letter I sent him on January 31.
Dear David,
You’ve asked me to comment on the “Historic Resource Survey Final Report” for the City of Decatur, Georgia, dated September 1, 2009.
My qualifications for preparing such comments are outlined in the attached resumé; I should stipulate that most of my recent experience, and most of my writings, have to do with historic preservation and the broader field of cultural resource management (CRM) at the federal level, not in the context of local planning. However, I was involved in the development of federal standards and guidelines for local surveys imposed on State Historic Preservation Officers and local governments by the National Park Service, and have reviewed scores if not hundreds of survey reports over the course of my career. I should also stipulate that while I was born in Decatur in 1942, I left town with my family in 1943 and have not recently resided or worked there.
I should also say that over the last twenty years or so, I have come to be alarmed at what historic preservation and CRM have become in this country – particularly in terms of their growing disconnection from the living communities that they must serve if they are to make any sense as aspects of public policy. I’ve also been dismayed at the quality of scholarship (if it can be called that) represented by their typical products. My concerns are outlined in the attached chapter from my 2011 reader, A Companion to Cultural Resource Management (Wiley-Blackwell 2011).
The Decatur “Final Report” does nothing to encourage me; it is as classic an example as I have recently seen of what has made historic preservation in this country a pointless, overly costly, elitist, and socially irresponsible activity.
On page 2, the “Final Report” says that it was prepared following state and federal guidelines, and specifically cites the National Park Service’s “Guidelines for Local Surveys.” I helped develop those guidelines, and one thing we tried to emphasize was that local surveys must engage and involve the local community – for whom they are presumably done and whose interests they ought to serve. Nowhere in the “Final Report” do I see any evidence whatever of an effort to involve the community, or even to contact and consult with its members. It appears that the “Final Report” represents the work of presumed professionals in architectural history who came into Decatur and decided what they thought was important – never mind what the “locals” might think. I hasten to say that this sort of professional conceit is – sadly – increasingly common in historic preservation practice in this country, but that makes it no less irresponsible.
On page 5, we are told that the surveyors carried out historical research. If they did, it is very thinly reflected in the pages that follow. The focus of the work is overwhelmingly on architecture (itself not discussed in much detail); the social and cultural history of Decatur is scarcely touched upon, unless that history has been bland beyond belief. The “historical context” that begins on page 11 provides no context at all. It merely defines time periods and says the city grew as these periods progressed. Note, for instance, that:
(a) Apparently no Indians ever came close to Decatur; the place has no history prior to the “first European settlers.” One wonders, too, if all these settlers were “European;” I seem to recall that a lot of such settlers were accompanied (willingly or otherwise) by settlers of African origin.
(b) We are given no notion of why Decatur ever came to be; the “Final Report” just accepts that it came into existence and developed quietly thereafter. We are told that it “promoted itself as a quiet, prosperous small town” in the mid-1800s, which “offered a peaceful, healthful, and beautiful place to live.” Was there some economic basis for its prosperity? Some social or cultural basis for its perceived beauty? Some environmental reason for its healthfulness?
(c) Apparently no African-Americans have ever lived in Decatur, or if they have, they are invisible in its history. My family’s lore tells of much-respected African-American women who took care of my elder siblings and me; I wonder where they came from.
(d) Somehow Decatur seems to have escaped the Civil War untouched. I had the impression that Sherman’s army had some effect on the place, but I suppose I (and Wikipedia, for what that is worth) must be mistaken. Sherman’s depredations apparently had nothing to do with the fact that “none of these original historic structures (around the Square) remain.”
(e) Similarly, the difficulties surrounding Reconstruction seem to have had no impact on Decatur. What a blessed town it must be!
(f) Decatur’s growth has apparently been a sort of organic thing, perhaps fueled by photosynthesis. Neighborhoods simply “develop” or sometimes “are developed.” What motivated their development, and hence might have influenced their character, was apparently of no interest to the authors of the “Final Report.”
(g) Nothing seems to have happened in Decatur after the period 1940-60. This may reflect the author’s decision not to consider buildings unless they were at least fifty years old – a decision that may be justified in a mindless sort of way by the National Register of Historic Places’ general exclusion of properties achieving significance in the last fifty years. In most parts of the world, however – at least to the best of my knowledge – history did not stop fifty years ago, and in some places recent historical events have had profound impacts on both historic properties and the communities in which they exist. Apparently not in Decatur, however.
The bulk of the “Final Report” comprises “Neighborhood Summaries” made up of maps and very thin descriptions of Decatur’s neighborhoods, through which are woven largely unsubstantiated statements like “a good example,” “has kept its historic character,” and “not proposed as a historic district.” Presumably these are statements of opinion and intent by the authors – who I find nowhere identified by name, and whose qualifications, as far as I can tell, are nowhere presented.
Nor can I even determine from the “Final Report” how neighborhoods or specific properties were defined and selected for evaluation. For instance, my older sister, who actually remembers Decatur in the late 1930s/early 1940s, tells me of a neighborhood in which African-American families were concentrated. I imagine this neighborhood lost its distinctive character – for better or worse – during the social changes of the mid-late 20th century, but I have to wonder where it was, what surviving properties might be associated with it, and what cultural significance they may retain for Decatur’s African-American residents – who I cannot believe do not exist, despite their total invisibility in the “Final Report.”
In summary, the “Final Report” seems to be to be a deeply deficient product, notably in the following ways:
1. No evidence that the community was involved in any way in its production;
2. A remarkably vague, uncritical, bit of happy-talk about Decatur’s development instead of a useful discussion of the town’s history.
3. No representation of history as a basis for judging historical significance; evaluations were apparently done solely on the basis of perceived architectural merit.
4. Narrowly limited and usually unspecified bases for characterization and evaluation. The perceptions upon which evaluations were based were apparently only those of the anonymous outside professionals who performed the survey, and whose qualifications to make such evaluations are not even shared with those who, we are assured on pages 4-5, will benefit from them. The reader is expected, apparently, to accept these perceptions as gospel truth.
Again, I am sorry to say that in my experience these sorts of deficiencies are not uncommon among survey reports done for local governments, states, federal agencies and non-governmental organizations throughout the country, but in my opinion they are no less deficient for being common. Historic preservation has sunk very low when this sort of report passes for a professional planning document.
I hope this admittedly critical review is of some use to you.
David Rotenstein, well known in the blogosphere as “Historian for Hire,” was in town the other day and asked me to look at and comment on the final report of a “Historic Resource Survey” of the City of Decatur, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta). David has worked in and around Decatur for the last few years and coincidentally, I was born there (fleeing to the west at age four months). The report was pretty sorry, but, I fear, not atypical of what’s being churned out as ostensibly professional products all over the country. So with David’s permission, I want to share the review letter I sent him on January 31.
Dear David,
You’ve asked me to comment on the “Historic Resource Survey Final Report” for the City of Decatur, Georgia, dated September 1, 2009.
My qualifications for preparing such comments are outlined in the attached resumé; I should stipulate that most of my recent experience, and most of my writings, have to do with historic preservation and the broader field of cultural resource management (CRM) at the federal level, not in the context of local planning. However, I was involved in the development of federal standards and guidelines for local surveys imposed on State Historic Preservation Officers and local governments by the National Park Service, and have reviewed scores if not hundreds of survey reports over the course of my career. I should also stipulate that while I was born in Decatur in 1942, I left town with my family in 1943 and have not recently resided or worked there.
I should also say that over the last twenty years or so, I have come to be alarmed at what historic preservation and CRM have become in this country – particularly in terms of their growing disconnection from the living communities that they must serve if they are to make any sense as aspects of public policy. I’ve also been dismayed at the quality of scholarship (if it can be called that) represented by their typical products. My concerns are outlined in the attached chapter from my 2011 reader, A Companion to Cultural Resource Management (Wiley-Blackwell 2011).
The Decatur “Final Report” does nothing to encourage me; it is as classic an example as I have recently seen of what has made historic preservation in this country a pointless, overly costly, elitist, and socially irresponsible activity.
On page 2, the “Final Report” says that it was prepared following state and federal guidelines, and specifically cites the National Park Service’s “Guidelines for Local Surveys.” I helped develop those guidelines, and one thing we tried to emphasize was that local surveys must engage and involve the local community – for whom they are presumably done and whose interests they ought to serve. Nowhere in the “Final Report” do I see any evidence whatever of an effort to involve the community, or even to contact and consult with its members. It appears that the “Final Report” represents the work of presumed professionals in architectural history who came into Decatur and decided what they thought was important – never mind what the “locals” might think. I hasten to say that this sort of professional conceit is – sadly – increasingly common in historic preservation practice in this country, but that makes it no less irresponsible.
On page 5, we are told that the surveyors carried out historical research. If they did, it is very thinly reflected in the pages that follow. The focus of the work is overwhelmingly on architecture (itself not discussed in much detail); the social and cultural history of Decatur is scarcely touched upon, unless that history has been bland beyond belief. The “historical context” that begins on page 11 provides no context at all. It merely defines time periods and says the city grew as these periods progressed. Note, for instance, that:
(a) Apparently no Indians ever came close to Decatur; the place has no history prior to the “first European settlers.” One wonders, too, if all these settlers were “European;” I seem to recall that a lot of such settlers were accompanied (willingly or otherwise) by settlers of African origin.
(b) We are given no notion of why Decatur ever came to be; the “Final Report” just accepts that it came into existence and developed quietly thereafter. We are told that it “promoted itself as a quiet, prosperous small town” in the mid-1800s, which “offered a peaceful, healthful, and beautiful place to live.” Was there some economic basis for its prosperity? Some social or cultural basis for its perceived beauty? Some environmental reason for its healthfulness?
(c) Apparently no African-Americans have ever lived in Decatur, or if they have, they are invisible in its history. My family’s lore tells of much-respected African-American women who took care of my elder siblings and me; I wonder where they came from.
(d) Somehow Decatur seems to have escaped the Civil War untouched. I had the impression that Sherman’s army had some effect on the place, but I suppose I (and Wikipedia, for what that is worth) must be mistaken. Sherman’s depredations apparently had nothing to do with the fact that “none of these original historic structures (around the Square) remain.”
(e) Similarly, the difficulties surrounding Reconstruction seem to have had no impact on Decatur. What a blessed town it must be!
(f) Decatur’s growth has apparently been a sort of organic thing, perhaps fueled by photosynthesis. Neighborhoods simply “develop” or sometimes “are developed.” What motivated their development, and hence might have influenced their character, was apparently of no interest to the authors of the “Final Report.”
(g) Nothing seems to have happened in Decatur after the period 1940-60. This may reflect the author’s decision not to consider buildings unless they were at least fifty years old – a decision that may be justified in a mindless sort of way by the National Register of Historic Places’ general exclusion of properties achieving significance in the last fifty years. In most parts of the world, however – at least to the best of my knowledge – history did not stop fifty years ago, and in some places recent historical events have had profound impacts on both historic properties and the communities in which they exist. Apparently not in Decatur, however.
The bulk of the “Final Report” comprises “Neighborhood Summaries” made up of maps and very thin descriptions of Decatur’s neighborhoods, through which are woven largely unsubstantiated statements like “a good example,” “has kept its historic character,” and “not proposed as a historic district.” Presumably these are statements of opinion and intent by the authors – who I find nowhere identified by name, and whose qualifications, as far as I can tell, are nowhere presented.
Nor can I even determine from the “Final Report” how neighborhoods or specific properties were defined and selected for evaluation. For instance, my older sister, who actually remembers Decatur in the late 1930s/early 1940s, tells me of a neighborhood in which African-American families were concentrated. I imagine this neighborhood lost its distinctive character – for better or worse – during the social changes of the mid-late 20th century, but I have to wonder where it was, what surviving properties might be associated with it, and what cultural significance they may retain for Decatur’s African-American residents – who I cannot believe do not exist, despite their total invisibility in the “Final Report.”
In summary, the “Final Report” seems to be to be a deeply deficient product, notably in the following ways:
1. No evidence that the community was involved in any way in its production;
2. A remarkably vague, uncritical, bit of happy-talk about Decatur’s development instead of a useful discussion of the town’s history.
3. No representation of history as a basis for judging historical significance; evaluations were apparently done solely on the basis of perceived architectural merit.
4. Narrowly limited and usually unspecified bases for characterization and evaluation. The perceptions upon which evaluations were based were apparently only those of the anonymous outside professionals who performed the survey, and whose qualifications to make such evaluations are not even shared with those who, we are assured on pages 4-5, will benefit from them. The reader is expected, apparently, to accept these perceptions as gospel truth.
Again, I am sorry to say that in my experience these sorts of deficiencies are not uncommon among survey reports done for local governments, states, federal agencies and non-governmental organizations throughout the country, but in my opinion they are no less deficient for being common. Historic preservation has sunk very low when this sort of report passes for a professional planning document.
I hope this admittedly critical review is of some use to you.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
EPA: a Highly Principled Agency
Many thanks to John Parker for alerting me to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) request for comments on its published draft principles for advancing environmental justice among Indian tribes and other indigenous groups. Below are my comments, just sent to EPA, along with the URLs by which you, too, can access the principles for review.
I am writing to comment on the Indigenous Peoples Environmental Justice Principles and Sub-Principles you recently published on the Worldwide Web, per the instructions in your "outreach letter" (http://www.epa.gov/tribal/consultation/pdf/policy-on-ej-for-tribes-and-ips-working-draft.pdf and http://epa.gov/environmentaljustice/resources/policy/indigenous/2013-01-08-stakeholder-outreach-letter.pdf).
You asked that we respond to five questions, arrayed below with my responses.
Question 1: Do the introduction and background sections clearly explain the rationale (etc.)?
Answer: More or less, but they convey no evidence of appreciation for the urgent needs that exist for actually addressing the concerns of indigenous people about impacts on their environments, which are being effectively ignored by most if not all agencies of the U.S. government (presidential, secretarial, and other official rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding).
Question 2: Are the draft principles and sub-principles the appropriate approach….?
Answer: No. The principles and sub-principles are so vague and abstract that they provide no basis upon which anyone can develop expectations about actual EPA actions. They strike me as a smoke-screen, designed to avoid and deflect criticism rather than actually to accomplish anything.
Question 3: What, if any, changes … should be considered?
Answer: Cut the self-congratulatory gobbledigook and give us some assurance that EPA will actually use its authorities to do something. Particularly in its role vis-à-vis federal agency compliance with NEPA, EPA could do a great deal of good for indigenous people and their environments by vigorously promoting EJ principles and the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (neither of which need further definition, thank you). You ought to develop the staff and other resources to do this, and get on with it, rather than wasting your time and the taxpayers' money formulating and reformulating abstractions.
Question 4: What recommendations do you have on how to best implement these principles…?
Answer: Stop splitting infinitives, but beyond that, see above.
Question 5: How should progress and success be measured?
Answer: They can’t be, because the principles and sub-principles are too vague and abstract. You could do almost anything short of flooding Indian Country with toxic wastes and still be “successful” under these principles.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Thomas F. King
I am writing to comment on the Indigenous Peoples Environmental Justice Principles and Sub-Principles you recently published on the Worldwide Web, per the instructions in your "outreach letter" (http://www.epa.gov/tribal/consultation/pdf/policy-on-ej-for-tribes-and-ips-working-draft.pdf and http://epa.gov/environmentaljustice/resources/policy/indigenous/2013-01-08-stakeholder-outreach-letter.pdf).
You asked that we respond to five questions, arrayed below with my responses.
Question 1: Do the introduction and background sections clearly explain the rationale (etc.)?
Answer: More or less, but they convey no evidence of appreciation for the urgent needs that exist for actually addressing the concerns of indigenous people about impacts on their environments, which are being effectively ignored by most if not all agencies of the U.S. government (presidential, secretarial, and other official rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding).
Question 2: Are the draft principles and sub-principles the appropriate approach….?
Answer: No. The principles and sub-principles are so vague and abstract that they provide no basis upon which anyone can develop expectations about actual EPA actions. They strike me as a smoke-screen, designed to avoid and deflect criticism rather than actually to accomplish anything.
Question 3: What, if any, changes … should be considered?
Answer: Cut the self-congratulatory gobbledigook and give us some assurance that EPA will actually use its authorities to do something. Particularly in its role vis-à-vis federal agency compliance with NEPA, EPA could do a great deal of good for indigenous people and their environments by vigorously promoting EJ principles and the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (neither of which need further definition, thank you). You ought to develop the staff and other resources to do this, and get on with it, rather than wasting your time and the taxpayers' money formulating and reformulating abstractions.
Question 4: What recommendations do you have on how to best implement these principles…?
Answer: Stop splitting infinitives, but beyond that, see above.
Question 5: How should progress and success be measured?
Answer: They can’t be, because the principles and sub-principles are too vague and abstract. You could do almost anything short of flooding Indian Country with toxic wastes and still be “successful” under these principles.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Thomas F. King
The Mob Revisited
2013 Introduction
The Explorers Club, of which I'm a member, is considering denying support to underwater archaeological projects that include a commercial ("treasure salvage") component. Expressing a saddening herd mentality, the Club's committee on the subject assures the Club's members that "archaeologists" as some kind of unified body oppose such work. In gathering together documents to support a doubtless futile effort to demonstrate that a few of us have the capacity for independent thought on the subject -- in which the mainstream profession and the world's governments firmly avoid participating -- I came upon the following posting from 2007, either from this blog or from ACRA-L, which I thought might be worth revisiting.
Well, the mob is out in full cry, brandishing its pitchforks and cudgels, howling for the blood of heretics.
Or to be a bit less picturesque, the archaeological societies of the nation are joining together to expunge from the discipline all those who might be tempted to work with "traffickers" in artifacts. The latest convert, to judge from the Society for American Archaeology’s latest Archaeological Record (September 2007, p. 10), is the Register of Professional Archaeologists. I suppose RPA can't really help itself, since it's the creature of such mob leaders as the Archaeological Institute of America and the SAA. And the RPA's leader, Jeff Altschul, told me in a recent email that there is "overwhelming support" in his organization for a change in the RPA code of conduct to prohibit registrants from participating in commercial ventures. The new language goes like this:
An archaeologist shall not be involved in the recovery, buying or selling of archaeological artifacts for sale or other commercial activity, or be employed by or contract with a company whose stated purpose is to recover archaeological artifacts for sale or other commercial purposes.
No doubt RPA will join its constituent organizations in thundering against commercialism, and then pat itself on its corporate head for its ethical superiority. Maybe this is a good thing; it is at least consistent with the Register's primary purpose of making its registrants feel good about themselves. The fact that it will almost undoubtedly accelerate the destruction of archaeological sites is probably beside the point.
Prohibition is a blunt instrument, particularly when wielded by those with no power to enforce it. We all know what happened when the U.S. tried to prohibit the consumption of alcohol. Many of us have had first hand experience flaunting the continuing prohibition on the use of recreational drugs. These prohibitions have had the full force of the state behind them. I wonder what makes archaeologists think they -- with no power whatsoever -- can prohibit the commercial traffic in antiquities.
If forced to answer this question, I imagine an honest supporter of the RPA prohibition would say that it is not meant to prohibit commercial traffic, only to prohibit archaeologists from participating in it. But if that is so -- if it isn't designed to stop the practice that is actually destroying archaeological sites and data, but only to keep archaeologists from documenting those sites and data as they are destroyed, does this not suggest a degree of counterproductivity?
Nations and international organizations -- no more immune to hysteria than professional bodies -- have of course enacted laws and issued declarations against artifact trafficking, and based on their own statistics may be able to report a measure of success. A collection is intercepted in transit here; an artifact is repatriated there; a dealer or digger is prosecuted someplace else. But are these actions making a dent in the international antiquities market? Since we have no real data on that market, we cannot know, but to judge from what we see in the popular media, it appears not. We're told that antiquities looting is rife in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Peru and Chile; it certainly continues throughout North America. Those looters are not looting just for the fun of it; they have people to whom they sell the stuff, and there is -- must be -- a voracious cadre of collectors who make it worthwhile for such dealers to deal. Prohibition of antiquities trafficking, I suggest, has been no more effective than prohibition of alcohol consumption or the puffing of marijuana.
But who cares, really? What's important to a mob is not whether its cause makes rational sense, but how pursuit of the cause makes its members feel. In generating feelings of propriety, the imposition of ethics like that of the RPA are doubtless highly effective. Everyone can feel so good about themselves, so professional, and that's really far more important than the condition of the archaeological record, isn’t it?
When prohibition of alcohol consumption didn't work, governments re-legalized it and sought to control it through various forms of regulation. Some regulatory measures work pretty well; others don't; there's room for productive argument about how to tweak the rules and systems. The U.S. is gradually shuffling its way toward some kind of similar accommodation with regard to recreational drugs. Debate continues about how best to control access to firearms and regulate abortions. Why, I wonder, can't we try something similar with regard to the private ownership of and commerce in antiquities?
I have no way of verifying it, but I suspect that a substantial percentage of the people who collect antiquities would prefer to do so legally, and would more highly value an object with documented provenience than one without. If this is so -- and again I stress that neither I nor anyone else knows whether it is so -- then it ought to be possible, to some extent at least, to co-opt the commercial market, to dry up the market for illicit artifacts by creating one for those gathered using archaeological methods. But such a market could be created, of course, only if we actively engaged with the traffickers, rather than prohibiting such engagement.
Would engagement be a perfect or complete solution to the problem of looting? Of course not -- any more than engagement with those who traffic in booze is a perfect solution to alcohol abuse. But however shocking and saddening it may be to the moralists at the head of the mob, that's the way the world works. Even with things on whose prohibition there is broad popular agreement -- murder, rape, incest -- we find ourselves having to make nuanced distinctions in order to accommodate the shades of gray with which the real world presents us. Is it all right to kill in self-defense? In war? When is sex consensual and when is it not? How closely related can a given couple be, in a given society, and still be acceptable sexual partners? As ostensible social scientists, we ought to be able to work within such imperfect human systems to achieve our goals. But we are not; we are just as simple-minded as any other mob.
So the RPA will doubtless join its fellow acronymous archaeo-organizations --SAA, AIA, SHA, et al -- in prohibiting its members from dealing with commercial interests, and things will go on as they are. Except every now and then some poor dope who thinks he or she can relate to the real world and still be called an archaeologist will get pilloried. The rest of us, I suppose, will just have to call ourselves something else. Or maybe we can just drop the second “a.”
The Explorers Club, of which I'm a member, is considering denying support to underwater archaeological projects that include a commercial ("treasure salvage") component. Expressing a saddening herd mentality, the Club's committee on the subject assures the Club's members that "archaeologists" as some kind of unified body oppose such work. In gathering together documents to support a doubtless futile effort to demonstrate that a few of us have the capacity for independent thought on the subject -- in which the mainstream profession and the world's governments firmly avoid participating -- I came upon the following posting from 2007, either from this blog or from ACRA-L, which I thought might be worth revisiting.
The Mob
November 1, 2007
Well, the mob is out in full cry, brandishing its pitchforks and cudgels, howling for the blood of heretics.
Or to be a bit less picturesque, the archaeological societies of the nation are joining together to expunge from the discipline all those who might be tempted to work with "traffickers" in artifacts. The latest convert, to judge from the Society for American Archaeology’s latest Archaeological Record (September 2007, p. 10), is the Register of Professional Archaeologists. I suppose RPA can't really help itself, since it's the creature of such mob leaders as the Archaeological Institute of America and the SAA. And the RPA's leader, Jeff Altschul, told me in a recent email that there is "overwhelming support" in his organization for a change in the RPA code of conduct to prohibit registrants from participating in commercial ventures. The new language goes like this:
An archaeologist shall not be involved in the recovery, buying or selling of archaeological artifacts for sale or other commercial activity, or be employed by or contract with a company whose stated purpose is to recover archaeological artifacts for sale or other commercial purposes.
No doubt RPA will join its constituent organizations in thundering against commercialism, and then pat itself on its corporate head for its ethical superiority. Maybe this is a good thing; it is at least consistent with the Register's primary purpose of making its registrants feel good about themselves. The fact that it will almost undoubtedly accelerate the destruction of archaeological sites is probably beside the point.
Prohibition is a blunt instrument, particularly when wielded by those with no power to enforce it. We all know what happened when the U.S. tried to prohibit the consumption of alcohol. Many of us have had first hand experience flaunting the continuing prohibition on the use of recreational drugs. These prohibitions have had the full force of the state behind them. I wonder what makes archaeologists think they -- with no power whatsoever -- can prohibit the commercial traffic in antiquities.
If forced to answer this question, I imagine an honest supporter of the RPA prohibition would say that it is not meant to prohibit commercial traffic, only to prohibit archaeologists from participating in it. But if that is so -- if it isn't designed to stop the practice that is actually destroying archaeological sites and data, but only to keep archaeologists from documenting those sites and data as they are destroyed, does this not suggest a degree of counterproductivity?
Nations and international organizations -- no more immune to hysteria than professional bodies -- have of course enacted laws and issued declarations against artifact trafficking, and based on their own statistics may be able to report a measure of success. A collection is intercepted in transit here; an artifact is repatriated there; a dealer or digger is prosecuted someplace else. But are these actions making a dent in the international antiquities market? Since we have no real data on that market, we cannot know, but to judge from what we see in the popular media, it appears not. We're told that antiquities looting is rife in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Peru and Chile; it certainly continues throughout North America. Those looters are not looting just for the fun of it; they have people to whom they sell the stuff, and there is -- must be -- a voracious cadre of collectors who make it worthwhile for such dealers to deal. Prohibition of antiquities trafficking, I suggest, has been no more effective than prohibition of alcohol consumption or the puffing of marijuana.
But who cares, really? What's important to a mob is not whether its cause makes rational sense, but how pursuit of the cause makes its members feel. In generating feelings of propriety, the imposition of ethics like that of the RPA are doubtless highly effective. Everyone can feel so good about themselves, so professional, and that's really far more important than the condition of the archaeological record, isn’t it?
When prohibition of alcohol consumption didn't work, governments re-legalized it and sought to control it through various forms of regulation. Some regulatory measures work pretty well; others don't; there's room for productive argument about how to tweak the rules and systems. The U.S. is gradually shuffling its way toward some kind of similar accommodation with regard to recreational drugs. Debate continues about how best to control access to firearms and regulate abortions. Why, I wonder, can't we try something similar with regard to the private ownership of and commerce in antiquities?
I have no way of verifying it, but I suspect that a substantial percentage of the people who collect antiquities would prefer to do so legally, and would more highly value an object with documented provenience than one without. If this is so -- and again I stress that neither I nor anyone else knows whether it is so -- then it ought to be possible, to some extent at least, to co-opt the commercial market, to dry up the market for illicit artifacts by creating one for those gathered using archaeological methods. But such a market could be created, of course, only if we actively engaged with the traffickers, rather than prohibiting such engagement.
Would engagement be a perfect or complete solution to the problem of looting? Of course not -- any more than engagement with those who traffic in booze is a perfect solution to alcohol abuse. But however shocking and saddening it may be to the moralists at the head of the mob, that's the way the world works. Even with things on whose prohibition there is broad popular agreement -- murder, rape, incest -- we find ourselves having to make nuanced distinctions in order to accommodate the shades of gray with which the real world presents us. Is it all right to kill in self-defense? In war? When is sex consensual and when is it not? How closely related can a given couple be, in a given society, and still be acceptable sexual partners? As ostensible social scientists, we ought to be able to work within such imperfect human systems to achieve our goals. But we are not; we are just as simple-minded as any other mob.
So the RPA will doubtless join its fellow acronymous archaeo-organizations --SAA, AIA, SHA, et al -- in prohibiting its members from dealing with commercial interests, and things will go on as they are. Except every now and then some poor dope who thinks he or she can relate to the real world and still be called an archaeologist will get pilloried. The rest of us, I suppose, will just have to call ourselves something else. Or maybe we can just drop the second “a.”
Monday, January 14, 2013
CRM, EIA, and the NRA
I'm working on a new book -- co-authored with Claudia Nissley -- on consultation in cultural resource management (CRM) and environmental impact assessment (EIA). The final chapter, as currently configured, comprises tongue-in-cheek guidelines for people who want to avoid meaningful consultation. By sheer coincidence I was working on a piece of this chapter today, and was inspired to write the following:
Expand Alternatives
On the other hand, it’s sometimes helpful to expand the range of alternatives thrown on the table – not for extensive, expensive consideration, but just for discussion – so those that might actually work get lost in the noise generated by impossibilities.
Outside the cultural resources and environmental arenas, the National Rifle Association in the United States is, as we write this (early 2013), giving us a fine example of alternative expansion. Faced by massive popular revulsion at gun violence in the wake of the massacre at Newtown, Connecticut, the NRA is proposing improved mental health as the solution. It’s hardly debatable that improved mental health would reduce the number of nutcases with guns, but fixing the nation’s mental health is a big, complicated job. By shifting the focus from the relatively easy task of banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines to the near-impossible job of curing the mentally ill, the NRA is skillfully muddying the water and, in all probability, once again preserving its members’ ostensible right to own whatever kinds of weaponry suit their fancy.
Now if I could just figure out a way to apply this principle to CRM and EIA.....
Expand Alternatives
On the other hand, it’s sometimes helpful to expand the range of alternatives thrown on the table – not for extensive, expensive consideration, but just for discussion – so those that might actually work get lost in the noise generated by impossibilities.
Outside the cultural resources and environmental arenas, the National Rifle Association in the United States is, as we write this (early 2013), giving us a fine example of alternative expansion. Faced by massive popular revulsion at gun violence in the wake of the massacre at Newtown, Connecticut, the NRA is proposing improved mental health as the solution. It’s hardly debatable that improved mental health would reduce the number of nutcases with guns, but fixing the nation’s mental health is a big, complicated job. By shifting the focus from the relatively easy task of banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines to the near-impossible job of curing the mentally ill, the NRA is skillfully muddying the water and, in all probability, once again preserving its members’ ostensible right to own whatever kinds of weaponry suit their fancy.
Now if I could just figure out a way to apply this principle to CRM and EIA.....
Tuesday, January 01, 2013
No More &^%$# TCPs!
Guest post by George A. Cluster
The National Park Service (NPS), thank goodness, is finally re-thinking its “National Register Bulletin 38,” and inviting people to comment on “traditional cultural properties” and their eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places. Well, here’s my comment, NPS: get rid of them! Jettison the whole idea!
The idea of recognizing TCPs is wrong, inconsistent with the basic principles on which the National Register is based. Forcing federal agencies to think about such places, and worse yet to consider PROTECTING them, just confuses government employees and distracts them from their real work – writing incomprehensible guidelines, enforcing obscure standards, patting each other on the back, winning awards, preparing for retirement.
The trouble with TCPs is that they’re important only to PEOPLE. Just plain people, with no special social status or government position whatever. Oh sure, some of them are important to a LOT of people, but in most cases they’re still just ORDINARY people, in ordinary communities. And Bulletin 38 doesn't even demand that a lot of people care about a place, or that the people be parts of any elite. Indian tribes and Native Hawaiians have especially beaten their drums about TCPs, which just shows you how far outside mainstream American thinking the whole idea is.
Look, it should be obvious that the National Register is not designed to recognize places important to ordinary people. The whole idea of the Register is to recognize places important to the SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, based on the judgment of his PROFESSIONAL STAFF – archaeologists, historians, and architectural historians, and of the PROFESSIONALS in the State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs). That’s why it’s the SECRETARY who maintains the Register, and sets standards for listing places on it. That’s why you have to hire PROFESSIONALS to prepare the paperwork to nominate places to it. This is important: the Register makes WORK for these professionals, who might otherwise go unemployed, living under (historic) bridges! Keeping elites and professionals comfortable is the PURPOSE of the Register!
Come on, people, this isn’t rocket science. NPS shouldn’t have to concern itself with the “cultural” interests of ordinary people, in ordinary communities – who probably don’t really have any culture anyhow. NPS and the SHPOs and the preservation professionals in the federal agencies and consulting firms ought to get back to their real work – writing great thick historic context studies, discussing how many pony truss bridges belong on the National Register or how deep an archaeological site needs to be to reach eligibility under Criterion D, and carefully crafting Memoranda of Agreement to file and forget.
Let’s start the new year right by getting back to first principles: historic preservation is about the values of the ELITE, the EDUCATED, the CREDENTIALED, and most especially those residing in NPS and the SHPOs. And it’s about making sure that we elite, educated, credentialed professionals – in government and in the consulting firms -- stay employed and make it safely into secure, untroubled retirement when our times come.
This shouldn’t be a hard call for NPS at all. What to do with TCPs? Forget about them!
Sunday, November 25, 2012
One More Time: Archaeological Survey Does Not Equal a Reasonable and Good Faith Effort to Identify Historic Properties
On October 16, 2012 I posted the following on ACRA-L, a
listserv subscribed to by a lot of Cultural Resource Management (CRM)
practitioners:
Based on collective experience, does the following seem like
common practice?
1.
Non-governmental project sponsor wants to use a
big chunk of federal land.
2.
Responsible agency has not yet initiated Section
106 (of the National Historic Preservation Act) review -- i.e., it has not
initiated consultation with SHPO (State Historic Preservation Officer), tribes,
others; it may or may not have defined some kind of APE (area of potential
effects), but has not consulted to establish a scope of its identification
needs.
3.
Nevertheless, it directs the project
sponsor to conduct an archaeological survey of something -- presumably an APE
as someone has defined it.
It seems to me that this practice puts the cart at least partially
before the horse. At some point in the future, presumably the agency
will initiate 106 review, but it seems inevitable that it will rely on the
prior-conducted archaeological survey to define the universe of things to
be consulted about. If anyone suggests that the survey was ill-scoped or
ill-conducted, that the APE was ill-defined, that there are properties or types
of property that were missed or not sought, or that there are cultural
phenomena other than putative historic properties to be considered, I'd expect
that they'll have an uphill battle getting these concerns recognized. At
the very least, there will be a conflict situation, which might have been
avoided had the work been planned as the Section 106 regulations require.
Does anyone else have a thought about this practice, and about how
widespread it is?
I got only about half a
dozen responses – most CRM practitioners are sick of my nattering, I suppose,
and don’t read my stuff. Those who did
respond were about evenly divided between east and west, and almost evenly
divided in their responses along the same geographic lines. Those in the east said that what I described
doesn’t happen or happens only rarely.
Those in the west said it happens all the time.
This was pretty
predictable, since most federal land is in the west, so the condition I’d set
out as #1 – applicant wants to use big chunk of federal land – is pretty
foreign to conditions in the east.
But I think it also
reflects the confusion that land managing agencies in the west seem to
experience between “cultural resources” and “archaeological sites,” and between
“archaeological survey” and making a reasonable and good faith effort to
identify historic properties.
The Section 106
regulations (36 CFR 800) prescribe that the first thing a federal agency must
do if its project requires review, besides figuring out who to consult in the
course of such review, is to determine what the scope of its “reasonable and good
faith effort” to identify affected historic places will be. It’s to do this in consultation with State
and Tribal Historic Preservation Officers, tribes, and other interested parties. It is not to rush out and have an archaeological
survey done (or an architectural survey, an engineering survey, a historical
survey, or a survey of toenail fungus).
Why not? For the same
reason you don’t go out shopping for your family’s holiday gifts without first making
some effort to determine what they might like to get and what you can afford. You don’t want to wind up being a Stupid
Santa.
Consultative scoping under
Section 106 (and NEPA, except NEPA doesn’t really require it) is done to
determine what sorts of things different groups are concerned about, and what
the nature of the area is – its history, its environment, its architecture, its
culture. Based on this information you
can figure out what sorts of expertise you need, and what sorts of methods to
employ, so that when you get farther along in the process you don’t have to say
“oops,” and backtrack to look for things you didn’t initially consider. Or – as is more commonly the case – not say
“oops,” but just try to cover up your mistakes and ignore the people who are
railing at you for missing the places and things that they think are
significant, or the effects that they think are unacceptable.
But particularly in the
west, and particularly among land management agencies, it’s just assumed that
what you need to do to find “cultural resources” subject to effect by a project
is to hire some archaeologists and have them walk the ground. Exactly what ground they walk is another
whole question, but it’s become unquestioned gospel among the land management
agencies that the first and usually only thing you need to do to identify
“cultural resources” is to send in the archaeologists.
The agencies usually
also recognize, more or less, that they have to do “tribal consultation,”
whatever they think that is. Usually,
though, they take this to mean sending a more or less incomprehensible letter
to each tribe in the area, asking them if they have any “cultural resources” about
which they want to volunteer information.
Maybe the agency will propose an “ethnographic study,” but they usually
look on that as a form of impact mitigation, not as part of their
identification work. Agencies sometimes
recognize that they ought to be on the lookout for historic buildings and
structures; if the archaeologists say they can’t evaluate such things, then
maybe they’ll bring in an architectural historian. What they almost never, ever do is what the
regulations say they’re required to do: sit down up-front with those
interested in their project’s likely effects and find out what sorts of
studies, if any, they think need to be done. Instead, ninety-nine times out of a hundred,
they simply have an archaeological survey done and distribute the resulting
jargon-laden report for review – first excising most of the relevant data from
it for fear that the untrustworthy public will go out and rip off all the
discovered “sites.”
All this, on the whole,
is fine with the “cultural resource” consulting firms and environmental impact
assessment outfits that ostensibly provide expert advice to the agencies and to
those seeking to use federal lands. It’s
a very cozy arrangement; the agencies prescribe an archaeological survey and
the consulting firms go do it – all according to standard procedures so nobody
needs to strain their brains too much.
The companies that want to use federal land pay for it, the whole
operation is kept out of the public eye, and everybody’s happy. The boat gets rocked only when some
scurrilous outsider – an Indian tribe, a local organization, an environmental
group with a lawyer – makes a fuss, but if that happens, well, then, the
consulting firm just gets more paying work from its client, so it’s still
happy. The land management agency may be
disgruntled, but it’s most likely just mad at whoever’s rocking the boat. The company that’s paying the tab doesn’t
like the costs and delays, but all it knows is that some NIMBYs are making
trouble with which its hired experts need to be paid to deal. It’s just a cost of doing business. If the companies knew that the agencies to
which they’re applying and the consultants advising them were ignoring a
simple, sensible scoping requirement that if attended to could keep them from
having such problems, or at least let them anticipate them, they’d probably be
more upset. But they probably couldn’t
do much about the matter, and most times they don’t know
In theory, the State and
Tribal Historic Preservation Officers (SHPOs/THPOs) are supposed to ride herd
on the agencies and consultants, to insist that they follow the regulations. But a lot of SHPOs, at least, don’t seem to
know what the regulations say, or they have their own exotic notions about the
regulations’ content. Scoping as an
explicit regulatory requirement has been in the 106 regulations only since
2000; a lot of SHPOs don’t seem to have caught up with the lightning pace of
regulatory change. And of course, SHPOs
are congenitally underfunded, understaffed, underqualified, and required (and/or
prefer) to spend their time doing things other than project review – like
compiling paper for the National Park Service (NPS) to ponder, and nominating things
to the National Register. They ride herd
astride spavined, hobbled ponies, wielding popguns loaded with nit-picks. THPOs have many of the same problems, and a
lot less money with which to address them. And both SHPOs and THPOs are beholden to NPS for what
federal money they do have, and NPS – to judge from the records it makes SHPOs
keep – hasn’t read the Section 106 regulations since approximately 1986.
Some SHPO staff members
do get frustrated with their roles; here’s a quote from one who wrote me just a
couple of days ago – her email text altered slightly to protect her identity:
My pet peeve here is "archaeo-business." It’s a million dollar industry and it has
gotten to a point where five pieces of pottery found in a bulldozed site can be
justification for getting an archaeologist to conduct tests
and reconnaissance for the developer at a very hefty cost. And yet when the project they're working on is doing major damage to an important historic structure in plain view from
where they’re monitoring excavations, they look the other way and claim that it
is not in their scope of work to be concerned with structures. It just disappoints me, demoralizes me, and
erodes my belief that historic places are priceless.
Why doesn’t such an
aggrieved employee do something about it?
Usually because they can’t. Their
supervisors don’t want to rock boats.
And they often don’t know what to do about it, because they haven’t read
the regulations either. Or because they
know that even if they get their supervisors to blow the whistle, they’re unlikely
to get any help from what jokingly passes for federal historic preservation
leadership at the ACHP and NPS.
We’ve had the current
version of the Section 106 regulations for a dozen years now. The regulations are far from perfect, but
they’re pretty clear about scoping. At
36 CFR § 800.4(a) they say:
Determine
scope of identification efforts. In consultation
with the SHPO/THPO, the agency official shall:
(1) Determine and document the area of potential effects, as defined
in § 800.16(d);
(2) Review existing information on historic properties within the area
of potential effects, including any data concerning possible historic properties not yet
identified;
(3) Seek information, as appropriate, from consulting parties, and other individuals and organizations likely
to have knowledge of,
or concerns with, historic
properties in the area, and identify
issues relating to the undertaking's
potential effects on historic
properties; and
(4) Gather information from any Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian
organization identified pursuant to § 800.3(f) to assist in identifying properties, including those located
off tribal lands,
which may be of religious and
cultural significance to them and may be eligible for the National Register, recognizing that an Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization may be reluctant to divulge specific
information regarding
the location, nature, and activities
associated with such sites.
I added emphasis to that “shall” to emphasize that scoping is a legal
requirement, not just something the agency oughta do. And you’ll note, I hope, that the term
“archaeological survey” appears nowhere in that regulatory prescription.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Buy Mushgigamongsebe: Benefit a Tribe
I got my royalty statement the other day from Amazon Kindle ($14.50, YAY!) and saw that once again all the sales were of Thirteen Bones, not Mushgigamongsebe (http://www.amazon.com/The-Mushgigamongsebe-District-Traditional-ebook/dp/B008AK7AJQ). Not meaning to discourage sales of my gripping, exciting novel (perfect for holiday giving), but anyone interested in traditional cultural properties (TCPs) or what the National Park Service (eyes fixed firmly on its lint-filled navel) calls "ethnographic landscapes" ought to get Mushgigamongsebe, all royalties from which I pass on to the Mole Lake Sokaogon Band of Great Lakes Chippewa, whose landscape Mushgagamongsebe is, and who have rescued it from the depradations of a multinational mining firm. The Kindle book is the report that Anna Willow, Larry Nesper and I prepared for the Mole Lake Band when they were fighting the mine via Section 106 review -- one step toward its eventual preservation.
Monday, November 19, 2012
NEW EVIDENCE OF JUST HOW STUPID A STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICER CAN BE
I’m reliably advised – with authoritative supporting documentation
provided – that a State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) in a state that
will remain nameless uses an “SHPO Clearance Form” to expedite “compliance”
(sic) with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) by
federal agencies and, apparently, applicants for federal assistance and
permits.
The form is two pages long; the “applicant” fills in blanks identifying
the project and saying what county it’s in, then offers his or her own
determinations as to the eligibility of affected properties for the National
Register of Historic Places and as to the nature of the project’s effects on
them (“No effect,” “ No adverse effect” or “Adverse effect”). He or she then sends the form in to the SHPO,
who signs either to concur or not concur in the applicant’s determinations. And hey presto! You’ve finished Section 106!
Very efficient, SHPO; great work. Except, of course, that you’ve systematically
directed the applicant into non-compliance with Section 106 and its regulations
(36 CFR Part 800).
How? Let me count the
ways:
1.
Nowhere in NHPA or in 36 CFR Part 800 is there
any provision for SHPO “clearance.” The
Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) has made this clear not only
in the regulations but in various guideline documents; I’ve tried to make it
clear in every relevant textbook I’ve written since 1998; the ACHP and others
(Claudia Nissley, myself) have tried to make it clear in our training.
2.
This is not merely a technical quibble. Section 106 review is fundamentally about
multi-party consultation. Reducing it to
an exchange of “clearance” documents between an “applicant” and the SHPO cuts
everybody but the “applicant” and the SHPO out of the loop. That’s contrary to the core principles upon
which Section 106 review is based.
3.
It also encourages federal agencies and others
to break the law by ignoring:
a.
36 CFR § 800.3(e), which directs agencies, when
they initiate Section 106 review, to plan how to involve the public (“clearance”
effectively cuts the public out).
b.
36 CFR § 800.3(f), which directs agencies
initiating review to “identify other consulting parties” – that is, parties
other than the SHPO, including Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian groups, local
governments, and anyone else who’s “entitled” to consult – “entitlement” being
based on interest in the project or its effects on historic properties (36 CFR §
800.2(c)(5)). “Clearance” cuts out all
these consulting parties.
4.
The “clearance” process in this case goes
farther by encouraging “applicants” to ignore:
a.
36 CFR § 800.4(a), which requires agencies to
consult with SHPOs (and Tribal Historic Preservation Officers or THPOs, also
ignored in this form), in establishing the scope of their historic property
identification work, including:
i.
Establishing what the Area(s) of Potential
Effect (APE) are;
ii.
Reviewing background data, and
iii.
Gathering and considering information held by
other parties, notably Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian groups regarding
places of religious and cultural significance to them;
b.
36 CFR § 800.4(b), which requires agencies to
consult with SHPOs, THPOs, and others in conducting a reasonable and good faith
effort to identify potentially affected historic properties, based on the scope
of work developed per § 800.4(a); the “clearance” form doesn’t even ask the “applicant”
what he or she has done to identify historic properties;
c.
36 CFR § 800.4(c), which requires agencies to
consult with SHPOs, THPOs, and others in determining which potentially affected
properties are eligible for the National Register; the “clearance” form reduces
this to a check-box interaction between the “applicant” and the SHPO;
d.
36 CFR § 800.4(d), which requires agencies to
consult with the various parties in determining whether eligible properties
will be affected (again reduced by the “clearance” form to the applicant’s box-check
and the SHPO’s concurrence); and
e.
36 CFR § 800.5, which requires consultation in
determining whether such effects will be adverse (another check-box on the
form)
OK, by now your eyes are glazing over, so let’s get down to
the nitty-gritty. By using this “clearance”
form, the SHPO is screwing up in two large ways.
1.
He or she is setting things up so the taxpayers
who pay his or her salary can have no influence on federal agency decision
making under Section 106. This seems
like a pretty strange thing for an ostensible public servant to do – and just
to throw another regulatory cite at you, it’s inconsistent with 36 CFR §
800.2(c)(1), which says that the SHPO is supposed to “reflect the interests of
the state and its citizens in the preservation of their cultural heritage.” Though maybe this SHPO can somehow magically
reflect such interests while keeping those interested in the dark.
2.
By encouraging agencies not to do what the
regulations quite explicitly require them to do, the SHPO is setting agencies
and other “applicants” up for litigation and other challenges to their project
planning, which can have serious fiscal implications for all concerned.
And I suppose it’s worth noting that he or she is probably
facilitating the destruction of a lot of historic properties, but maybe I’m
just picking nits.
Bottom line: the regulations have never provided for SHPO
clearance, and the revisions of 1999-2001 (with which it looks like this SHPO
is unfamiliar) considerably clarified the fact that SHPO clearance is not the
name of the 106 game. Ignoring the
regulations, and setting up one’s own happy little process that keeps the
public in the dark while the SHPO and agencies pass paper back and forth to one
another, is both reprehensible and, I’d say, stupid. Reprehensible because it encourages
illegality, ignoring project impacts, and keeping those who pay one’s salary in
the dark about things that are important to them; stupid because one will
eventually get caught, and the results of doing so are likely to be very
uncomfortable.
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