The Cultural and Historical Resources Technical Advisory Team met in regular session in Conference Room A at the Tucson-PIMA County Public Works Center, 201 N. Stone Avenue, Tucson, Arizona on Monday, November 15, 1999 at 10:00 a.m. Those present and absent were listed as follows:

Present:
Dr. Paul Fish, Arizona State Museum (Chair)
Dr. Beth Grindell, Arizona State Museum
Mr. Jerry Kyle, Arizona Historical Society
Mr. Peter Steere, Tohono O'odham Nation Cultural Preservation Office
Mr. Max Witkind, Bureau of Land Management
Ms. Linda Mayro, Pima County Archaeological and Historic Preservation Office
Mr. David Cushman, PIMA County Archaeological and Historic Preservation Office

Absent:
Ms. Mary Farrell, Coronado National Forest
Ms. Susan Wells, National Parks Service
Mr. Joe Joaquin, Tohono O'odham Nation Cultural Preservation Office

There were no guests or members of the public present

CALL TO ORDER

The meeting was called to order by Paul Fish at approximately 10:05 a.m.

OLD BUSINESS

2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES FROM MEETINGS OF SEPTEMBER 27, 1999 AND OCTOBER 18, 1999.

The draft Minutes of the third meeting of the CHTAT held on September 27th, 1999 were approved unanimously upon a motion made by Paul Fish, the Chairman and seconded by Beth Grindell. The draft minutes of the fourth meeting of the CHTAT held on October 18th, 1999, were also unanimously approved with a technical correction to the text offered by Beth Grindell, which was noted. Again, the motion was made by Paul Fish, and with the correction, seconded by Beth Grindell.

NEW BUSINESS

UPDATES

Mr. Cushman passed out a copy of a flow chart showing the relationship between the regulatory processes of the National Environmental Policy Act and Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. He explained that since the issuance of the Section 10 permit by the Secretary of the Interior is a federal action, the SDCP is subject to NEPA requirements. This, however, also makes it subject to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and its procedural requirements. The flow chart shows how the two regulations work side by side.

Linda Mayro followed by discussing how the requirements of both NEPA and NHPA could be met by developing a Programmatic Agreement compliance which would be made a condition of the issuance of the Section 10 permit. This PA would establish what needed to be done to meet the requirements of the NHPA over the life of the permit. She also noted that the US Fish and Wildlife is being made to include Section 106 compliance into their planning and that what is being done in Pima County to make this happen is precedent setting.

Paul Fish suggested that the US Fish and Wildlife Service be contacted about the need to survey the Buenos Aires Conservation Area as part of the SDCP.

Mr. Cushman then updated the Team on the progress of the grant application to the NCPTT for funds to develop a model predicting the location of prehistoric archaeological sites in eastern Pima County using the county's GIS capabilities. He drew attention to a two page memo that he prepared for this purpose that was included in the meeting package. The memo explains the modeling objectives and identifies who has been asked to work on it. The modeling project will be administered through Pima County's on call contract with Statistical Research, Inc. Mr. Cushman explained that the model will be an important management tool in preservation planning and will help in fulfilling the requirements of the NEPA and NHPA.

4. CULTURAL RESOURCES TYPES - CONTINUED DISCUSSION

The next agenda item focused on the continued discussion related to how we will classify the archaeological and historical sites database into functional categories for the purpose of both analysis and interpretation.

Ms. Mayro drew attention to a page in the meeting handout that she had prepared listing two proposed categories of site information: temporal and function. She argued that we need to be able to collapse archaeological site data in the AZSITE database into temporal/cultural types, as well as, functional categories. Both proposed categories are based on those that are already being used by the Arizona State Museum and so could be easily utilized. She suggested developing a temporal/functional matrix to see how this would work for the purposes of classifying site data into meaningful information.

Peter Steere suggested that the "Historic Piman" temporal/cultural category be changed to "Historic O'odham," which Linda noted. He then spoke at length about the need to add a functional category for traditional cultural properties to ensure that places with these values would be counted. There was allot of discussion on this point. Beth Grindell pointed out that TCP information is not now being tracked via AZSITE but that a separate database could be developed at some point. Jerry Kyle also spoke in favor of a TCP functional category. Mr. Cushman argued against this.

Mr. Cushman asked Beth Grindell if sites can be assigned multiple functional designations if warranted, and she responded by saying yes, the data base could be structured to allow for this. He noted that archaeological sites that are also TCPs could be identified a priori, such as all rock art sites, or all sites with a likely hood of containing burials, and flagged as such without having to add a new functional category for TCPs. Paul Fish remarked that the researchers who do the TCP study are the ones who should determine what kinds of archaeological sites may be viewed as TCPs. He recommended that we keep functional type categories separate from the criteria we use for evaluation.

Mr. Cushman noted that places with traditional cultural values will be reported via a separate investigation that does not need to be included in AZSITE since both archaeological/historical data and data on TCPs will have their own data layers in the GIS and both layers can be viewed in relation to each other. He noted that the first year's research effort was simply to describe what we already know and that this would point the way for further data collection in years 2 and 3. Therefore, there was no danger that TCPs would not be included or under represented in the final outcome. He suggested that the temporal/cultural categories proposed by Linda Mayro be adopted. Paul Fish made a motion to this effect, Beth Grindell seconded it, and the motion was approved by unanimous vote.

ASSIGNING VALUE TO CULTURAL RESOURCES - CRITERIA

The last item on the agenda has been discussed in two previous TAT meetings; this relates to how the relative value of cultural resources reported during SDCP investigations will be evaluated so that we can make recommendations to the Steering Committee on what is important and what is not important.

Linda Mayro presented a list of criteria she put together that was included in the handout materials for the meeting. She suggested ten criteria for the team to consider. Mr. Cushman went to the blackboard and suggested that we start by following Ms. Mayro's suggestion to utilize the National Register criteria (a through d) and the concept of integrity. Jerry Kyle suggested "accessibility" be added, which upon questioning by Mr. Cushman was included as "educational value." The team all agree that "cultural values," referring to use of a place for traditional cultural purposes, was appropriate especially given the lengthy discussion of TCPs earlier in the meeting. "Research value" was also recommended as a quality that should be include in evaluating the relative importance of one cultural resource over another. Three more criteria were added: "Threat," "Use" (as in still in use), and "Ubiquity" (uniqueness). Mr. Kyle thought preservation potential should be added; however, Mr. Cushman noted that this might be need to be evaluated in terms of other information that we won't have access to until the end of the process, such as political/economic considerations. Paul Fish argued that context had to be an important part of the team's decision making in evaluating worth of all cultural resources.

This was then followed by a general discussion of how to develop an ordinal ranking system that could be used to assign number values to cultural resources enabling a final scoring that would be a proxy measure of "value." Mr. Cushman agreed to write up the results of the debate about the criteria and the ranking system and present it to them team for further discussion at the next meeting.

6. NEXT MEETING

Next meeting will be on Monday, December 13 at 10 a.m. at the public works center room A. We will continue the discussion about cultural value criteria among other topics.

ADJOURNMENT

As there was no further business to come before the Cultural and Historic Resources Technical Advisory Team, the meeting was adjourned at 12:10 p.m.