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, December 13, 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
Ms. Mary Farrell, Coronado National Forest
Mr. David Cushman, Pima County Archaeological and Historic Preservation Office

Absent:
Ms. Susan Wells, National Parks Service
Mr. Jerry Kyle, Arizona Historical Society
Mr. Peter Steere, Tohono O'odham Nation Cultural Preservation Office
Mr. Joe Joaquin, Tohono O'odham Nation Cultural Preservation Office
Mr. Max Witkind, Bureau of Land Management
Ms. Linda Mayro, Pima County Archaeological and Historic Preservation Office

There were two members of the public present:
Mr. Henry Wallace, Desert Archaeology, Inc.
Dr. Jonathan Mabry, Desert Archaeology, Inc.

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 NOVEMBER 15 1999 MEETINGS

It was decided by the Chair that a quorum of the committee was not present and therefore
the approval of the minutes from the November 15th meeting was deferred until another meeting with a quorum. Beth Grindell did submit corrections to the November 15th draft minutes, although no action was taken to approve these corrections. The meeting continued with the understanding that no decisions would be made on any of the agenda items.

NEW BUSINESS

UPDATES
SDCP: Maeveen Behan could not attend the meeting, so Mr. Cushman gave the
Team an update on the SDCP by passing out the latest organization chart dated 12/08/99. He pointed out that the Education Series had concluded with the latest session organized by the Tohono O'odham Nation held on December 11, 1999, and that now the Steering Committee would break into panels to address regional resource considerations by topic and land panels organized by subarea. These efforts will coincide with the work being done by the Technical Teams over the next few months resulting in a draft Conservation Plan to be prepared by July, 2000. There was no further discussion.

AZSITE Contract: Beth Grindell gave an update on the AZSITE contract between Pima County and the Arizona State Museum. She reported that all the site information from the Coronado National Forrest had been digitized and that data on quad sheets DD and EE were being transferred that day. She noted, however, that the BLM sites were not in the system. She did speak with Max Witkind, the BLM archaeologist, and told him that Pima County needed these data starting with the San Pedro Valley. Other than this, the data entry for sites and surveys in eastern Pima County is essentially complete.

Mr. Cushman noted that Pima County needed to meet with ASM personnel to go over any discrepancies in the data and to resolve any other problems that may have occurred with the data transfers. He recommenced December 20 - 22 as possible meetings times.

Dr. Grindell then described the upcoming meeting of the AZSITE consortium meeting in Tucson on January 11, 2000, and confirmed that either Mr. Cushman or Ms. Mayro would be there to give a presentation on what Pima County proposes to do with the AZSITE database as part of the SDCP and the NCPTT site probability grant proposal.

Henry Wallace asked how western Pima County was going to be included in the cultural resources research for the SDCP and this question was echoed by Dr. Grindell. Mr. Cushman explained that Pima County will need to include this area as well but that the priority right now is focusing on eastern Pima County because of the larger potential for environmental impact in this area. He went on to say that Pima County would need to look at all records on the area in AZSITE and elsewhere. Dr. Grindell said she would look into what federal agencies might have archaeological site and survey data on western Pima County that AZSITE does not have.

Dr. Grindell also explained that while the site and survey data has been transferred to Pima County's GIS data base, additional work is needed by Peter McCartney at Arizona State University to link the site attribute data with the locational information. Until this happens Pima County can plot sites but won't be able to know what specifically is being plotted. She thought that this could happen in January but that she would need to speak with McCartney.

NCPTT Grant: Mr. Cushman informed that group of the county's efforts to apply for a grant from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training to develop a means of characterizing site probability in areas that have not been surveyed in eastern Pima County. He explained that a group of experts has been assembled for this purpose consisting of Paul Fish of ASM; Henry Wallace of Desert Archaeology, Inc.; Jeff Altschul of Statistical Research, Inc.; Gary Christopherson of the Center for Applied Spatial Analysis at the University of Arizona, as well as John Regan, Linda Mayro and himself, all of Pima County. The modeling is being proposed to coincide with years 2 and 3 of the three year plan for cultural resources developed by Pima County.

Jonathan Mabry observed that there are maps on the geomorphology of the Tucson Basin that are based on photogrammetric projections that could be extremely useful for predicting the location of buried archaeological sites. He offered to provide the references for these maps that are available through the Arizona Geological Society. Paul Fish thought that Pima County has digitized geomorphological maps but that John Regan would know for sure. Dr. Mabry noted that the photogrammetric maps were not ground truthed but could nonetheless be very helpful. He wondered if ground truthing could be done during the survey work for the model building.

Mr. Wallace asked if Pima County had considered applying for other grants. Dr. Fish said that he thought the National Science Foundation is setting up a program to fund man/land studies with a focus on influencing public policy. Dr. Mabry also suggested contacting Chuck Redman regarding his ecological research project at Arizona State University. Mr. Cushman thanked them for this information and replied that yes Pima County is interested in pursuing additional grants for the SDCP cultural resources research.

ASSIGNING VALUE TO CULTURAL RESOURCES - CONTINUED

The next topic of discussion on the agenda was on how the TAT should assign value to cultural resources. This is a continuation of discussions held on this subject over several meetings. Mr. Cushman distributed a one page handout listing proposed criteria, presented as a series of question, and including a means of ranking these criteria. This became the focus of discussion for the remainder of the meeting.

Mr. Wallace asked how these criteria will be measured, such as "educational value."

Dr. Fish brought up the issue of scale, that is at what scale would research value be determined.

Mr. Cushman said that these issues would have to be resolved through definition. He recommended that we might want to include a descriptor to a property identifying it either as an individual property or a property that is part of a district of properties. He also noted that we will need to define limits to systems in order to create an objective means of identification. Otherwise, there will be no consistency and thus no way to replicate our findings. Dr. Mabry suggested using geomorphic boundaries as the basis for defining cultural systems that are manifest in the archaeological record.

Mary Farrell brought up the issue of unknown sites and noted that there would be many of these that could be identified through additional analysis. Mr. Cushman replied by saying that we would only be able to do what can be done with existing information. Dr. Fish noted that some of these might be captured within the limits of larger defined systems

This was followed by a discussion of how the Team will rank the criteria. Mr. Wallace argued that all archaeological village sites should be considered important by definition. Mr. Cushman then explained about the concept of "constraints" as a means of identifying rare but highly valued resources that the Team can recommend as a "must conserve." Dr. Mabry added that we must be able to rank extraordinary places, even those that have no other values, such as the rare Paleoindian site.

Dr. Fish noted that we don't really know how the Decision Support model that is being developed in California will work and suggested that the Team needed to know more about the specifics of the modeling process so that we can make our decisions accordingly.

Mary Farrell asked how Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) applies to the SDCP. Mr. Cushman explained the linkage between the issuance of the permit under Section 10 of the Endangered Species Act and the requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). He then noted that NEPA requires compliance with the NHPA because of the SDCP's potential to effect historic properties that are listed on or may be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. He then outlined a Programmatic Agreement that Pima County proposes as the vehicle for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife to comply with the NHPA; this agreement would then be made a condition of the issuance of the permit and affect land use decisions for the life of the permit. Mr. Cushman pointed out that what the Programmatic Agreement would do is reactive but that the research and site probability modeling that Pima County proposes in anticipation of the Section 10 permit is proactive. Thus, both approaches can be brought to bear on the historic preservation aspects of the SDCP.

There was more discussion about the criteria for evaluation. Mr. Wallace asked if the criteria would benefit from being defined as consisting of multiple values. Dr. Fish raised the very important question of how the criteria are to be applied in an operational sense. He thought a panel could be formed to review the cultural resources and apply the criteria. Mr. Cushman said that this had not been decided and needed to be. He added that a panel or group review would be easier with the more limited number of cultural resources expected from the research on traditional cultural properties and the rural historic properties, but that the size of the archaeological site base at over 6500 sites would present a logistical problem.

Dr. Fish suggested that the archaeological sites could be grouped into classes and reviewed in that manner. Mr. Wallace objected, however, noting that allot of information can be lost dealing with classes of sites. Dr. Mabry then suggested that the archaeological sites in Pima County be reviewed on a subarea basis by experts with knowledge about these subareas. Then after reviewing the sites and ranking them according to the CH TAT criteria, the groups could report to the TAT with their recommendations. There was general acceptance of this idea.

Mr. Wallace asked about how the archaeological data will be divided into temporal and functional categories. In response, Mr. Cushman handed out a revised copy of the temporal and functional category listings that the Team approved at the November 15th meeting. Mr. Wallace's observation was that there needed to be additional refinement to these categories and Mr. Cushman invited him to make a proposal to the group on how best to achieve this.

Dr. Mabry asked if the county intended to develop a register of sites that could be used to identify the constraints, that is, the places that are most important and thus should be conserved. Dr. Grindell suggested that the subarea groups that Dr. Mabry had recommended could be given the task of identifying the most important places in these areas. Dr. Fish asked when we would be able to access the archaeological data base to see the distribution on known sites and Dr. Grindell responded by saying that it would be the end of January in her estimate. Mr. Cushman noted that before we look at distributions quite yet, we need to refine the data categories first so that when we do look at site distribution, we will have a way of interpreting what we are seeing.

Since the meeting had passed two hours in length at this point, it was agreed that further discussion should be taken up at the next meeting.

NEXT MEETING

Next meeting will be on Wednesday, January 12, 2000 at 10:30 a.m. at the public works center room A.

6. ADJOURNMENT

As there was no further business to come before the Cultural and Historic Resources Technical Advisory Team, the meeting was adjourned at 12:30 p.m.