The Cultural and Historical Resources Technical Advisory Team met in regular session in Conference Room D at the Tucson-PIMA County Public Works Center, 201 N. Stone Avenue, Tucson, Arizona on Monday, September 27, 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. Linda Mayro, PIMA County Archaeological and Historic Preservation Office

Mr. David Cushman, PIMA County Archaeological and Historic Preservation Office
Mr. Jerry Kyle, Arizona Historical Society
Ms. Susan Wells, National Parks Service
Ms. Mary Farrell, Coronado National Forest
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

Absent:

None.
Note that Mr. Joe Joaquin left at 11:00 a.m. to attend another meeting

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

The August 30, 1999 meeting minutes were unanimously approved by a 8-0 vote.

NEW BUSINESS

3.SCOPE OF WORK - COMMENTS

David Cushman began by explaining the current status of the budget expectations for this year and the problems of planning for studies when funding is uncertain.

Peter Steere asked how much were we, the Cultural and Historical Technical Advisory Team (CHTAT), going to receive.

Linda Mayro responded by saying the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan (SDCP) was a multi year effort but that this first year the county would receive 1 million dollars, and 2-3 million dollars in subsequent years.

Peter Steere asked if half of the first year's money would go to the GIS database and the rest split up among the other technical teams.

Linda Mayro responded affirmatively and added that the Request for Proposals (RFPs) have to be tight. She added that our request for 110 thousand dollars may or may not be realistic, but that we'll try. Then she explained that PIMA County will apply for a National Center of Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) grant. She asked if there were any other sources of grant money that others might be aware of.

David Cushman asked if anyone on the team had ever applied for a NCPTT grant.

Beth Grindell said that the Arizona State Museum (ASM) applied to NCPTT for start up money for the AZSITE database. She said that she would send him a copy.

Paul Fish noted that local participation in the archaeological site sensitivity model is needed and that we shouldn't rely on the modeling team in California to do this work for us.

Linda Mayro observed that the Science Team is directly involved in their grants and that the CHTAT will also need to involved. She sees what the CHTAT does as a parallel to what the Science Team is doing, both in terms of objectives and process.

David Cushman explained the importance of the archaeological sites sensitivity modeling proposal for future county planning in light of the fact that only a small percentage of PIMA County has been investigated and yet development pressures have intensified in recent years. He too noted the similarity between the CHTAT and the Science Team. He noted that he may need help from the CHTAT members in preparing the grant proposal, which will include both model building and model testing and refinement.

Linda Mayro read the goals and tasks prepared by the Science Team in their RFP to illustrate what the CH TAT needs to do in its RFP process. She said that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) plan prepared for the SDCP will probably include four alternatives, including the No Action option.. She offered to type up the list of Science Team goals and tasks and distribute it to the team members.

Mary Farrell remarked that the Science Team goals sound long term in comparison to the CHTAT draft scope of work (SOW).

Linda Maryo responded by agreeing, and said we may need to turn our SOW into a long range plan as well.

David Cushman added that we needed to educate the county administration as to the need for the cultural resources research.

Linda Mayro added that we also have to educate the public in the process. That is, we have to justify what we are doing and why.

Jerry Kyle asked about the built environment, specifically whether we should add an overview of this as well to the studies that will be done. He then asked for a clarification about the extent of the cultural history and history of research that is included in the archaeology section of the SOW.

David Cushman answered Kyle's question by saying that the culture history and the history of research, as he envisions these, would be a synthesis of what is already known but would be limited in extent. These will probably be chapters in the final report, nothing more. He then suggested that the built environment could be added under the research outline for the rural historic landscapes in the SOW.

Linda Mayro pointed out that this touches on the subject of environmental justice and that it was important not to fail to address concerns like this.

Beth Grindell said that concise synopses of the cultural history of the area do exit, such as the one produced through the City of Tucson's Tucson's Origins program.

Paul Fish noted that Jerry Kyle's comments are valid and thought that the CHTAT needed to prioritize our list of things to do. He thought we may be asking too much to begin with. He then spoke of the site sensitivity model and mentioned how he can only think of simple models that have been developed. He then remarked that the kind of thing that we are suggesting hasn't been done before, at least not here.

Linda Mayro agreed and observed that this is precedent setting, like much of the whole SDCP planning effort. She reiterated that the Department of the Interior (DOI) is very interested in what PIMA County is doing. She suggested a pilot for the model. Look at an area already surveyed and draw from these correlations between site location and other environmental variables. She thought that we need to be innovative and to look at different environmental zones and time periods.

Peter Steere remarked that the Northern Tucson Basin is well known but other areas are not known at all so that there will be a wide divergence in our knowledge base just to begin with.

Paul Fish commented that he thought we were more fortunate than other places because we do have some areas that are well known.

David Cushman said that the model will be comprised of predictive statements, some with more confidence than others. We will need to test these, for instance, in the Altar Valley where our knowledge of the archaeological record in poor.. He suggested that we start simple, formulate general expectations and then develop more complex and specific predictive statements as research progresses.

Paul Fish observed that in Georgia they contacted farmers to ask them where the sites were located .

Linda Mayro thought that this was a good idea and that we could do the same.

Paul Fish offered that canvassing people about archaeological sites could be a part of the contract we develop for the archaeology study.

Mary Farrell said that the United States Forest Service (USFS) has had good results with this sort of approach, but that you have to be careful in how you word the questions.

Paul Fish echoed that point by noting that the ranchers have to see the benefit of revealing site information, or otherwise they might not be cooperative.

Peter Steere asked about the overlap between the research proposed for the archaeology study and the rural historic landscape study. He noted that archaeological sites may be part of the rural landscapes.

David Cushman answered by saying that as he sees it the archaeology study will focus primarily on archaeology whereas the rural historic landscape study will focus on primarily on architecture.

Beth Grindell asked if we can give the RFP some parameters to narrow the focus of the Scope of Work.

David Cushman said yes and suggested that we provide, in essence, a table of contents to the contractor.

Peter Steere noted that Hispanics had been dropped from the revised draft of the SOW for the traditional cultural property (TCP) study and asked why.

David Cushman answered that the TCP study is only a start and added that we will need to add other groups in the future to ensure that all appropriate traditional communities are contacted.

Peter Steere said that his greatest concern with the SOW, as revised, is about the costs. He said that the $25,000 would not be enough to do the work.

David Cushman said that he conceived of the TCP study as being largely an exercise in library work and records checks, with the exceptions of the Tohono O'odham portion of the study.

Peter Steere responded by saying this was still not enough, in his opinion. He noted that for the Tohono O'odham there are three levels of TCPs: national, district wide, and community based. He asked which of these levels the work would be directed.

Linda Mayro reminded him that we are focusing on lands in eastern PIMA County off reservation.

Beth Grindell offered that what is in the SOW is really just enough to prepare a research design and noted that the work proposed here is a literature search.

David Cushman asked if he should explain in the SOW that this effort is just the first of several phases in a larger effort. He wanted to know if that would help resolve some of the concerns raised by the team. Yes, was the response.

Max Witkind noted that the BLM has very few TCPs on its land and that gathering information on TCPs can be time intensive. He also noted that certain archaeological sites are also TCPs.

Peter Steere suggested that the TCP SOW should be an overview to gather baseline information.

Linda Mayro said that the AZSITE study and the TCP report will be reviewed to see if there are archaeological sites that are also places with traditional cultural value.

David Cushman echoed Peter Steere in saying that all of the work being proposed in the SOW are overviews that we need to produce to educate the decision makers to justify further study, among other reasons.

Max Witkind said that he's been trying to get money for GIS work on BLM lands in eastern PIMA County. He thought he might be able to get funding for large scale surveys that would complement PIMA County's efforts.

David Cushman noting the time said that we needed to move on to the other agenda items. He asked that if people had additional comments on the revised scope of work, to please get them to him.

4.CULTURAL RESOURCES TYPES

Linda Mayro distributed a handout showing a compilation of cultural resources types that she pulled together using the ASM site card. It uses functional categories to organize site information. She noted that this is just a first attempt to give everyone something to work from.

Beth Grindell noted that functional types are very controversial because people do not agree on them and how they are used. AZSITE avoids this by listing site attributes. It's descriptive not explanatory. She added that AZSITE information could be complied to make function categories.

Mary Farrell made the point that we have to categorize the record to be able to communicate with others what we have.

Linda Mayro agreed. This is part of the whole problem we have to address, she said. We have to be responsible to the resource. We need to be able to count types of things and then assign values to them and determine how many of these places to save for the future.

Beth Grindell reiterated the point that the data in the AZSITE database are maintained on the feature level and that the feature data can be pulled into site categories.

Paul Fish noted that it really doesn't matter how we do this . No one else has done it here before.

Jerry Kyle said that he understands the functional site types on Linda Mayro's list. But feature lists will not do it for him, that is, this is not sufficient to classify sites in his opinion. He observed that we need to be able to convey what we have by way of resources to non-professionals.

Linda Mayro said that the only question we have to answer with what ever we use to type cultural resources is whether it is sufficient to characterize the resources in eastern PIMA County.

David Cushman suggested that the team concentrate on this subject and the question posed by Linda. He asked that if there is abetter way to do this, let him or Linda know. He suggested that the team think about how to type cultural resources for the next meeting.

5.ASSIGNING VALUE TO CULTURAL RESOURCES

Paul Fish said that assigning cultural resources values relates to how we type them. He also noted that cultural resources values will correspond in space with natural resources values giving us the best chance for preserving cultural resources.

Linda Mayro observed that the whole issue of value is critical and that this is really more than just looking at certain types of sites but the landscapes that contain them.

David Cushman asked what the team thought of Beth Grindell's idea to build off of the National Register criteria in a proposal that she prepared and is included in the meeting package.

Mary Farrell said that she liked the idea and thought it realistic. She suggested that we assign value is two steps: first, assess importance and second, look at the feasibility of preserving the resource.

Peter Steere said that he was concerned about how the National Register criteria were assigned in the past and noted that how we determine what is eligible now is very different than the way it was done in the past.

Beth Grindell noted that the National Register notation on site forms is often the recorder's opinion and not the State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) determination. Most sites now are recorded as eligible anyway.

Linda Mayro suggested that maybe we assume all sites are potentially eligible until demonstrated otherwise.

Jerry Kyle like the idea of using the National Register as a starting point but not as the end point and noted that if we don't use the National Register criteria we would have to come up with some other means of doing this.

Beth Grindell recommend a flow chart of some kind to help make decisions about assigning value that includes information on whether the site has been destroyed or not.

Linda Mayro also observed that a damage assessment is needed.

David Cushman asked whether this kind of information (on damage to archaeological sites) was in the AZSITE data base at ASM.

Beth Grindell answered by saying no it was not except anecdotally.

Paul Fish observed that when he was doing the Northern Tucson Basin Survey project, they looked at areal photos documenting a ten year period and were able to determine where development had destroyed archaeological sites.

David Cushman asked whether we could plot AZSITE location data against the county's development plan information in the GIS database.

Linda Mayro answered him and said yes this could be done.

Peter Steere noted however that wildcat subdivisions are a big problem and that there is no recording of sites so we don't know what is being impacted by this development. He gave several examples including Sandario Road and said that we needed to look into this.

Linda Mayro notified the team that we will need to put together some handouts for each site type or period, like what the Science Team is doing, to help convey the importance of the cultural resources that we are trying to preserve. She circulated an example for the team to look at.

David Cushman asked if Beth Grindell and Mary Farrell could team up and develop a flow chart to help in assigning value to cultural resource types. They agreed to do this.

6. SDCP EDUCATION SESSION OCTOBER 16, 1999

Paul Fish reminded everyone that the Cultural and Historical Resources Education Session for the SDCP will be held on October 16th at the desert Museum.

Linda Mayro said that she had emailed a notice to many but she asked that the team distribute the notice about the session to others.

7.NEXT MEETING

Paul Fish asked when the next meeting should be. It was agreed that the team will meet next on October 18th at the same place and time.

David Cushman offered two agenda items for the next meeting: 1) further discussion about cultural resources types, and 2); the flow chart for assigning value to cultural resources.

Beth Grindell offered to continue to work with the AZSITE database and get us some additional information on the archaeological record.

8.ADJOURNMENT

As there was no further business to come before the Cultural and Historic Resources Technical Advisory Team, the meeting was adjourned at 12:15 p.m.