The Cultural and Historical Resources Technical Advisory Team
met in regular session in Conference Room A at the Pima County
Public Works Center, 201 N. Stone Avenue, Tucson, Arizona on Monday,
April .32, 2000 at 10:30 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. Jerry Kyle, Arizona Historical Society
Mr. Peter Steere, Tohono O'odham Nation Cultural Preservation
Office
Ms. Susan Wells, National Parks Service
Ms. Marty McCune, Historic Program Administrator, City of Tucson
Ms. Linda Mayro, Pima County Archaeological and Historic Preservation
Office
Mr. David Cushman, Pima County Archaeological and Historic Preservation
Office
Absent:
Mr. Max Witkind, Bureau of Land Management
Mr. Joe Joaquin, Tohono O'odham Nation Cultural Preservation Office
There were two members of the public present:
Mr. Henry Wallace, Desert Archaeology, Inc.
Mr. Lucas Premo, Graduate Student, University of Arizona.
CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order by Paul Fish at approximately
10:35 a.m.
OLD BUSINESS
2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES FROM FEBRUARY 14th AND March 6th, 2000
MEETINGS
Jerry Kyle motioned that the minutes of the February 14th and
March 6th meetings be approved as written. Mary Farrell seconded
the motion and the motioned was unanimously approved.
NEW BUSINESS
UPDATES
Ms. Mayro gave an update on the schedule for preparing the draft
Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan due in July. She passed
out a copy of the Week 16 update prepared by the Assistant to
the County Administrator, Maveen Behan. The update showed the
order and approximate timing of the upcoming subarea meetings
before the Steering Committee and the due date for the preliminary
Cultural Resources Element...
Then Ms. Mayro informed the Team about Pima County's proposed
Ironwood Preserve, which has the support of the Secretary of the
Interior, Bruce Babbitt. She said that there is a good likelihood
that it will be created. The area contains archaeological sites
and she will recommended that its boundary be extended to include
Cerro Prieto in Pinal County.
Ms. Mayro discussed the Preserve design and observed that the
Team needed to be included in the design review process.
Paul Fish asked how the Ironwood Preserve would effect the Tortolita
Fan subarea. Ms. Mayro said that she could not say at this time
and noted that development was already occurring in the area.
She then mentioned a map that Pima county has prepared to show
the location of state lands that may be developed in the near
future. A total of 88,000 acres of state land in 16 parcels have
special land use permits with 5 year leases. These lands, located
on the periphery of the urban area, can be sold for development
and are thus threatened. Ms. Mayro noted that this information
is being used to measure future threat to cultural resources.
David Cushman then spoke to the Team and gave un update on the
San Pedro and Altar Valley subareas presentations that were given
before the Steering Committee on Saturday March 25th. He reported
that the session went well and that the only complaints that he
(and Ms. Mayro) had received were that not enough information
about specific sites was included in the report.
Marty McCune voiced concern that there needs to be more advance
notice of these meetings in the future. She also felt that the
subarea reports would benefit from references or recommended readings.
Beth Grindell recommended illustrating the presentation with site
photos or other graphics.
Ms. Mayro then asked Dr. Grindell to update the Team on the AZSITE
contract. Dr. Grindell reported that the contract with Pima County
was proceeding with data cleanup. She reported no further communication
problems between the Arizona State Museum and Arizona State University.
The Museum can access the archaeological site attribute data now.
Ms. Mayro noted how important resolving the data cleanup and access
problems are in anticipation of the NCPTT site probability grant.
Dr. Grindell noted that the data are being queried by a number
of means, including using ArcView, Systat, and Excel.
4. ASSESSING CULTURAL RESOURCES VALUES
Mr. Cushman raised the issue of accessing the value of cultural
resources and pointed out that this is a subject that the Team
has grappled with in the past without any real conclusion. He
suggested that instead of pursuing this objective at this time,
it would be better to use the limited time and resources to identify
where in space we know about and can expect to find concentrations
o f cultural resources. This way we avoid the whole subject of
what is eligible for listing on the National Register and at what
scale this designation should occur, and simply focus on general
information on site distribution on a gross scale. Later, it may
be necessary to be specific about which cultural resources in
what location are valuable and for what reason, but for the draft
Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan, it is more important
to speak of "sensitivity zones" or "hot spots."
In the report, we will present the National Register criteria,
discuss known resources, and identify area of predicted sensitivity.
Then, during the process of preparing the Environmental Impact
Statement, new data on cultural resources will be collected, and
a more refined statement about resource value can be prepared.
Mr. Kyle recommended that the criteria for evaluation that we
have developed to date be included in the report so that it can
be referenced later. Mr. Cushman thought this was a good idea.
Ms. McCune suggested that confidence levels be used in predicting
the location of sensitive areas.
Dr. Fish wanted to know how the result of this effort will relate
to the modeling being conducted by the California Team to prepare
conservation alternatives. Ms. Mayro responded by saying that
what is required to begin with is gross level data with increasingly
refined information later as planning progresses. She acknowledged
that the Team will need to make evaluations later, but not for
the July report. She noted that the City of Tucson needs to do
this same kind of research as well.
Henry Wallace remarked that there are really two levels of value,
the common and the rare, and that we need to be able to address
both and develop criteria for evaluating these separately.
Ms. Mayro noted that in 1997 she sent out a request for input
from experts in the field of archaeology on sites/resources that
should be preserved through the County preservation bond. She
suggested floating these ideas again and see what kind of reaction
people have now.
Mr. Cushman suggested that perhaps these places could become the
"constraints," that is, the places that are so important
that they are untouchable.
PREDICTING SITE SENSITIVITY ZONES
In light of the preceding discussions, Mr. Cushman proposed that
the Team identify a small group of archaeological experts to provide
their best educated guesses as to where areas of high archaeological
sensitivity area located in each subarea. This exercise would
be purely subjective and based solely on the personal knowledge
and experience of people who have worked in these areas. The result
would give Pima County a means of making predictive statements
now, before and in anticipation of the more rigorous and objective
site probability modeling that hopefully will be funded through
the NCPTT. The county could print out GIS maps of each subarea
containing topographic lines, drainages, and major roads, etc.
Then, we give the maps to the experts and asked them to literally
draw circles in space with a pencil indicating where in their
expert opinion the sensitive areas are located.
Mr. Wallace thought the idea was good. He remarked that it could
at least stand as a record of how wrong we are in our predictions.
Sue Wells suggested adding other information if possible, such
as vegetation, slope and known site locations.
Ms. McCune recommended making the process public, if there is
time.
Mr. Wallace said that in his opinion, people would want to
see the maps and would probably ask for more detail before they
could do what was needed.
Ms. Mayro suggested that for the next meeting, copies of all the
subarea maps be prepared in large format.
Mr. Wallace expressed concerns about releasing site location information
but was assured by Ms. Mayro that specific site location information
will not be released.
Mr. Wallace suggested a meeting of all the experts first to explain
the purpose of the exercise the criteria to be used and how the
information will be included in the report. He envisions short
meetings for each subarea, no more than 2 hours each, and suggested
making it a collective exercise with 2 to 4 people maximum for
each subarea. That way the work will benefit from the interaction
among experts.
Mr. Cushman asked for input from the Team members on who should
be a part of the list of experts.
6. NEXT MEETING
Next meeting will be on Monday, May 1, at 10:30 a.m. at the Pima
County Public Works Center Conference Room A.
7. 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.
(Notes taken by David Cushman, Pima County Cultural Resources
Office)