Aspen’s Cultural Resources Group Continues Steady Growth
The year 2020 saw Aspen’s growing Cultural Resources Group busily engaged in addressing cultural resources requirements for many of Aspen’s private sector and agency clients. Our team conducted records searches, Native American consultation, archaeological surveys, site recording and assessment, documentation of built environment resources, archaeological monitoring, paleontological records searches and surveys, and preparation of technical reports in support of CEQA and NEPA environmental documents for projects throughout California and in parts of Nevada. Our group continues to expand in both size and capability – the most recent being our ability to conduct drone aerial reconnaissance and photo documentation of cultural resource sites, which will enhance both the accuracy and speed with which archaeological sites can be documented. Examples of some recent projects are presented below.
Our Cultural Resources Group recently completed a records search, historic and ethnographic research, and an intensive pedestrian survey of over 1,500-acres of land withing the Angeles National Forest (ANF). The project area is within the larger 8,000-plus-acre US Forest Service’s Defensible Space program that will improve and maintain defensive zones around administrative and recreational sites and forest infrastructure that currently lack adequate defensible space for protection from wildfire. The Defensible Space program will be implemented using mastication, hand cutting and piling, prescribed burning of debris piles, and chipping to remove fuel load within the defensive zones. Over the course of 25 days, the Aspen team surveyed 45 individual defensive zones within the ANF and documented 76 cultural heritage resources within the zones. Aspen’s Archaeological Reconnaissance Report provided recommendations to the ANF regarding the resources that will ensure they will be avoided and protected during implementation of the Defensible Space program and preserved from damage by wildfires that may occur in the future.
During 2020, Aspen’s Cultural Resource Group also prepared a Class I Cultural Resources Background Research and Field Strategy Report for the Wildfire Risk Reduction, Reliability, and Asset Protection Project (WRAP) on behalf of the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) and the Trinity Public Utilities District (Trinity PUD). The Class 1 report was prepared in support of right-of-way expansion and vegetation management to reduce fire risk associated with WAPA and Trinity PUD power transmission and distribution lines on public and private lands surrounding local communities of Trinity County, as well as to increase electrical reliability to maintain critical services in the area. Subsequent to submittal of the Class-I report, Aspen teamed with PAR Environmental Services to conduct pedestrian archaeological surveys of the 234-mile-long transmission corridor. Survey results are being addressed in two separate volumes, one for resources on land owned or managed by WAPA within the overall WRAP project area, the other for lands the ROW crosses that are owned or managed by Trinity PUD, the Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, and the Bureau of Reclamation. Both volumes of the survey report are in preparation.
On behalf of the Western Wind Power Corporation, Aspen’s Cultural Resources Group performed Class I and Class III cultural resource inventories for the Mesa Wind Project Repower and the adjacent Alta Mesa Project Repower in Riverside County to identify any cultural resources eligible for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) or California Register of Historical Resources (CRHR). The projects will remove a combined total of 619 existing wind turbines on a total of 1,040-acres and replace them with a total of 25 new wind turbines. In conducting the cultural resource investigations, the Aspen team identified ten features within five archaeological sites, including a historic trail segment, three rock cairns, a lithic reduction locus, a historic corral and loading chute, historic mining prospects, tailing piles, a prehistoric milling surface, and petroglyphs. Aspen recommended that none met the eligibility criteria for listing on either the NRHP or the CRHR.
In assisting our clients to meet the cultural and paleontological requirements of their projects, Aspen’s cultural resources team has worked on infrastructure, energy, and development projects in the deserts, mountains and valleys of California and Nevada. We look forward to 2021 and the opportunity to continue working with our clients to provide our expertise to assist with meeting their projects’ cultural and paleontological resources requirements.