Synthesis of BAER Objectives and Effectiveness Monitoring
Heritage/Cultural Resources
By
Linn Gassaway
Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest
Supervisors Office,
Mountlake Terrace, WA
January 4, 2006
RESOURCE AT RISK
Legal Obligations
TREATMENTS - OVERVIEW
TREATMENTS - SPECIFIC
Site Assessments
Modeling potential resources at risk
Eligibility
Site Type Sensitivity
Looting Potential
Additional Erosion Sensitivity – Slope position, proximity to major waterways
Field Assessments
Gathering base line data to determine treatments and monitor effectiveness of treatments
Erosion Treatments
Structural treatments
Special considerations due to archaeological sensitivity
Non-structural treatments
Special considerations due to archaeological sensitivity
Prevent subsurface contamination
Archaeological treatments
Looting/Pothunting
Difference in Agency-specific policy
Legal/Illegal use impacts
Structure or site Rehabilitation
Site Recordation and emergency data collection
MONITORING
Site Assessments
Modeling potential resources at risk
Field Assessments
Treatment Effectiveness
Erosion Treatments
Structural treatments
Non-Structural treatments
Prevent subsurface contamination
Archaeological treatments
Treatment Effectiveness – Archaeological treatments
Looting/Pothunting
Treatment Effectiveness
Legal/Illegal use impacts
Treatment Effectiveness
Structure or site Rehabilitation
Treatment Effectiveness
Site Recordation and emergency data collection
BIBLIOGRAPHY
RESOURCE AT RISK
Heritage/Cultural Resources[1]as protected under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended (16 USC 470 [NHPA]) and other historic preservation laws consist of historic properties which are any prehistoric or historic district, site, building, structure, or object included in, or eligible for inclusion on the National Register, including artifacts, records, and material remains related to such a property or resource.[2]
Fire caused impacts to cultural resources can be classified as direct and indirect. Direct effects are those caused to site, feature, and artifacts by consumption, heat transfer and by product released during the combustion process of a fire. Examples of these include burning of wooden structures, melting of glass, spalling of rock art, and elimination of obsidian hydration rinds. Indirect effects are the results caused by changes in local context such that resources will be affected. These effects include exposure to vandalism, impacts from tree fall or uprooting, and increased erosion due to vegetation loss and hydrophobic soils.
Legal Obligations
While BAER treatments are exempted from National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) analysis, they are not exempt from the procedural mandates of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended (16 USC 470 [NHPA]). The Legal Obligations with in section 106 of NHPA include, but not exclusively, Tribal Consultation, SHPO Consultation and Section 106 surveys and documentation for other BAER treatments. Section 110 of NHPA also compels Federal agencies to protect Heritage Resources from degradation caused by natural forces as well as illegal activities. General section 106 work is conducted with in the scope of national historic preservation laws, agency guidelines, professional standards and consultation with State Historic Preservation Offices and/or Tribal Historic Preservation Offices and is beyond the scope of this report and will not be presented here.
TREATMENTS - OVERVIEW
Cultural resource activities funded by Burned Area Rehabilitation are limited to the following:
- A burned area assessment of fire induced unstable soils for their potential to result in the loss of historic properties.
- An inventory of known historic properties and/or unstable areas to determine the appropriate treatments needed. (Systematic inventories of all known historic properties within the burned area is not permitted.)
- The stabilization of known fire damaged historic properties to prevent further degradation. Emergency stabilization treatments should be designed to have no adverse effects, if possible. Expeditious NHPA Section 106 consultation is recommended.
- The assessment of all ESR treatments to determine their effect on historic properties. (Treatments may or may not have an effect).
- The combination of the limited scope of BAER, ESR and/or BAR funding and the nature of cultural resources means that cultural resource treatments are limited to preservation, stabilization,and protection,and section 106 compliance for the implementation of other BAER treatments.
The definitions, goals and data needs for preservation,stabilization,and protection of cultural resource as applicable for both the Department of the Interior and Department of Agriculture are best described in the National Park Service management policies. Preservation includes maintaining and preserving in a stable condition to prevent degradation and loss. The condition will be documented, regularly monitored, and evaluated against initial baseline data” (emphasis added; NPS Management Policies 2001, 5.3.5.1.1); and stabilization is conducted on “resources subject to erosion, slumping, subsidence, or other natural deterioration. The methods used will protect natural resources and processes to the maximum extent feasible. Stabilization will occur only after sufficient research demonstrates the likely success of the proposed stabilizing action, and after existing conditions are documented”(emphasis added; NPS Management Policies 2001, 5.3.5.1.2). Protection includes“periodically monitored, and if reasonable, practicable, and appropriate, fencing, warning signs, remote-sensing alarms, and other protective measures will be installed. Training and public education programs will be developed to make park staff and the public aware of the value of the park’s archeological resources, and the penalties for destroying them” (NPS Management Policies 2001, 5.3.5.1.4).
TREATMENTS - SPECIFIC
Site Assessments
Postfire condition assessments of historic properties (site assessments) encompass the vast majority of work conducted on cultural resources as part of BAER/ESR projects. The large numbers of heritage sites potentially affected by a large fire often make it impossible for BAER teams to conduct site assessments within the fourteen day requirement. Therefore, site assessments are often the first and largest cultural resource treatment specification; because site assessments are a major treatment it is appropriate to explore methods and effectiveness of this treatment. These assessments allow heritage specialists to determine stabilization needs, develop treatments, and gather baseline data needed for documentation and monitoring effectiveness of treatments.
Modeling potential resources at risk
The nature of cultural resources often relatively small localized resources which are not easily assessable prefire and less so during or immediately following a fire, assessing the potential post fire stabilization is man power intensive, time consuming, and relatively costly, when compared to strictly paper or GIS analysis.
Various BAER reports have implemented models for determining potential resources at risk (sensitivity models) in an attempt to focus work and reduce the number of sites to be assessed for potential treatments. All of these sensitivity models use the same basic data set, burn severity, erosion potential, and site location, with the additional of site type, portion of slope (i.e. lowest portion of slope nearest drainage), and looting potential (e.g. proximity to heavily used recreational facilities, road, trails, etc.) added to various degrees.
The first portions of sensitivity models, burn severity and erosion potential are obtained from other specialist on a BAER team and the appropriate level of anaylsis and the strengths and weaknesses of these data can be found else where (need some references) and will not be discussed here. They are often ranked as follows:
- Burn Severity
- Low
- Moderate
- High
- Erosion Potential
- Soil Repellency
- Soil Erosion Hazard Rating
- Slope
- Burn Severity
Cultural Resource models are based on:
- Eligibility
- Site Type Sensitivity
- Looting Potential
- Additional Erosion Sensitivity – Slope position, proximity to major waterways
Eligibility
The first criterion for modeling cultural resource sensitivity is to determine the eligibility of sites within the area of potential effect. All sites eligible (Class I) or potentially eligible (Class II) are included while properties that have been evaluated and do not meet the eligibility criteria (Class III) are excluded from further assessment or modeling.
Site Type Sensitivity
Site type sensitivity varies based on the local or regional site types but a properties sensitivity is based on overall susceptibility to fire effect and/or erosion (i.e. wooden structures vs. buried deposits) or the relative abundance of fire sensitive artifact type within the a site type (i.e. basketry vs. bedrock mortar).
The Kirk Fire (Horne and Boyd 1999) used the following site ranking:
Sensitive – rock art, standing structures, developed midden deposits and cemeteries.
Moderately sensitive – everything else
Not sensitive – sites and localities which are known to be durable and which were not thought to be at risk from post fire effects (e.g. rock features, bedrock mortars, roads, and most trails).
Looting Potential
Looting potential can be evaluated based on proximity to roads, trails, and heavily used recreational facilities. The best example comes from the Hackberry Complex were the highest priorities for inspection included sites within 100 meters of open dirt and open four-wheel drive roads, followed by closed dirt and closed four-wheel drive roads.
Additional Erosion Sensitivity – Slope position, proximity to major waterways
Some models have added criteria for potential erosion locations beyond the initial erosion potential models. Primarily these are based on proximity to drainages and location on slope either by location on the slope (i.e. lower 1/3 vs. upper 1/3 of slope) or the percentage of slope. The Balcony House Complex used a combination targeting “previously documented surface sites which are located within four targeted watersheds that range from 2-5% slopes to 5-12% slopes, and are located on the lowest portion of the slope nearest to the drainage” (U.S. Department of the Interior Mesa Verde BAER Team
2003).
Field Assessments
The final and possibly the most essential portion of site assessments is the field assessment. The field assessment is the visual inspection of the historic property to determine which sites, the level and type additional treatments.
The Park Service has developed a number of methods for conducting field assessments in 1996 the Draft Policy & Implementation Handbook for the Cultural Resource Site Condition Assessment and Treatment Processwas produced and was used following the 1996 Dome Fire in Bandelier National Monument. Following work on the Chapin #5 and 1996 Dome Fire the handbook was expanded into a 1998 draft (never finalized) A Model for Assessing and Treating Cultural Resource Sites Damaged by Wildfires in the Southwest Using Federal Emergency Fire Rehabilitation Funds (Sydoriak and Ruby 1998). A few of BAER projects tried to implement the 1996 handbook with varying degrees of effectiveness (Keefer, Kahl and Montague, 1999). The 1996 handbook forms were time consuming, and expansive method involving lengthy (10-15 page) forms for each site. Ultimately the 1996 handbook and 1998 model have not been adopted either officially or through common use. During the Cerro Grande Fire of 2000 a short 1 page assessment form, based on a form used at Yosemite National Park, was developed. This form, with regional and fire specific modifications, seems to be more universally adopted and can now be downloaded from the National Interagency BAER web site. This seems to have stabilized the baseline data gathered.
Gathering base line data to determine treatments and monitor effectiveness of treatments
Field assessments have varied greatly in the quality, amount and type of data gathered, ranging from just field verifications with little to no written data to elaborate multiple page post fire forms, complete rerecording and site record revision with determinations of eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places. ESR funding currently limits damage assessment to collect data leading to treatment of primary and secondary fire-caused damage to cultural resources at risk.
Data needs for determining site stabilization needs:
- Burn Severity
- Erosion potential
- Vandalism potential
- Fire effects to site
- Do effect effects site stability?
- Structure or structural remains potentially destabilized
- Wood/organics present preburn which would potentially leave voids in deposits and are susceptible to erosion
Documentation needs for provides baseline data from which future erosional or looting degradation can be compared or as a stabilization measure when no other method is cost effective.
- Note burned stump holes
- Note potential hazard trees
- Note at risk features or portions of site
- Note collected artifacts
Erosion Treatments
The prevention of increased erosion and soil movement (i.e. land slide, debris flows and scouring caused by flash floods) on cultural resources sites is important because it could change the context of remains vital to any scientific analysis/interpretation value or that could bury the remains and prohibit site discovery (Milburn 2002).
The treatments used for preventing erosional impacts on cultural resources are often the same as those used for watershed stabilization of soil resources and vegetation resources. The use of soil and vegetation treatments on cultural resources does differ in two major ways: 1) techniques used within the site boundaries of a cultural resource are modified to limit or eliminate ground disturbance; and 2) if initial selected treatments do not achieve the desired results, then secondary measures are usually implemented immediately.
The scope of hydrologic stabilization treatments and their overall appropriateness and effectiveness is not usually described in the cultural resource literature. The only available discussion of these treatments is found in cultural literature is found in Sydoriak, and Ruby 1998. For specifics on the use and effectiveness of different treatments see the soil and vegetation resources sections of this report. The most common soil and vegetation treatments used on cultural resources are listed below to help understand the techniques used. The treatments are divided into structural and non-structural treatments because of the potential different effects of implementation to cultural resources. All of these treatments can occur on and off the cultural resource site.
Structural treatments
Structural treatments include construction of a structure to retard heavy erosional processes and normal implementation usually incurs ground disturbance. The objectives of structural treatments are:
- Divert overland runoff away from site features that are threatened, to a non-threatening fluvial path.
- Prevent overland runoff and sedimentation from causing damage to features.
- Prevent overland runofffrom incising new channels.
- Protect middens from being incised, or scoured by migrating overland runoff.
- Perpetuate the original runoff flow path on the pre-fire, safe route from point of origin to defined channel system with enough capacity to pass a design flood
These objectives are accomplished through the use of:
- Straw wattles
- Contour Log Terraces
- Log Deflectors/Sills
- Log Grade Stabilizers
- Removing Debris Jams
- Hay Bale check dams
- Water dissipaters comprised of loosely placed stone cobbles placed below check dam
- Deflector wall construction
- Recontour with heavy equipment (excavation to define site boundaries)
- Hand construction of dirt berm to channel potential flows of water away form site
- Water bars
- Silt fences
Special considerations due to archaeological sensitivity
When structural treatments are conducted within the site boundaries of a cultural resource they are often modified to reduce ground disturbance which could potentially adversely affect a cultural resources. These modifications often involve use of hand equipment rather than motorized vehicles and other heavy equipment. Hay bales and straw wattles are placed without any trenches and additional stakes.
Non-structural treatments
Non-structural treatments usually do not incur ground disturbance and involve revegetation or protecting the ground surface from wind and rain erosion. Objectives of non-structural treatments are:
- Control water erosion of the top soil and ashes and the artifacts contained in the top soil.
- Intercept raindrop impact and prevent soil splash. Where grass and foliage is an effective substitute to replace a consumed tree canopy.
These goals are accomplished through the following treatments:
- Revegetation
- Planting Riparian Trees
- Hydro mulch
- Hand seeded
- Sowing of native seed
- Excelsior Mulch
- The thinning of some live trees at the individual sites and the scattering of the slash from these trees,
- Padding or sand bagging
- Remove debris dams in First Order streams and channel clearing
Special considerations due to archaeological sensitivity
When prescriptions call for scarification, raking or drill seeding prior to mulching and/or hand seeding is often precluded from within site boundaries.
Prevent subsurface contamination
Burned roots wads and root systems can potentially lead to increased erosion, mixing of sediment layers and/or destabilization of historic and prehistoric structures. This can cause the mixing of cultural deposits and contamination of subsurface deposits with modern charcoal and carbon thus reducing/eliminating a cultural resource manager’s ability to determine the cultural behavior that created the site and for placing sites in their proper chronological period. Fire killed trees which later fall pulling up their root wads also have the potential to cause these effects. The common treatments for these potential effects are:
- Fill in stump cavities
- Hand removal of fire killed plants to reduce the possibility of carbon contamination from this heavier fuel
- Hazard tree removal
Archaeological treatments
In addition to the watershed stabilization treatments a number of archaeological techniques are used. These treatments are used in conjunction with structural and non-structural treatments for monitoring the effectiveness and as treatments which stand alone. When archaeological treatments are not accompanied by watershed treatments it is usually because there are no cost effective or practical preventive watershed treatmentsand cultural resource managers are stabilizing the site through documenting the layout of site components.