Damage to Elem Archaeological Sites that Occurred Before an Archaeologist was called in.

Jump to damage done by EPA after project archaeologist called in

Before Parker & Assoc. Archaeological Research arrived at the project, the EPA had already completed the Phase 1A portion of the project.  This involved demolition of existing homes and the removal of mine tailings that had been used as fill under those homes.  Mechanical excavation proceeded 30-60cm into underlying cultural soils after the mine waste had been removed.  In some instances these excavations went as deep as 8 to 10 feet into intact cultural soils.  

In areas where mine waste did not exist, damage to historic resources included the use of a bulldozer to clear surface vegetation for the placement of silt fences and driving track driven and tire driven trucks and equipment over unprotected cultural soils. 

On August 8^th 2006, Archaeological Research took photographs and measurements of the open excavations and graded areas that were still visible from the Phase 1A process. These measurements revealed that approximately 7,000 cubic meters of cultural soil had been destroyed.

Resource Damage that Occurred During Archaeological Monitoring

When Archaeological Research arrived on site, an excavation protocol was developed and agreed upon by all parties (EPA, BIA, CH2MHILL, and the Tribe).   Click here to view Protocol  The protocol was developed to insure that the project met the requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act and Archaeological Resource Protection Act.

There were several occasions when CH2M HILL contractors (acting under the direction of the EPA) did not follow the excavation protocol while working within the boundaries of recorded archaeological sites.  As the project archaeologist was not permitted to stop project activities long enough to conduct the necessary data recovery work, these instances caused unmitigated damage to significant historic and prehistoric resources in violation of the National Historic Preservation Act.

This section lists the specifics of those cases and the amount of damage done.  This map shows areas of unmitigated damage tied to the descriptions listed below.

1) Water Truck Haul Road Damage

On 8-19-06, The project archaeologist conducted a cultural resource inspection of the project area and told CH2M HILL that the water trucks turning around near the lake were causing damage to cultural site soils.  A request was made that the area be covered with geotextile material and base rock to protect the underlying cultural soils from water and tire damage (violation of protocol item #2).

Almost 4 weeks of water truck traffic passed before the construction contractors complied with this mitigation request.  By that time, a hole had been created in cultural soils that was 5 meters in diameter and 30cm deep. 

This unmitigated activity destroyed ~6m³ of cultural soil.

2) West Road Waste Removal Excavation

On 8-23-06, Tribal monitor Sandy Thomas was stung by a bee while monitoring excavation in the cul-de-sac area (by Lot 19) and had to leave her post for medical treatment.  Excavation did not stop as required by protocol and by the time the project archaeologist could get to the area, excavation had proceeded through the mine waste and 60cm into cultural soil (violation of protocol item #1).

Unknown volume of cultural soil damaged.

On 8-24-06, excavation of mine waste began before the Tribal monitor had returned from lunch break (by Lot 22).  The project archaeologist (still eating lunch nearby) stepped in to monitor the work so a work stoppage would not be necessary.  A CH2M HILL employee told the project archaeologist that he couldn’t be in the area.  The archaeologist explained to the employee that if he left, excavation would have to stop per the protocol.  The CH2M HILL employee refused to stop work when the archaeologist left the area to report the incident to the CH2M HILL on-site director.  (violation of protocol item #1).

Unknown volume of cultural soil damaged.

3) North Road Waste Removal Excavation

On 8-29-06, the project archaeologist was monitoring mine waste removal in front of Lots 2, 3, and 4.  He directed the contractors to stop digging when cultural soils were encountered below the mine waste.  His directions were not followed and excavation removed both mine waste and all underlying cultural soils (violation of protocol item #7).

Unknown volume of cultural soil damaged.

4) Historic Feature Area Grading (west road)

On 8-30-06, mine waste removal in front of Lot 23 excavated below the mine waste layer and at least 30cm into cultural soil below the original 1906 ground surface.  CH2M HILL employees admitted that they were not taking toxic chemical measurements but using visual cues only to determine the depth of the contaminated soil.  Their later measurements indicated that this pre-1906 cultural soil had no contamination (violation of protocol item #7).

Unknown volume of cultural soil damaged.

On 9-1-06, the project archaeologist had a field inspection and meeting with Mr. Emami (BIA Highway Construction Engineer) to discuss the treatment of the sensitive historical features along the western road.  Mr. Emami expressed his concern that adequate compaction be obtained prior to road construction.  The archaeologist explained that if it became necessary to disturb the exposed historic features, then a data recovery program would need to take place before the damage was done.  After more than an hour of discussion, an agreement was made to place a thin layer of fine-grained fill over the historic features, then a layer of geotextile material that would bridge the voids, allowing the proper compaction of road fill.  It was agreed that this treatment would satisfy Mr. Emami’s concerns for road compaction and also protect the underlying historical features. 

On 9-9-06, under the direction of the EPA and CH2M HILL, a road grader ripped and scraped through the historic features, destroying an area 16 meters wide by 80 meters long to a depth of 50cm.  Six of the seven pre-1906 historic features were destroyed along with an unknown amount of prehistoric cultural soil.  A buried mortar was broken and then unearthed by the activity (violation of protocol items #5 and #7).

At least 640m³ of cultural soil was destroyed.  To learn more about these historic features click here: Historic Features

5) North Road Area Grading

On 9-9-06, Archaeologists John Holson and Kevin Bartoy of Pacific Legacy excavated through and destroyed cultural soils in an area that was not scheduled for grading (violation of protocol items #5 and #7).

Approximately 0.6m³ of cultural soil was needlessly destroyed.

On 9-11-06, CH2M HILL’s grader operator asked the project archaeologist if he could grade through archaeological site soils along the northern road to level the surface for the fill trucks.  Due to the cultural soils present, the archaeologist indicated that grading through this area could not be done (see Protocol #2 and #3).  Within 20 minutes, the road grader was cutting through the area, damaging cultural soils and unearthing a pestle (violation of protocol items #1, #2, and #3).

Unknown volume of cultural soil damaged.

6) Grading on Lots 1A and 1B

On 9-16-06, the project archaeologist gave instructions to a CH2M HILL subcontractor not to disturb cultural soils north of the telephone pole and oak tree at the north end of Elem Drive in the areas of Lots 1A and 1B.  These instructions were ignored and the subcontractor used a dozer to cut into the bank ~50cm deep on both sides of the road (violation of protocol items #2 and #7).

Unknown volume of cultural soil damaged.

7) Grading Between Lots 2 and 30

On 9-19-06, the big excavator returned to an area where mine waste had already been removed and proceeded to excavate into cultural soil to a depth of 60cm across an area 24 meters long by 14.4 meters wide.  No data recovery work was allowed prior to this disturbance (violation of protocol items #2, #5, and #7).

Approximately 207m³ of cultural soil was needlessly destroyed.

In an effort to salvage a small amount of information from the damaged area, the project archaeologist told CH2M HILL contractors to place the cultural soils on top of clean fill that had already been deposited on Lot 1B.  The plan was to have the archaeological crew dry-screen through the soils to recover any artifacts before the soils were taken to the Sulphur Bank Mine waste deposit area.  On 9-22-06, Richard Sugarek (EPA Project Director) spotted the pile of cultural soil and had it hauled to the mine waste disposal area before any screening could take place.

8) Lot 28 Water Truck Road Grading

On 9-22-06, grading to remove a layer of mine waste from the water truck road on Lot 28 was conducted.  In anticipation of this work, a data recovery unit was excavated through the mine waste and into the cultural deposit to a depth of 40cm (click Unit JK-1 to learn more about this unit).  The size and depth of the data recovery unit was based on core samples of soil from various locations along the road.  These samples indicated a fairly shallow depth for the mine waste.  It was therefore determined that removing the waste would require relatively shallow grading.  The 1 x 2 meter archaeological unit was excavated to a depth of 40cm and recovered ~0.8m³ of cultural soil.  Sidewall profiles of the unit indicated mine waste to a depth of 5 to 15cm.

Mechanical grading was then done to remove the mine waste.  However, once the mine waste was removed, grading continued, removing an additional 20 to 30cm depth of cultural soil.

This took place over an area 48 meters long and 3 meters wide destroying ~43.2m³ of cultural soil.  Although data recovery is a way of mitigating damage to archaeological resources as part of the Section 106 process, it is usually required that a “statistically valid” sample be recovered from the area of impact.

The 0.8m³ data recovery sample effectively mitigated damage to 13.8m³ of cultural site soil.  However the EPA's extensive grading into intact archaeological soils caused 43.2m³ of damage.  This means that 29.4m³ of damage occurred to this part of the site without any mitigation (violation of protocol items #5 and #7).

9) Storm Drain Trench Misalignment

On 9-26-06, excavation of the storm drain trench damaged intact portions of LAK-76.  The impacts of the storm drain trench were mitigated through a data recovery program designed to recover a statistically valid sample of the area to be disturbed.  This mitigation included the excavation of 7 data recovery units within the trench alignments.  Project surveyors provided the alignments for the placement of the archaeological units.  When the actual storm drain trenching was conducted, the trench was not on the same alignment provided for the archaeological work, thereby destroying a portion of the site that had not been mitigated (violation of protocol items #5 and #7).

Unknown volume of cultural soil damaged.

10) Lot 26 Soft Spot Grading (no photos obtained)

On 10-2-06, a Tribal monitor called to report that excavation was taking place within undisturbed cultural soils in front of Lot 26.  This work was apparently done to remove a “soft spot” that had occurred due to over-watering by the water trucks.  Based on reports from John Holson and Sandy Thomas, the hole was 5 meters by 6 meters and 1 meter deep (violation of protocol items #5 and #7).  Ms. Thomas said that the soils removed contained historic glass, metal and clamshell.

Approximately 30m³ of cultural soil was destroyed with no mitigation.

11) Lot 23 Water Line Trenching

On 10-4-06, excavation for a water line connection was conducted within cultural site soil without the benefit of an archaeological monitor (violation of protocol items #1, #5 and #7).  Bones were encountered.

Unknown volume of cultural soil damaged.

Unmitigated Cultural Resource Damage Between August 22^nd and October 4^th, 2006

Based on the above listed violations of the excavation protocol, a minimum of 913m³ of cultural soil was destroyed with no mitigation during the Phase 1B portion of the cleanup project.

Earth Moving Protocol for the
Elem Soil Remediation project

The Elem community is the oldest community in Lake County.  It has existed in the same location for at least 6,000 years and may have roots at this location that go back 12,000 years.  This means that important historic and prehistoric artifacts and sites cover much of the property.  Because there were no written records, these sites contain the only information available about this community’s past.  These rules are designed to allow this project to move forward without destroying Elem’s cultural history.  Not only are these rules important to preserving their past, it is the law.  In order to comply with the National Historic Preservation Act (Section 106) and Title 36, Code of Federal Regulations, part 800.5 and 6 the items listed below must be followed.

1. No grading, trenching, or excavating are to take place within the reservation without Dr. Parker or his designee present.
2. No heavy equipment is to be parked, staged, or driven on natural soil.  All heavy equipment must stay on fill or asphalt.  If necessary, Dr. Parker will designate culturally “safe” areas for equipment staging.
3. While bringing in and spreading new fill, heavy equipment is to ride atop the fill rather than on natural ground.  This can be accomplished by pushing the fill ahead of the equipment.  
4. A minimum of 8” of fill must be on the ground before compaction takes place.  Once an 8” layer of fill is down then the vibrating roller can be used for compaction.
5. There is no natural obsidian on the reservation. If you see obsidian on the ground, you are on an archaeological site.  The artifacts belong to the Elem community.  Unless you are (or working for) a Registered Professional Archaeologist, the Archaeological Resource Protection Act makes it illegal to remove or deface a site or artifact.
6. If you see an artifact, point it out to Dr. Parker or the nearest Native American monitor.  If a monitor can’t be found, place a pin flag at the location.  A system is in place to map and collect all sensitive artifacts for curation in the tribe’s museum.
7. If an archaeological feature or site soil is encountered during excavation, and in danger of disturbance, Dr. Parker may need to temporarily redirect equipment to work in another area while the feature or site soil is mapped and removed.  Dr. Parker will designate “resource safe” areas where fill removal can continue while archaeological mapping and recovery take place at the primary work site.

Send mail to dr.john@wolfcreekarcheology.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2011 Lake County Archaeology
Last modified: April 26, 2011