WVDOT ROADWAYS

Cultural Resource Review of Borrow Areas

So, you got your contract with WVDOH, you found a borrow or waste area, you're ready to go, and you think you're home free - then you read in the standard specifications that you must go to the State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) for a cultural resource review of the waste or borrow area.

You say: “The state what?”

• The State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) is responsible for compliance with state and federal laws protecting cultural resources.
  
• Cultural resources are historic structures and archaeological sites.
  
• Compliance in West Virginia is overseen by the Division of Culture and History's Historic Preservation Unit. Their job is to determine the effect of construction projects on archaeological sites and historic structures listed or eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places (National Register).
  

You have to put together a package so SHPO can review the borrow site in terms of its potential to affect a cultural resource.

What do you do?

Background:

What are National Register criteria?

First, a property usually is not evaluated for eligibility until it is at least 50 years old

Then, there is the question of integrity - is the property largely unchanged and intact?

Then there are 4 criteria, any of which can qualify it for the National Register:

• Associated with events important in our history
  
• Associated with a person important in history
  
• A building with architectural merit, or part of an historic district
  
• Archaeological significance, prehistoric or historic
  

Certain types of properties - churches and cemeteries in particular - are generally not eligible except under special circumstances.

SHPO evaluates the effect - and that can include visual intrusion on an historic property or a take from its land parcel.

SHPO needs 30 days because of bottlenecks and other project reviews. Sometimes they have questions that must be answered by the applicant.

Getting it through review the first time

Your aim is to get the application through the first time. The biggest step you can take is to obtain an acceptable borrow site to begin with.

Best chance of a successful office review:
-- get borrow from disturbed areas:

• Existing borrow areas
  
• Previously disturbed areas, like old push piles
  

Next best chance of a successful office review:
-- get borrow from “low probability” areas - where there is little expectation of archaeological sites or encroaching on historic structures:

• Avoid flat areas - try to get a hillside of greater than 20% slope (i.e., 20 feet of fall for 100 feet of travel)
  
• Avoid stream and river terraces above the floodplain (floodplains are seasonally inundated).
  
• Avoid rock shelters
  
• Avoid ridgetops, particularly saddles and ridge junctions
  
• Keep your distance from older houses
  
• Keep your distance from marked cemeteries -a 100' buffer, like strip mines
  
• Ask residents in the area about unmarked cemeteries. Often the headstones are down in old ones, assuming they had headstones
  

Use a reporting format that is complete and easy to read:

You can use the format provided on right side of this page, or click here to download a form you can use in your word processor, or, if you enjoy writing, you can compose a cover letter that contains all the information on the form.

Examples of how to describe the borrow area

a. Dimensions:

• ______ feet N-S by ______ feet E-W, or
  
• ______ feet NE-SW by ______ feet NW-SE
  

b. Topography:

• fill
  
• manmade landscape
  
• hillside slope >20%
  
• v-shaped valley
  
• hill toe slope
  
• gently or moderately rolling valley floor
  
• sharp or broad ridge
  
• high stream terrace
  

c. Prior physical disturbance:

• existing borrow area
  
• abandoned logging road
  
• old push pile
  

d. Observations:

• Any other information that might be helpful
  

Mandatory attachments - use them well

Topographic Map

• Xerox the area from a USGS 7½' topographic quadrangle (1:24,000 scale)
  
• Clearly mark the borrow site
  
• Be accurate -- avoid exaggerating the borrow area size. Apparent spillover into a sensitive area will hold you up.
  
• Quadrangles are available at surveyor or drafting supply stores.
  
• You may be able to use part of the DOH project documentation -- Xeroxes of topo maps if clear
  
• Go to Topozone.com or other web site as a last resort -- these maps are small and difficult to manipulate
  

Borrow Area Plan Map

• Sketch the borrow area and surroundings to approximate scale
  
• Include landmarks -- e.g., roads, streams
  
• Include standing structures
  
• Show borrow limits and a north arrow.
  
• Clearly label everything (e.g., CR 7/11, “Residence #1”, “Barn #2”, borrow limits)
  
• Showing photo orientations helps
  

Quality photos are very important.

• You need to illustrate the borrow area's relationship to visible landmarks and standing structures.
  
• A 360º panorama is advisable.
  
• Label the photos to match your project plan map
  
• Clearly mark the borrow site, or include a photo key -- direction and orientation of each photograph
  
• Photograph features of interest -- older houses and other structures
  
• Xeroxed or faxed photos are not acceptable.
  
• SHPO prefers actual photographic prints and discourages digital files.
  
• Clear color inkjet prints of digital photos (two per page) are acceptable.
  
• Polaroids are acceptable if they are of good quality (usually they aren't).
  
• Do not just slap something together. You need to convince the reviewer that the photos fairly represent your project.
  

Use common sense.

Applications are not graded on size - 1 page w/ topo and photos should do it for a straightforward case. Unnecessary enclosures just slow down the review.

What they don't need

Here is a partial list of some of the unnecessary material SHPO has received in the past:

• Request to DOH for approval of borrow site
  
• Landowner agreement
  
• General notes from the plans
  
• CE documentation - cover memo to FHWA, WVDOH's cultural resource report on the bridge, RTE letters
  
• ACE correspondence -- 404 clean water act permit application, ACE public notice
  
• Field review notices