Project

Client: National Park Service

Period of performance: 2010 – 2011

We provided supervision to ensure compliance with the construction contract and associated environmental protection measures for the hardrock closures at Coronado National Memorial, Saguaro National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Biological monitors were present for construction activities at all mine features, and archaeological monitors were present during ground-disturbing activities associated with closure of mine features listed in or eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. We were responsible for ensuring minimal impacts to natural resources and that applicable mitigation measures were applied. Access involved extended strenuous hikes accompanied by armed guards for safety. Remote (and inaccessible by ground) locations at Grand Canyon National Park required helicopter transport of equipment and personnel.

Project

Client:  Bureau of Land Management

Period of performance: 2009 – 2010

We surveyed 2,214 acres to support the BLM’s tree-maintenance plan to help maintain a grasslands ecosystem. We identified 18 archaeological sites, including historical and prehistoric properties (most of which were Preceramic in age), prepared a historic context, and provided the BLM with recommendations for the eligibility of properties to the NRHP.

Project:

Client: Death Valley National Park, California

Period of Performance: October 2011

We conducted pre-construction surveys for the Mojave Desert tortoise around 47 mine features

(i.e., adits, shafts, and tunnels) for the National Park Service at Death Valley National Park. Field surveys, by a qualified tortoise biologist, consisted of walking the apron of each mine feature searching under vegetation and into crevices for tortoise burrows, individuals, or any sign of tortoise (i.e., scat, footprints, shell remnants). We also provided an educational lecture and informational handout for contractors and construction personnel responsible for implementing the closure of mine features. The intent of the education program was to inform construction workers about how to avoid harm to desert tortoise s and tortoise safety. Our biologists are experienced and field-trained for desert tortoise surveys throughout the desert southwest.

Client: U.S. Customs and Border Protection/U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Period of performance: 2010

With only three weeks to pull off public scoping and meetings for new facilities in Bellingham and Port Angeles, Washington, we rallied the staff—identifying interested parties, gathering address, arranging meeting facilities, publishing newspaper announcements, arranging for sign language/Spanish translator, mailing announcements, creating presentation materials, and briefing facilitator.  The community turned out for the Open Houses and had the opportunity to comment on the proposed facilities.

Client: U.S. Customs and Border Protection/U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Period of performance: 2010 – 2011

We provide environmental Subject Matter Expert (SME) services to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP), Facilities Management and Engineering Office (FM&E). This work requires us to provide a team of qualified environmental SMEs in natural resources, cultural resources, and environmental planning project and program management. The members of our team of specialists are currently involved with CBP Tactical Infrastructure projects which demand a thorough understand of the associated environmental issues associated with the proposed actions projected to be undertaken by the agency. We maintain a comprehensive understanding of federal, state, and local regulatory requirements as is required by the services we provide. Highlighted projects include an Environmental Assessment for new facilities in El Centro, California; construction monitoring in El Paso, Texas; Public Scoping for two new facilities in Washington State; cultural resources surveys along the Arizona border; National Historic Registrar Nomination determination of historic sewage tunnels in Nogales, Arizona.

Read all about it here: Christian Science Monitor – Coyotes and Cats

As humans continue to encroach on wildlands, quality and quantity of wildlife habitat decreases before our eyes. A housing development here, a shopping mall there, a few more trees cut here, another road put in there, each of these diminishes available habitat. Unless the cumulative effects of multiple simultaneous development projects are recognized and incorporated at the beginning of project development, we will continue to see wildlife habitat disappear at unprecedented rates.

Without a conscious knowledge of what is happening around us, we will not be able to incorporate an effective land ethic and natural resources will be the ultimate loser. Cumulative Effects in Wildlife Management brings to light the crucial connections between human expansion and habitat destruction for those managers and practitioners charged with protecting wildlife in the face of changing landscapes.

Long-billed birds peck at a coiled rattlesnake and a Mexican Earth Monster dashes towards the afterlife on a prehistoric Hohokam bowl and plate Sharon Urban (AKA Shurban) found as a graduate student. “They’re the most exciting artifacts I’ve discovered,” She said of the cremation vessels. 

“It was August and hot. Too hot for me to dig for fear of passing out.” Shurban and other members of the Arizona State Museum’s Highway Salvage Section were surveying a section of the proposed I-19 highway right-of-way, two miles south of San Xavier Mission during the summer of 1965. “I was wandering the desert, aimlessly, searching for anything when I found the exposed upside down portion of the bowl.”  She ran to tell the crew leader of her find.  “They wouldn’t let me dig it up,” she said.  “They thought I was too inexperienced.” 

“I knew what is was the moment I saw it, I just didn’t know how unique it was.”  Further excavation revealed an intact bowl sitting upside down over a plate. “The plate was cracked, but all the pieces were there.” At first the dirt-covered find didn’t illicit jaw-dropping expressions from her fellow archeologists but after it was cleaned:  “Oh-wow,” was what everybody said. 

On the face of the 14-inch diameter red plate is a beige Mexican Earth Monster, “a cross between a coati-mundi and a road runner. It has a long curved bill or beak with two ears or feathers sticking up, a long neck, and four legs with toes on its feet.” And while the monster has been found carved into shells, this is the only known pottery example. The artwork on the bowl is one of a kind. A coiled rattlesnake, with a triangular head and two eyes, rests within the six-inch diameter bowl. Sixteen long-billed birds, of various sizes, surrounded the snake and peck at it.  “There are no other examples like it anywhere,” Shurban said. 

Unfortunately, nobody knows what the elaborate designs mean or the history of the plate and bowl. “They may have been made especially for a cremation, but that is only a possibility. We don’t really know.” 

But we do know a little bit about the person that was buried in them. The bowl contained cremation remains of a 45-year old man, and dated to the 1200s, according to Walter Birkby, a forensic anthropologist who analyzed the vessel’s contents.  Cremation was a common practice among the Hohokam.  On method of disposing of the remains after burning was scraping the ash and bone pieces into a bowl and inverting it over a plate, then burying the lot in a pit.  

The cremation vessel “caused a stir,” Shurban said.  “Everybody came to see it.” The bowl and plate became one of the Arizona State Museum’s most important artifacts.  They have been featured in several books (The Hohokam Millennium (2007), The Hohokam Desert Farmers and Craftsmen: Excavations at Snaketown, 1964-1965 (1976)) and replicas have been produced.  “The fake ones contain scheit, a florescent mineral, so archeologists can tell the difference.” 

The bowl and plate remained at the Museum for many years, stored with other pottery.  “In deference to the Native Americans, they couldn’t be displayed because of their religious connotation.”  In the 1990s they were re-patriated with the Tohono O’Odham Nation, and are now stored in their facility in Sells, Arizona. 

“Finding such unique artifacts boosted my status, at least for a little while” Shurban said.  “They let me dig after that.”

The responsible development of human use infrastructure is a core value all of us at Harris Environmental Group hold. To support the addition of a much needed second runway at Tucson International Airport, we developed all supporting documentations for an Environmental Impact Statement to determine the effects on the natural environment. We helped our client be successful by providing the full range of natural, environmental, and cultural resources specialists required. This project included developing a Biological Assessment, conducting a Class III archeological Survey, and conducting a Preliminary Initial Site Assessment. It exemplifies the full range of solutions we bring to every project we are entrusted with by our clients.

Harris Environmental Group developed numerous environmental compliance studies and reports for Tucson Electric Power’s new 345Kv transmission line between Sahuarita and Nogales. We conducted environmental review for line siting, as well as threatened and endangered species studies. We formulated a Biological Assessment in support of an Environmental Impact Statement sponsored by the Department of Energy, and conducted surveys for endangered species and provided expert witness testimony to the Arizona Corporation Commission concerning environmental studies. When you call on Harris Environmental Group to manage your project’s environmental, natural, and cultural resources needs, you can be assured that we will bring the same focus and discipline that has made us a valued partner to some of the best-run organizations in the western United States.