Ron,
Caltrans as an agency has decided no such thing, and staff historical
archaeologists within the agency certainly do not agree with the idea
that "redundancy" has been reached in Bay Area urban residential contexts.
However, it is quite true that certain managers and influential officials in
key regulatory agencies (none of them historical archaeologists) have strongly
questioned that there is more we can learn in urban Bay Area residential
contexts. This has been a point of some contention.

This debate is not unique to the Cypress Project of course. From discussions
with other historical archaeologists across the country, many of us have run
into the same criticism. It does not focus just on redundancy, either. Some
historians in regulatory positions have advocated that historians should play a
role in determining what questions are considerd important. While working
together is valuable, problems have arisen when they push it to the point of
veto authority. I have personal experience with nonspecialist regulators and
managers reducing the range of issues "approved" as a basis for data recovery
investigations under Section 106, effectively writing off whole suites of
features and resources that I and my peers (historical archaeologists) consider
likely to yield important data. In that regard it is worth mentioning that
Caltrans routinely uses internal peer review to ensure findings are
reasonable.  We even solicted external reviews of the Cypress final
interpretive report as a way to help counteract such criticism (thanks to
Barbara Little, Lu Ann de Cunzo, Daniel Roberts, and countless others).

In the end the best defenses against such criticisms remain: 1) Focusing
exclusively on important research issues and continuing to improve the
rationales for eligibility decisions; 2) Engaging the interested public as
advocates for what we do (and our contractor Sonoma State University has done
an exceptional job in this regard for Cypress); and 3)working tirelessly to
strengthen working relationships and solidarity with oursister/brother
disciplines, especially historians. We cannot afford to be divided in the
current regressive national atmosphere.

Scutiny will only increase in the coming years. That will force us to make some
hard choices and find ever more effective ways to further our goals. It is my
personal belief we will need to focus more on what is clearly important and
refrain from advocating for resources/values of a more marginal nature. One
strategy that may be worth greater attention is capturing those "marginal" data
more efficiently, where appropriate, during inventory.

Cheerio,
Thad Van Bueren

Note: The opinions expressed here are solely my own, and are not meant to
represent the official position of Caltrans, etc.



****************************************************************************
> Thad,
>
> Joel Klein discussed the Cypress Project at the recent ACRA Conference in
> Riverside, California recently. Could you explain why Caltrans has decided
> "redundancy" has been reached with that project?
>
> Ron May
> Legacy 106, Inc.