Dave: Maybe some additional information is in order.  The way you have posed
the answer to Marc is that you are going back to a (Federal?) agency with a
request for additional costs because the original effort underestimated the
extent of the material to be collected.  Is this the case?  If so, then the
issue is not so much what a contractor would normally charge for a 'typical'
large, many year effort, as it is that the original estimation of effort for
analysis and processing may have been less than adequate (underbid).  One of
your questions, if this was a contracted effort, should be "what was the
contracted effort for artifact analysis and processing?" Your next
question(s) should be: Why curate all of the material recovered (does it
contribute directly (or indirectly) to any useful data set)?  If it was a
mitigation effort (which is how you defined it), what material answers the
mitigation research design and what (material) is never going to be part of
the analysis?  If curation costs are the issue, what does the curating
facility charge per cubic/linear foot?  A component left unanswered by you
is what is the material (300,000 artifacts) you are needing to curate, is it
all large material, is it 150 diagnostics and 299,850 pieces of
non-diagnostic debitage?  If a 106 issue, possibly a consultation with SHPO
to discuss the unexpected costs for curating is in order.

The second part of your issue (unanticipated features, etc.) is always a
potential for any mitigation project.  If the features are part of the
research design for the mitigation, and they are supportive of the research
design (or significant separately for the original design), then you are
justified in seeking suitable additional costs (in my opinion).  However, as
costs for mitigation rise and get closer to the cost of not building the
project or simply redesigning it, there has to be a consideration of where
to be willing to start eliminating some areas of work effort.  Again, if
outside the original mitigation design, consultation with SHPO is in order.
I cannot speak for other agencies, but ours has the one percent rule for
mitigation efforts written in stone - exceeding it requires an extremely
good dancer and a permission slip from DC.

As always - not the official position of my agency and I have a position of
plausible deniability.

Stephen P. Austin

        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Dave McMahan [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
        Sent:   Wednesday, December 29, 1999 1:44 PM
        To:     [log in to unmask]
        Subject:        Re: costs for large-scale mitigation

You wrote> "My purpose in collecting this data is not to develop a budget;
but rather to demonstrate to a funding agency that a particular project is
being done on a shoestring budget relative to other projects of similar
scope." ...and... "I am also aware of long-term costs that should be
factored into the initial budget, the relationship of these to 36 CFR 79 and
other published guidelines, and that the "discovery" of important
unanticipated (and unbudgeted) features/deposits are justification for
requesting a supplement."