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.