Unanticipated Discovery of Cultural Resources During Pipeline Construction: Two Case Studies

Craig S. Smith

The unexpected discovery of cultural resources has the potential to cause serious delays during pipeline construction. It is important that a plan for dealing with unanticipated discoveries of cultural resources during construction be submitted and approved by the regulatory agencies prior to construction. Discoveries can be handled in many different ways. A traditional approach requires all ground-disturbing activities to stop in the vicinity of the discovery until all mitigation data recovery excavations are completed. Alternatively, to eliminate the possibility of delays, except for the discovery of human remains, trench inspection by an archaeologist has been used successfully. The pipeline company agrees to conduct no more than a specified level of effort of investigations following construction, depending what is found in the trench. In exchange, discoveries in the pipeline trench will be recorded, but construction will not be stopped due to the discoveries; thus there will be no loss of construction time.

Keywords: Cultural resources, unanticipated discoveries, pipeline construction, archaeology, trench inspection, construction monitoring