3.0 Affected Environment - Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority

Knik Arm Crossing DraftFinal EIS
Affected Environment
3.6.1.4 Evaluation of historic significance
36 C.F.R. § 800.4(c) requires that the agency official 1) apply the National Register criteria to
properties identified in the APE, in consultation with the SHPO and federally recognized
tribes that may attach religious and cultural significance, and 2) determine whether a property
is eligible. The criteria, set out in 36 C.F.R. Part 63, are:
The quality of significance in American history, architecture, archeology,
engineering, and culture is present in districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects
that possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling,
and association and
(a) that are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the
broad patterns of our history; or
(b) that are associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or
(c) that embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of
construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic
values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose
components may lack individual distinction; or
(d) that have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory
or history.
National Register Bulletin 38, Guidelines for Evaluating and Documenting
Traditional Cultural Properties, provides further instruction on how to apply the
criteria to TCPs. Examples of properties possessing such significance include (among
others) locations where a community or members of a community have traditionally
carried out cultural practices or beliefs important in maintaining their historic identity.
3.6.1.5 Determination of eligibility
FHWA applied the National Register criteria to the properties identified by SRB&A, in
consultation with the SHPO and appropriate Native Alaska governments, and made the
following determinations.
3.6.1.5.1 The Mat-Su
The field inventory and testing program found no historic properties (SRB&A 2006, Vol. I);
therefore, no identified historic properties would be affected by the implementation of any
alternative presented in this Draft EIS.
3.6.1.5.2 Anchorage
SRB&A inventoried all of the 281 properties on Government Hill (SRB&A 2006).
Government Hill had two historic properties, the Brown’s Point Cottages, ANC-0048 and
ANC-1205, already listed in the National Register. FHWA, 33 in consultation with SHPO, has
determined that there are four historic districts and six additional individual properties that
are eligible for the National Register and therefore meet the criteria for protection under
33 Personal communication, Edrie Vinson, letter to Judith Bittner, June 23, 2006 (see Appendix D).
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