Volume 2: Draft Gorst Planned Action Environmental Impact Statement

GORST PLANNED ACTION EIS | AFFECTED ENVIRONMENT, SIGNIFICANT IMPACTS, AND MITIGATION MEASURES• Chapter 27.53 RCW, Archaeological Sites and Resources, governs the protection and preservation ofarchaeological sites and resources and establishes DAHP as the administering agency for these regulations.• RCW 36.70A.020 includes a goal to “Identify and encourage the preservation of lands, sites, and structuresthat have historical, cultural, and archaeological significance.” Cities planning under the Washington StateGMA must consider and incorporate this historic preservation goal in their Comprehensive Plans andimplementing development regulations.• Chapter 68.60 RCW, Abandoned and Historic Cemeteries and Historic Graves, provides for the protection andpreservation of abandoned and historic cemeteries and historic graves.Affected EnvironmentThis section describes the environmental and cultural setting of the Study Area, including the Watershed and GorstUGA, and was used to assess the potential for cultural resources to be present within the study area and to definethe potential impacts. A review of the physical environments that affect human behavior and the cultural settingcan help generate expectations about how archaeological sites could be distributed across the landscape and thekinds of activities that occurred there.Environmental Context: Watershed and UGAGeologyThe Puget Lobe of the Fraser Glaciation covered parts of Puget Sound with up to 1250 meters (4060 ft.) of ice. Theglacier’s terminus was located south of Budd Inlet. The Puget Lobe retreated to the area near Port Townsend byapproximately 15000 BP (Thorson 1980). When it retreated north into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, proglacial lakeswere inundated with saltwater, the water level dropped and the glacial processes of deposition were replaced by alandform of unconsolidated glacial clay, silt, sand and gravel. Surface geology is characterized as unconsolidatedsediments from the Pleistocene continental glacial drift, Quaternary alluvium, dune sand and loess (Troost andBooth 2008; Puget Soundkeeper Alliance 2008).The Gorst Creek Watershed is located within the Puget Trough Physiographic Province (Franklin and Dyrness 1988).The specific geographic province is referred to as the Puget Lowland or Puget Sound Lowland. The landform of theKitsap Peninsula is characterized by gently rolling, low hills dissected by numerous rivers and stream. Within theproject vicinity there are a number of small coves and inlets consisting of sandy beaches and mud flats.PaleoenvironmentVegetation composition and animal distributions in the Puget Lowlands have changed dramatically since the end ofthe Pleistocene. Lodgepole pine covered the newly deglaciated surface, following in succession by Douglas fir,white pine, spruce and alder (Barnosky 1984). The climate of the region became warmer and drier between 10000and 6000BP then present day. Forests were more open and prairies were common throughout the Puget Lowlandin gravelly outwash soils. Beginning at about 6000 to 5000 BP conditions began to change with coolertemperatures and increased precipitation and have remained relatively stable to the present with forests ofwestern red cedar, western hemlock and Douglas fir (Whitlock 1992).Cultural Context: Watershed and UGAThis section presents an overview of the cultural setting of the Study Area, including the Precontact, ethnographicand historic period contexts.PrecontactStudies of the prehistory of the Puget Sound and surrounding areas divide the prehistoric cultural sequence intomultiple phases or periods from about 12,500 to 225 years ago, and are delineated by changes in regional patternsof land use, subsistence, and tool types over time. These phases are academic constructs and do not necessarilyreflect tribal viewpoints. This document uses the Pacific Northwest coast precontact cultural sequence provided byDraft | June 2013 3-131