Search

On March 14, 1978, William Marmaduke and Steven Dosh, archaeologists at the Museum of Northern Arizona, conducted a field assessment of "Tower 270 site" located at Tower 270 of the Coronado-Silverking Transmission Line within the Sitgreaves National Forest. Work included surface collection of all exposed artifacts and test excavation for buried cultural material. The Salt River Project, owner of the Silverking Line, had requested the assessment after the Sitgreaves National Forest made it a requirement for clearance for tower construction.

15 mi of Extra High Voltage transmission line corridor, 2 mi of access road, and 0.9 mi of 115kV transmission line from the Silverking Substation were surveyed for archaeological resources by the Museum of Northern Arizona in April, 1978. Twelve prehistoric and historic Anglo-American affiliation archaeological sites were identified along the EHV corridor between the Silverking Substation and the Tonto National Forest boundary. An isolated recent feature, not given a site designation, was found on the proposed access road alignment. No sites were found on the 115kV alignment. The report describes the survey and its results and makes detailed archaeological clearance recommendations for the surveyed impact areas. Archaeological clearance is recommended for all surveyed areas except for the actual areas of the 12 recorded sites in the EHV corridor.

At the request of The Salt River Project, archeologists from the Museum of Northern Arizona surveyed 24 tower locations and their associated access roads for the 7.5 mile segment of the Coronado-Silverking 500 kV transmission line in the Sitgreaves National Forest. The request for the survey came from Bettina Rosenberg, archeological administrator for The Salt River Project, in a letter dated January 12, 1978. The Coronado-Silverking transmission line is the main conduit to the Phoenix metropolitan area for power generated at Coronado Station. Beginning at Coronado Station northeast of St. Johns, the transmission line shares a west running corridor with a Coronado-Cholla Station 500 kV "back-up" line. Northwest of Snowflake, the lines separate and the Silverking line continues West, entering the Sitgreaves National Forest. The 7.5 mile survey segment is the portion of the 200 feet wide Silverking line corridor between the Sitgreaves National Forest boundary on the east and the joint corridor on the west. Museum archeologists initially surveyed the entire 7.5 mile long, 200 feet wide corridor in December, 1977. During the December work, 23 archeological sites were discovered and recorded. The Museum performed the original corridor survey to provide archeological data for tower placement planning by Salt River Project. The purpose of the present survey is to assess the potential impacts of tower access and construction, and of cable stringing. Defined by the Sitgreaves National Forest in their Cultural Resources Plan for Coronado Project, the impact zones of the Silverking line are a 200 feet radius around each tower hub, the access roadway plus a 50 feet buffer on either side, and the entire tensioning sites plus a 50 feet surrounding buffer. The present survey required 3 days to complete, beginning on January 28, and ending on January 30, 1978. Six additional sites were discovered, mostly within or near the initial access road impact zones. In each case, the road corridors were restricted to avoid the archeological remains. One site, found within the previously surveyed corridor, was defined during a reassessment of a previously recorded site. According to the guidelines agreed upon between the Sitgreaves National Forest and the Salt River Project, no sites found during this or the previous survey will suffer direct impact from construction of the Coronado-Silverking line. There are particular tower locations where extreme caution must be exercised, however, during construction, and the Museum recommends that earthmoving, and in a few cases tower erection, be monitored rigorously by a professional archeologist.

On April 11, 1978, Steve Dosh, archaeologist at the Museum of Northern Arizona, surveyed three proposed sleeving locations for the construction of the Coronado-Silverking Transmission Line in the Sitgreaves National Forest. Jerry Shelly of the Salt River Project construction staff requested the surveys, and was present during their execution. This work is a part of Dosh's duties as transmission line construction monitor. All the sleeving locations inspected during the present survey are within the transmission line corridor that was surveyed in December 1977 for inventory and design purposes. No cultural remains were discovered in any of these sleeving locations during this inventory survey.

Salt River Project (SRP) recently assumed responsibility for the construction of a 2 3/4 mile segment of the Coronado-Silverking APS-SRP Common Corridor Transmission Line. Due to this change in construction plans, Bettina Rosenberg, SRP Archeological Administrator, contacted the Museum of Northern Arizona (MNA) on November 30, 1977, and requested a resurvey of the tower locations on this portion of the transmission line. The line was originally surveyed by Arizona State Museum (ASM), but the resurvey was deemed necessary because of the relocation of some towers and the archeological sensitivity of the area. ASM conducted three surveys in the Common Corridor area. Two of the surveys covered the entire corridor, while the third survey investigated five tower relocations and associated access roads. These access roads are now in place along the line. Two sites were recorded by ASM within the area recently surveyed by MNA. Archeological sites along the 2 3/4 mi. segment of the Common Corridor are limited to these two previously recorded sites and one site recorded during the MNA survey. The survey was conducted and this report prepared under the stipulations and guidelines of the Cultural Resources Plan developed by the National Forest Service (NFS) for the Coronado Project.