Appendix A Historic Property Survey Report

Home Browse Search

ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY REPORT FAIRVIEW STREET IMPROVEMENTS FROM 9TH STREET TO 16TH STREET AND JUNE 2019 BRIDGE REPLACEMENT PROJECT SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA SUMMARY OF FINDINGS The City of Santa Ana (City), in conjunction with California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) District 12, proposes to widen Fairview Street between 9th Street and 16th Street, including replacing the Fairview Street bridge crossing over the Santa Ana River (project) in Santa Ana, California (Appendix A, Figures 1 and 2). The purpose of the project is to reduce congestion and improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety on Fairview Street between 9th Street and 16th Street, consistent with the Orange County Master Plan of Arterial Highways and the City's General Plan Circulation Element. South of 9th Street, Fairview Street provides three lanes in each direction that are reduced to two lanes in each direction north of 9th Street, across the existing four -lane bridge, to 16th Street. The Fairview Street segment between 9th Street and 16th Street is the only constraint for Fairview Street to be built out to its planned width of six lanes. This condition causes a traffic "bottleneck" during peak hours. In addition, there are no sidewalks, bikeways, or lighting on the existing bridge. Pedestrians and bicyclists currently use the roadway shoulder to cross the bridge. The Santa Ana River Trail (SART) runs on both sides of the Santa Ana River in the project area. The SART is a Section 4(f) Resource and would be temporarily closed during construction of the Project. The Area of Potential Effects (APE) for this project totals 11.93 acres. The APE includes areas where physical impacts from the project would occur. These are generally limited to the project's proposed and existing right-of-way and include the horizontal and vertical limits associated with ground - disturbing activities. The vertical APE within the areas of direct effects will extend to a maximum depth of 15 feet for bridge abutments. On March 16, 2018, a survey of 3.92 acres of the 11.93-acre APE was conducted to identify cultural resources. The APE is mainly paved, developed area, although patches of exposed sediment with some variation of ground visibility were found. One archaeological resource, an isolated fragment of marine shell, was found during the survey (P-30-100233). Under federal Section 106/National Historic Preservation Act and State of California Environmental Quality Act guidelines, isolated finds are not considered important/significant resources. Attachment 4 of the Caltrans (2014) Programmatic Agreement also states that isolated prehistoric finds consisting of fewer than three items per 100 square meters are exempt from evaluation. As such, the isolate shell fragment is not important and requires no additional evaluation for the current project. It is Caltrans policy to avoid cultural resources whenever possible. Further investigations may be needed if the site[s] cannot be avoided by the project. If buried cultural materials are encountered during construction, it is Caltrans' policy that work stop in that area until a qualified archaeologist can evaluate the nature and significance of the find. Additional surveys will be required if the project changes to include areas not previously surveyed. Q:\WKE1702\Cu1tural\ASR\ASR 2019 OS-21.docx (06/03/19)