Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Roca Honda Mine

Chapter 3. Affected Environment and Environmental Consequences
NEPA to identify potential impacts arising from the proposed project. For Section 106
compliance, “historic properties” are analyzed to identify potential effects arising from the
proposed project. Impacts can occur to any cultural resource; however, when talking about
historic properties, impacts are called effects. This difference in nomenclature is important from
the view of Agency compliance and the thoroughness of this EIS and, thus, the analysis presented
herein attempts to be clear when talking specifically about one or the other. If the discussion
applies in general to both impacts and effects, the term impacts is used. In reality, as shown
below, the actual analysis methods and information considered to determine impacts and effects is
extremely similar.
Tribal Consultation
As described in detail earlier in this section, the Forest Service engaged in extensive consultation
with the involved tribes to identify important traditional cultural resources and potential impacts
arising from the proposed project to these resources or associated traditional practices.
Additionally, four of the tribes prepared ethnographic assessments, described above. The
objectives of the assessments were to identify cultural resources of religious and cultural
significance to the tribes, as well as cultural practices, and provide information on these resources
and practices and potential impacts thereto. This information assisted the Forest Service in
analyzing the potential impacts of the proposed project under NEPA and assessing the potential
effects under Section 106 of the NHPA. Through the consultation and development of the
assessments, the involved tribes described potential impacts to cultural resources within the APEs
and how these resource impacts could have additional indirect impacts to traditional practices and
institutions that extend outside of the APEs.
Criteria of Adverse Effects
Section 106 of the NHPA requires Federal agencies to take into account the effects of their actions
on any district, site, object, building, or structure included in, or eligible for inclusion in, the
NRHP. Implementing regulations for Section 106 provide specific criteria for identifying effects
on historic properties. Effects to historic properties listed, or eligible for listing, on the NRHP are
evaluated with regard to the criteria of adverse effects.
“An adverse effect is found when an undertaking may alter, directly or indirectly,
any of the characteristics of a historic property that qualify the property for
inclusion in the National Register in a manner that would diminish the integrity
of the property’s location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, or
association. Consideration shall be given to all qualifying characteristics of a
historic property, including those that may have been identified subsequent to the
original evaluation of the property’s eligibility for the National Register. Adverse
effects may include reasonably foreseeable effects caused by the undertaking that
may occur later in time, be farther removed in distance, or be cumulative.” (36
CFR 800.5(a)(1)).
Under Section 106 and its implementing regulations, the types of possible adverse effects include:
• Physical destruction of or damage to all or part of a property;
• Physical alteration of a property;
338 DEIS for Roca Honda Mine, Cibola National Forest