U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Louis District (CE SLD) IDIQ Contract, Western Region
NAGPRA compliance curation and collections management
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
St. Louis District, CEMVS-ED-Z
1222 Spruce Street
St. Louis, MO 63103-2833
Dr. Michael Trimble, (314) 331-8466
Estimated Cost: $1.2 million
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| Locations worked at under CE SLD contracts |
In 1995, SRI began a five-year open-end contract with the CE SLD to conduct research related to NAGPRA compliance for CE civil projects that had been conducted throughout 13 western states (including Hawai’i and Alaska). In addition, curation and collections management services were required for already-existing collections for which the CE has responsibility. The primary purpose of the work conducted under this contract was to provide the information needed for various CE offices to fulfill their NAPGRA responsibilities and to facilitate compliance with 36 CFR Part 79. Twenty-one delivery orders have been issued under this contract. To date, SRI has worked on CE materials from 14 states in 13 CE districts. The scope of SRI’s work was amended to include materials from the entire United States.
To date, SRI has traveled to four CE district offices and 14 SHPO offices acquiring information on CE projects. The tasks involved reviewing all existing CE civil projects, determining which projects were conducted on CE-owned land, and collecting bibliographic and contextual data on archaeological sites located on these lands. Thus, SRI personnel had to write reports while simultaneously conducting fieldwork. We were able to complete these orders on time and within budget through teamwork and careful management. The project manager, Dr. Teresita Majewski, was in contact with CE personnel daily, and together, they were able to shift team members to critical tasks to ensure the success of the overall project. Once CE civil projects were identified, SRI was able to locate the repositories where archaeological collections from these projects were curated. A second phase of the contract began, and 18 repositories have been visited to date to assess the collections and identify NAGPRA-related materials. In 1997, SRI began entering all data collected into a government-provided NAGPRA database, providing data-reconciliation services and quality control.
SRI has also provided SLD with needed skills in other areas. Early on, SLD personnel recognized the superior quality of SRI’s report-production capabilities. Accordingly, two delivery orders were issued for SRI to support SLD with editing and report production for 14 reports prepared by CE staff. SLD also enlisted the aid of SRI in assessing collections at 23 repositories for one of the clients of the Mandatory Center of Expertise for the Curation and Management of Archaeological Collections (MCX-CMAC) and writing reports regarding those visits within a four-month time frame. Currently, SRI is reviewing the data collected by one of the CE’s other regional contractors and entering these data into the NAGPRA database. Finally, SRI has worked closely with SLD to market the services of the MCX-CMAC. In particular, SRI has helped to produce a brochure for the MCX-CMAC and assisted in developing strategies for approaching potential clients.