Archeological Cultural Resource Site Capping

Added: Apr 27, 2017 3:48 pm The Fort Irwin Installation Contracting Office, MICC-Irwin, intends to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP), on or about May 10, 2017 on the FedBizOps website at www.fbo.gov. The requirement will be to cap approximately 36 acres of soil, to a depth of 12-inches. The purpose of this project is to protect significant cultural resource sites within the U.S. Army National Training Center, Fort Irwin, CA in accordance with federal mandate.

Contractor shall be responsible for ensuring that all work is accomplished in compliance with the proper building codes and regulations in accordance with the statement of work. The project site is located approximately 20 miles from Fort Irwin cantonment, at the National Training Center (NTC), Fort Irwin, California. Proposals will be due approximately 30 days later.

The National Training Center, an Army installation of approximately 1200 square miles, is located within the Mojave Desert of Southern California. The NTC provides realistic training in a harsh environment. ITAM is charged with managing the training land in a sustainable manner and protecting cultural resources in accordance with federal regulations. Two cultural resource sites near Nelson Lake have been identified as important prehistoric archeological resources and are eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places (NHRP). These sites were occupied by groups of people as much as 10,000 years ago and are among the most important archaeological sites at Fort Irwin because habitation sites of this age are extremely rare in the Mojave Desert. Testing at these sites has revealed the presence of intact features likely to contain evidence of lifeways 10 millennia ago. Ground and/or airborne training activities within the boundaries of these sites will cause damage to them. Damage to an archaeological site is defined by ARPA as "unauthorized excavation, removal, damage, alteration, or defacement of archaeological resources. No person may excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface, or attempt to excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface any archaeological resource located on public lands." Therefore, these two NRHP eligible sites must be protected. The mechanism for protecting these sites as approved by the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) is to cap the sites with sterile fill.