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CA Fires and Federal Assistance - CRMArch 305
0 Playsin 4 hours
In Episode 305, the podcasters discuss the lamentably destructive fires currently ablaze in Los Angeles and CRM’s response to this disaster. We talk about how rebuilding from this tremendous loss of life and property will address historic properties and archaeological deposits despite the State of California’s robust regulatory frameworks. This episode is a must for anyone doing cultural resource management in the United States in the wake of a natural disaster.
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/crmarchpodcast/305
Blogs and Resources:
- Bill White: Succinct Research
- Doug Rocks-MacQueen: Doug’s Archaeology
- Chris Webster: DIGTECH LLC
- Andrew Kinkella
Kinkella Teaches Archaeology (Youtube)
Blog: Kinkella Teaches Archaeology
ArchPodNet
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Transcript
Introduction and Weather Chat
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. This is the Serum Archaeology Podcast. It's the show where we pull back the veil of cultural resources management archaeology and discuss the issues that everyone is concerned about. Welcome to the podcast.
00:00:23
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the CRM Archaeology Podcast, Episode 305. I'm your host, Heather McDaniel McDevitt, and joining me today is Bill in Northern California. Good morning. Andrew in Southern California, not so sunny, Southern California today. It's kind of rainy, which is awesome. And hello, everyone. It is nice to be here. And Doug in Scotland. Is it rainy or sunny in Scotland right now, Doug?
00:00:53
Speaker
Well, it's quarter till five and it's winter, so there is no sun. It's sunset like half an hour ago, maybe, I mean like it's it's getting nicer, the sun, the days are getting longer, but yeah like, but even even if there was sun, it's it's it's a bit rainy out, so.
00:01:16
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah, yeah. different Different question, different time of the years. It's going to be fun. I think we're both in the rainy period. I've been, I was, it was more in March actually when I was in Ireland a few years ago and it was pretty rainy. There's no, there's no rainy period. It's always rainy. It's just like, yeah, yeah. Like there like Washington and Portland. are yeah Like you're looking at rain on like an individual day basis, not like a season. Cause it's just always fairly crap in terms of weather. So like, yeah, there's no such thing. Like.
00:01:55
Speaker
Yeah, don't ever be like, if anyone tells you, oh, yeah, you should come during these months. It's the nicer months. Yeah, that's a lie. That's a lie. Well, that's why they have that saying of there is no bad weather. There's only bad clothing because there's only bad weather. Exactly. Well, you just respond. said Yeah.
CRM's Role in LA Rebuilding
00:02:13
Speaker
Well, today we actually we had a ah question come in to the APN website and here's the question.
00:02:20
Speaker
I'm wondering maybe if you could share on the CRM podcast about the role of CRM in rebuilding Los Angeles. So I thought, you know, we could, there are several different aspects of this. I think maybe we could take it in a chronological order. First thing is involvement in the cleanup involvement in the first stages, right? Because none of this is going to get built up for quite a while. And I think, you know, if anybody's listening to the news, you understand that it's not just about building, just rebuilding these homes, right? And I'm sure most of the homeowners, that's what they're focused on. That's what they should be focused on. They're homeless right now. So, and
00:03:09
Speaker
But it's also about the infrastructure. The level of heat that occurred was just so unbelievable. And and in most fires, I think a lot of people sometimes forget that it is the it's the infrastructure underneath, you know, the wires, all the utilities, everything that can be destroyed as well based you know due to the the high amount of heat.
Causes of LA Fires and Infrastructure Issues
00:03:34
Speaker
And then, you know, the other thing is that a lot of you know, the reasons for these fires certainly have something to do with the way our infrastructure is designed and the talk of having our infrastructure ah subsurface, right? So this is an opportunity, sadly, that these, you know, both of these, the Pacific Palisades and the Altadena area, that these two areas were just devastated
00:04:05
Speaker
Community wide that it is an opportunity. To rebuild the infrastructure properly and to look forward to maybe mitigating some of the risks that lead to some of these fires and it's not always.
00:04:25
Speaker
You know, everybody likes to blame you know PG and&E and these electrical companies. That is part of the problem. There's quite a few other issues that led to the level of devastation that occurred a few weeks ago. So I first just want to kind of open up and, you know, see if what you guys think in general.
00:04:48
Speaker
Sure. You know, first, I'll just tell my short backstory, though, like the as being somebody who kind of was tangentially affected by the fire. So I i live on the sort of outskirts of the l a area, but our power was out for four days in total. It was out for three days and then another singular day. I was actually also evacuated from Moorpark, from the school where I work, because a very small fire that you guys didn't hear about, right, started very close, but they were able to contain it. So the last, like, the last two weeks have been very difficult for, you know, obviously, of course, I'm not comparing my situation to people who lost their homes and this kind of stuff, but the entire Southern California basin, basically, I think
00:05:35
Speaker
Many of us still have our important papers and stuff in our car, you know, at at this point, because there were so many moments where it's like, oh, my God, OK, we got to get ready again. Oh, my God. And it's been very taxing. So yeah, it was a ah very.
00:05:52
Speaker
incredible time to just sort of live through and watch and also I'll say I used to live in Pasadena so I know you know some of those areas and I'm so sad for them and also to bring this full circle to CRM I used to work for a CRM firm that was located in Pacific Palisades you know so I and the firm was run out of the person's home in Pacific Palisades so I worked in Pacific Palisades for a lot and I know for like a fact that that place is just you know it's all gone and so it's It's very shocking when you when you've had, you know, personal experiences in these places and you know that they're just like just not there anymore.
Rebuilding Logistics Post-Fires: Challenges and Community Resilience
00:06:30
Speaker
And I will say, Heather, I think this is a great topic for today because everyone in Los Angeles is basically super curious about the nuts and bolts of, OK, how do these people actually rebuild? What are the hurdles? I think we just spend the whole time basically just talking about like that stuff because everyone wants to know.
00:06:51
Speaker
Yeah, and I want to second that too, because the you know folks that were displaced and everything, you know the San Francisco area is very far from the fires. And this year was pretty wet up here, so we won't have to worry really about those kind of crazy firestorms like they had in Southern California, in Northern California for months now, right? But the reality is, in Northern California, those firestorms that tore up Paradise and other towns. I mean, there were students and stuff that go to the place where I work. And they, you know, have been badly affected. And it's been years and those places never necessarily came back, right? Like, there's a whole combination of things that happen after your entire town burns down. So folks that are listening, first of all, the like you mentioned, Andrew, the people who were directly affected, the folks in the l LA area, I mean, this is this is one of those kind of like,
00:07:46
Speaker
defining moments that have caused like trauma across a huge spectrum. And so you know we should never forget about that. It's not just homes that were lost. It's like entire lives, right? Generational you know landscapes gone yeah all the way. And you know folks displaced all over the area. And then everyone else that's in the LA basin got to think about, well, is this going to happen to them, right? Because the environmental conditions are across the entire southern half of the state. And there's tens of millions of people that live in this area.
00:08:16
Speaker
So it's not just ah you know a one-off thing. And so folks could be listening from anywhere else in the country, as we saw from these hurricanes that destroyed North Carolina, that still has floodwater and Asheville still torn up. People who live in places like Florida, who have seen this kind of stuff, the folks who are going to live in the areas that are going to see these huge heat waves this summer, that, you know, the 2024 was the hottest ever. I think people should start opening their heart and their mind to, you know, we got to really just change the entire way that we live and the way we think about the world because this stuff is coming for everyone in the country. And the best thing that happens from it is how people come together and help each other out. All the folks who have shown up to provide food and clothing in the near term and how
00:09:03
Speaker
we're talking about rebuilding, they will come together, they will figure something out. But, you know, in the wake of these storms, people and their neighbors come together. And that's the true thing that's going to get all of us through all of this, right? Because we can't stop the way the world is changing, but we can definitely help all the other folks that are directly affected. Agreed. Doug.
00:09:24
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'll look a little positive to Bill's comment, and you shouldn't look at, is this the hottest year on record? It's the coolest year of the rest of your life is how you should be looking at it. But yeah, to to Bill's point, it's going to get worse for decades forward, if not centuries, and to switch it around back to sort of the the impact.
00:09:50
Speaker
so but Los Angeles is going to be a different scale, but this sort of thing has happened in the past, various different parts in the country. About 45 years ago, they burned down Los Alamos. A controlled fire went out of well what out of control. They lit a a controlled burn when like the winds were like 16, 80 miles per hour, and they ended up burning down half of the the town of Los Alamos in New Mexico. so
00:10:20
Speaker
you
Legal Frameworks: CEQA, FEMA, and CRM's Role
00:10:21
Speaker
Most people know it from the labs and home in the atomic bomb, but it's ah is it does take a very long process to rebuild and it will be years if not, I mean, there was still stuff like a decade later that hadn't quite been rebuilt in the town and that's sort of normal for the sort of processes that's going to happen and go through for you know rebuilding and CRM will probably play a part in that because you guys have a statewide CRM law, don't you? Yes. In California? Yes. Well, I mean, it's an environmental law, but it includes cultural resources statewide. Correct.
00:11:04
Speaker
Yeah. And I imagine that has, is it a greater coverage? Because you know there's there's obviously the federal laws, but that's usually federal land slash federal money provided. It depends how and how extreme they're going to do the rebuild. So if you know some of that infrastructure involves federal money,
00:11:22
Speaker
that might involve it. But I imagine you guys, I think you were talking earlier that there's more specific legislation that would probably impact most of the houses being rebuilt in those areas. Is that correct or am I off? i Yeah, I wanted to talk about that. I think a lot of people, at least I'm seeing on the social media sites, a lot of kind of but concern for, yeah, actually more for people's jobs than they are concerned about.
00:11:50
Speaker
the people, I mean, and maybe that's unfair, but, you know, concern that CRM is going to be pretty much eliminated from the equation of of these rebuilds. And that's not true. That's not going to happen. You know, you have different levels of funding, different levels of jurisdiction. Obviously, you have the local, you have the state, and you have the federal. And just like Doug said, you had, and I think we'll finish off this segment just with laying the groundwork for the conversation for the next two segments.
00:12:18
Speaker
So, federal funds, just like Doug said, you know, you're going to have federal involvement, Section 106. When you have federal funding, if it's on federal land or some kind of federal permitting, and actually the federal permitting is usually what comes in, that that's more common than the other two. But in this case, because you have federal funding through FEMA, there is some kind of, you know, Section 106 is required. Now, it sounds like there may be some workarounds that will be happening, not that it will be done
00:12:54
Speaker
you know, to completely ignore cultural resources. But I worked on the FEMA effort for the Montecito mudslides and the Thomas fire that happened five, six years ago. And, you know, it just happens very quickly. Those FEMA responses obviously have to have to happen very quickly. And so, you know, yeah it can't be a long drawn out process. The federal, you know, we have yet to see where that's going to go and what limitations are going to be.
00:13:23
Speaker
put on the Section 106 consultation process, how it might be streamlined a bit. The next is the state, and that's in California, CEQA, what we call CEQA, California Environmental Quality Act. California Environmental Quality Act actually was written very much at the same time as NEPA. And it's very similar because a lot of there the same people are involved in writing of both. And so it's very, very similar. In fact, it might be, a how it is facilitated and yeah how it is facilitated is actually a little stronger sometimes than NEPA, but CEQA is in play here for sure. And then you have the local regulations and those local regulations are not cannot diminish or or lessen CEQA, but they can increase it.
00:14:15
Speaker
so I think with that said, we'll move on to the next segment and we'll really talk about, I think the one thing that we need to do, and I'll leave the segment with this, is that the way that we can as CRM professionals understand our role in rebuilding during you know after these types of disasters, so and in general, I think, is to stay away from the emotional arguments and to really look at what What are the legal ramifications? What are the legal parameters of this kind of work? Because really, really what is going to, in the end, win the day as far as what occurs and what doesn't relevant to CRM. So we'll be right back.
00:15:01
Speaker
Welcome back to CRM archaeology podcast number 305 segment two. We are talking about a CRM role in the rebuilding of the LA area after the fires. And we finished off with just a brief explanation on the jurisdiction of federal, state and local agencies in the process. We didn't really delve in, but just kind of defined the three. Doug, you had You had your hand up before we. Ended the yeah, it was a question about the local stuff. Do you guys know if there's specific local ordinances that.
00:15:43
Speaker
are in place in those areas, or I imagine part of those areas, the fires have probably crossed several municipal boundaries. Maybe, maybe not. I'm not a California person, so you guys are all thrown around like, oh yeah, you know, Encino and yada, yada. I'm like, oh yeah, I mean, that that sounds like a place in California, but so does everything, so. Don't worry, Doug, I never know where the hell they're talking about either. Google it, I don't know any of the towns.
00:16:12
Speaker
So i'll I'll let you know. So Pacific Palisades and maybe Andrew, you can jump in on the um yeah it's fun area, but yeah Pacific Palisades is the one that everybody is seeing that's along the beach and the devastation that happened. I mean it, the little downtown. So Pacific Palisades is a section within the city of Los Angeles.
00:16:32
Speaker
just so that people know. And it's like it would be more considered a neighborhood, but it has its own little downtown area that had developed over years. It just was so cute. I do a lot of work in Pacific Palisades. It's a beautiful area. Unlike what a lot of I think the perception that people have, yes, there are wealthy people that live there, there are celebrities that live there, but they're few compared to the everyday resident. And these residents, like many people in California, have lived here, it's generational.
00:17:07
Speaker
And these properties, there's no way that if these individuals that lived on these properties were to come to Pacific Palisades today, they wouldn't be able to afford to live there. But because they have inherited the land and the homes over generations. And because of that, you have such a ah vibrant, amazing community here in Pacific Palisades. And you'll probably be finding out those that are not from here will be finding out more and more about Pacific Palisades, just like we did about the Paradise Fire, the neighborhood, the community that lived there.
00:17:36
Speaker
So, you know, it's important to understand that these are people with average incomes that are now facing having to rebuild their homes. They do not have fire insurance because many of them because their fire insurance had lapsed and they were trying to figure out how to get fire insurance. So if you don't live in California, you may not know this, but in in areas where there's a high propensity for fire and there's other things, you know other issues, other components of these decisions, insurance companies have pulled out of certain areas because the risk is just too great. And insurance, they are a company, they do need to make money. They have shareholders that
00:18:19
Speaker
they have to answer to and if the risk is too high they pull out and you know there's we could probably spend a whole amount of time on that but there was a long time the fire insurance and companies didn't just pull out you know one day you know there was a long lead time like the law requires and there were also fire insurance companies were working trying to work with the state to figure out ways that they didn't have to pull out. And because of a lot of the environmental regulation, there were just the risks were too high, as you could see why, right? The results of that. So so these people did not have fire insurance and now they're in this predicament. This wasn't because they were lax and in taking care of their responsibilities as they were trying to figure out how are they going to get insurance?
Fire Insurance Challenges in California
00:19:12
Speaker
Because when you do
00:19:14
Speaker
have to have government um-backed insurance. It's extremely expensive and that's just yeah it's it's awful. you know I used to live in Simi Valley. There's areas where fire insurance is just through the roof and a lot of people just go self-insured or hope to throw their you know themselves on the mercy of of you know, governmental assistance. So that is as far as Pacific Palisades, Andrew, do you want to explain just the context of where Altadena is?
00:19:45
Speaker
Sure. Here, I'll do sort of a a quick tour of all of it. And ill also just to add for Pacific Palisades, for those of you who might know Southern California a little bit, it's just north of like Santa Monica. It's kind of like the next little tiny community in its own little valley, mini-valley kind of thing, which is why it was so susceptible to the whole thing. And also Pacific Palisades, it was a community of all like mid-century modern homes. You know, it was awesome. They're all small. This was not a community of like multimillionaire McMansions.
00:20:15
Speaker
Not at all. These are like small, you know, 1400 square foot, you know, kind of homes all built in 1960, you know, that kind of thing. It was very pictures first with large mansions, but there's a few, but overall, like if you were driving along, you know, you're like, oh, there's a lot of like fifties homes here, you know. Right.
00:20:37
Speaker
and And Heather's completely right about the sort of generational thing and also the fire insurance thing, which I've had you know bummer experiences with. I have it, but people who don't live around here realize that people are dying to try and get fire insurance around here. They they really try and stay on top of it, but the the insurance companies are so awful you know in terms of just dealing with and they're always just trying to screw you. you know And it's really it's just a really, really difficult situation.
00:21:05
Speaker
in terms of Altadena. So but now we take a trip to the other side of Los Angeles. Pacific Palisades is on the western side. Altadena is on the eastern side. So you cross over the downtown where the big buildings are and then in sort of the northeast corner. That's where Pasadena is, right? And then Altadena is kind of in the little like northeast corner of Pasadena. And of course, Altadena kind of buttresses up right against the San Gabriel Mountains, which is the other reason why Altadena, you know, got hit. because it's right there, kind of at the base of the mountain. So the fire sweeps down and hits it first. So Altadena got really hammered and then even little parts of Pasadena right there. It's very hard to tell the boundary between Altadena and Pasadena. They just kind of flow together.
Altadena's Historical Significance
00:21:52
Speaker
what so Another thing to note too about Altadena compared to Pacific Palisades is Altadena was the neighborhood that black people were allowed to live in that weren't allowed to live in actual Pasadena. So when we're talking about intergenerational wealth and passing things on, these are folks who have lived there for multiple generations through Jim Crow, who then their house is all torched.
00:22:14
Speaker
right And but but today, like, if you go there, it's very it's very multicultural, right? It's all, you know, ah and ah everyone's living everywhere. But historically, Bill is absolutely correct. And even all the people, him and Haw, about the prices of homes in California, they're just all expensive. You know what I mean? Even even a little tiny home in Altadena is still going to be worth, you know, a million dollars, whereas Pacific Palisades will be like two and a half million. dollars, you know, that it's it's still it's all um very expensive because that's just the world of California. And again, that doesn't mean the people living there are, you know, multimillionaires, just like Bill and Heather were saying. These are it's it's generational. I mean, even for for me, my mother owns her home in the Bay Area, but she couldn't buy her own house today. You know, that's that's the story of so many Californians that I think often doesn't get told.
00:23:12
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I bought my house in 2017 and I couldn't afford to live on this tree today. Right. Me too. So, you know, to back to Doug's, good point. um Thanks, Andrew. Back to Doug's question as far as the jurisdictional You know, the agencies that that would be involved in the rebuilding of these areas. So in the Pacific Palisades, you have a entity called the California Coastal Commission that generally there it it also it's purview is generally within a mile of the beach.
00:23:47
Speaker
of the water up to for a second yeah Um, just slightly taking it back.
Jurisdiction and Building Authority Complexities
00:23:53
Speaker
So, you know, different parts of the States have different ways of doing your mega cities where like some basically, you know, there's a city and then there's a bunch of suburbs and they all sort of get pulled in, but the suburbs actually will be either run by counties or by their own cities. yeah How is it in California? It has Los Angeles. like You guys have all these different names. It has Los Angeles like basically annexed all of these little towns. It is actually Los Angeles, the city, or are these some of these like county those weird counties?
00:24:27
Speaker
run cities or are they their own city the as well? so Yeah, so the answer is sometimes, Doug, some of these cities we're talking about are their own city and others are a like a municipality of LA City, you know, it just sort of it depends.
00:24:43
Speaker
So you have so when it when it comes to, and ah Andrew's correct, and also when it comes to ah what agencies are in control, right, with building, it's you have areas where they're still considered Los Angeles, but it's not within the city limits. So then if there is no actual incorporation of a city within the county,
00:25:10
Speaker
area, it goes then falls onto the county of Los Angeles. So the the lead agency would be the county of Los Angeles, even though I might be sitting and I'm, I'm saying I'm in Los Angeles, my address is Los Angeles. And you can have neighborhoods where people can choose to have a Los Angeles address, they can put that Los Angeles on the address, or they can put specific battle scenes on the address, it's still going to get to their home. And so you have, if you have a neighborhood, generally there's, you'll have the city of Los Angeles is so big that it has actual like specific plans for
00:25:47
Speaker
certain areas what we call specific plants and therefore there to address a certain area because that area has different needs than another area in the city of los angeles and so the regulations are going to be different even though you have this overarching city of los angeles conditions, but then you can also have conditions that are very specific to that area. And then on top of that, you have the Coastal Commission. And the Coastal Commission is, like I said, their jurisdiction is generally within a mile from the ocean, and also it can change a little bit depending on the topography. so
00:26:27
Speaker
Sometimes it's not always a mile and sometimes it might be a little bit more. But so that in Pacific Palisades, the Coastal Commission has a lot to of regulations and I do a lot of work, like I said, in Pacific Palisades and the Coastal Commission is the most involved. It is definitely the most difficult process to get through, although a lot of times you can have the these agencies Somewhat work together so let's say you're doing an assessment cultural assessment for a single family home. Improvement or rebuilding and.
00:27:07
Speaker
The City of Los Angeles, the Coastal Commission, you'll do an assessment. The City of Los Angeles will work in concert, or this Coastal Commission will look at the assessment that was conducted for the City of Los Angeles, and they may impose their own conditions on top of the City of Los Angeles. Now, many times they're together, but they may be strengthened.
00:27:31
Speaker
So, that's what's happened in that Pacific Palisades is the Coastal Commission has in order to streamline their efforts and a lot of time people say streamlining and that's going to help with, you know, minimizing mitigation. In fact, sometimes it makes it worse because you have this streamline approach, meaning you have a programmatic.
00:27:50
Speaker
assessment of an area. And then you have conditions, you have these thresholds within this programmatic assessment that happened to address this entire area. And this is what the Coastal Commission has done in specific areas. And then they had these conditions that as long as your building meets or doesn't exceed the threshold of what they list off as fitting within this programmatic agreement, they have these conditions that you must abide by. And it's across the board. And sometimes it's monitoring. And these mitigation measures are not written very well. They're written to they're very burdensome on applicants. And these are not large developers. these are
00:28:37
Speaker
single family homes and having to pay tens of thousands of dollars for ongoing monitoring throughout the entire construction process is owners. It really does not make sense. And so these programmatic streamlining approaches a lot of times do not work. They don't work because they're not written properly. And then also people that work for the Coastal Commission are very conservative in their approach. And they don't want to make decisions. So they say this is that these are the conditions, that's what you have to follow. And it makes it and makes it very difficult. And that's part of what people are a bit up in arms about. Doug. Is the Coastal Commission a
00:29:19
Speaker
state based entity, I realized, you know, in the wonderful world of government, you can have multiple different sort of things, but it's is ah essentially the coast commission, all of the coast of California. So it's based at a state level or is this like a Southern California thing? It's state. Okay. And do you guys have in California, conservation zones or conservation areas at all?
00:29:48
Speaker
Can you define that? Yeah. Okay. I'm realizing but that's that's the question. So you run into it can be, um you definitely get it in like Europe where basically the theyll map they'll just draw a line around the area in a ah city, a county, whatever landscape. And basically you then have additional regulations that go on with that for conservation for historical buildings and historical areas. You get it in like neighborhoods in certain different states. and yeah yeah Yeah, historic districts, basically. Oh, yeah. Yes, we do have that.
00:30:26
Speaker
Are any of these areas covered by that as well or is that not these parts? Sorry, i don' nothing I've been to LA like once and it was just like you know a massive concrete jungle. yeah So I couldn't tell you.
00:30:42
Speaker
Look closer next time, man. Yeah. like And you're right. Like there are some historic, you know, overlay zones. And and actually, I'm not sure if any of the historic overlay zones got hit. I'm not sure. But I do know, like in Altadena, that there are like historic homes and that kind of stuff that would be on the national register and that kind of thing. Yeah, because there's also the sort of, I guess, slightly complicating it.
00:31:09
Speaker
So are you talking national register as in like US national register or yes register? Does in California also have a state level register? What I was talking about was the national register because that's, you know, we're talking national laws and stuff. so So that's a good question. So with respect to the federal funding, so when the federal funding comes into play, if It goes like any other federal funding. You're looking at only the national, red for the most part, you look, there's other times you might be looking at other things, but for the most part, you're looking at National Register of a Historic Resources and
00:31:50
Speaker
The one thing to remember is it's not just, so let's say this wasn't due to a fire. Let's say you had federal funding and you have a historic prop yeah and soica building on your property. you know it It doesn't end just at, is this on the list? It's at just as important, is it eligible to be on the list? So there's a difference. you know You have properties that are eligible to be on the list and then you have properties that are actually listed. And there's really no difference between the two actually.
00:32:20
Speaker
What the difference is, is that you had a community effort or for some reason there was an effort to make sure that it was actually listed on the NRHP, but the non-listed but eligible to be on the list are just as important.
CRM Professionals: Roles and Ethical Considerations
00:32:35
Speaker
They are treated in the same way, right? So you can have lots of resources that are eligible and are still subject to the same purview with federal monies and federal, you know, actions, then it would be if it was on the list. And it's the same thing for what's on the CRHR. Also, this pretty much, if you're on the CRHR, you're likely eligible also, in most cases, for the National Register as well. So they kind of, it's it's not like there's a an abundance of more
00:33:11
Speaker
resources, you're usually eligible for both because the criteria is very similar. That makes sense. It does. Thank you. So why don't we, we'll take this to the next, to the next segment. and Next up, let's talk about what is our role as CRM professionals? What do we foresee, at least this group foresee as what we're going to be doing in in an effort to rebuild these areas? We'll be right back.
00:33:42
Speaker
Welcome back to CRM archaeology podcast number 305. We are talking about CRM's role in the rebuilding of these Los Angeles neighborhoods and areas that were devastated by the recent fires in early January of 2025. I've vaguely seen like a 3D map of like the spread of the fire. So I have a rough idea of like the paradise palisades Pacific Palisades. Sorry, and apologies to anyone from California. I did not mean to mispronounce or get the wrong area. But from what it looked like was it was a coastal road-ish and fairly, well, I guess it depends where you are in the world. But if you're based in the Midwest, it'd be some very extreme mountains.
00:34:36
Speaker
Yeah. Up to the side, other places, maybe less so, but still quite hilly and basically almost it looked like a small strip of sort of inhabitable areas along the coast. And then of course it's California. So then they also just built up hills. So you you still have houses going up. Is that it that a fair assessment of that area or if I got it. Yeah. So so basically Malibu is just a long skinny strip, right? It's like 13 miles long, just the beach area. It runs east to west in that area. That's right at the beach. Right. Malibu is literally just like this little tiny strip. And the similar Palisades is like it's like a little cut out, like a little ball that goes in. It's like a housing development that goes in like this little tiny valley where you are correct. The Santa Monica Mountains like just run right up to the beach and it's just little valley that cuts right into the Santa Monica is just a bit. That's why it was so, you know, ah ready to be the first one to hit in a fire like this. And and so you that you know, the extent of the damage over 10,000 homes were destroyed between the all the fires in Altadena, the Eaton fire and the fires in Pacific Palisades. And I just looked it up as of January 22nd.
00:35:51
Speaker
They've confirmed 6,662 structures were destroyed in the Pacific Palisades fire. So that's about half, ah about the same amount, maybe a little less in the Altadena fire. That is insane. that is yeah that's and These are areas where you You know, fires, and this is where this has really changed. There have been terrible fires like this before. Paradise, for those that aren't from California, this was a forested community. So you had, you know, you were in the middle of this forest in Paradise. In set in the Altadena and in Paradise fires, it is
00:36:30
Speaker
you know, these are like urban areas that are brought up against, that are brought up against these mountain, the mountain ranges. And so previously you expect that the homes that are along the outskirts, along the foothills in an urban area, those are the ones that are going to burn. But for most part, the places that are just kind of in the valley that are just flat, those are usually fine. Right. And unfortunately, because of several reasons, it went out of control and it wasn't just the weather. There was, you know, we didn't have the water, the fire hydrants weren't working. You had one thing that was, you know, I know some firefighters and some of the issues were these electric cars. The electric cars had these lithium batteries that no matter what
00:37:18
Speaker
you kind of water you put on them, they will not stop. And the fumes are so that's right. They're so horrible. And now think about it in these areas, you had a lot of electric cars. And so you have these like little like we call them like Molotov cocktails or whatever that are just sitting in the neighborhoods that are you can't you you cannot put them out. So you have these kind these fires that will never go out, that are just and the embers are flying. So it wasn't just like they could contain it it. As soon as you had a fire somewhere else, you had this torch that was never going to go out until the fuel went away. And so there's so many different elements that need to be addressed moving forward and how
00:38:09
Speaker
You know, we have to try to provide a better situation so that this can't get out of control like it did. Yeah. Sorry. I'll make a comment that I'll finish up my question. I would say, well, it's because lithium burns with water literally explodes. well So you can't do it. It's why most firefighters now, a lot of them for vehicle fires use foam or to put it out, vehicle fires, because they don't know what is going to be in the vehicle. So they use foam, which is relatively safe and well won't cause an explosion when you're adding water to it. Sorry, my wife works for the fire service, so yeah fun little fact. They don't know if they- You guys can take away from CRM, but the question I was going to get at is,
00:39:00
Speaker
So relatively, like if I was looking at like a ah potential you know predictive map of that sort of area, I would say you know certain areas, I guess you guys will know the archaeology of California better, is it sort of like coastal was high potential for yeah Native Americans? Is there like surface paddock?
00:39:20
Speaker
colonial stuff there as well. But a lot of those on the hillier sides, probably not, I would say, is that a fair assessment of attention? But the tribes don't see it that way. And the tribes specifically, but the Coastal Commission have a lot of sway. So the tribes see that whole area as they don't look at it necessarily, and I shouldn't say all tribes, but It only takes one tribe to say that they have an issue, right? So during consultation, for those that are not from California, ah most areas in in the country, consultation occurs with federally recognized tribes.
00:40:02
Speaker
In California, it's not only the federally recognized tribes, but it is the California recognized tribes, which there are over like 150. I mean, there's a lot of them. so And they aren't most of them are not federally recognized. So they may not get consultation.
00:40:23
Speaker
Pursuing to section 106, but for CEQA, they will. And with Coastal Commission, they do. And so they consider these areas. They don't look at probability models. In fact, they actually kind of.
00:40:39
Speaker
lack them or or They don't, and not all of them, but some tribes, and like I said, only takes one tribe to tell the Coastal Commission that they consider this entire area sensitive and therefore that's where the you know the mitigation measures are decided upon. And so they'll say that, okay, well, maybe a habitation wouldn't have occurred here, but We would have hunted here, or this was a sacred area for us, or we were gathering here. We gathered botanicals from here. And so these ah for all these different reasons, tribal cultural resources, the definition of them is pretty broad. And so the whole area is considered sensitive. Now, it was sensitive. We do have historic maps.
00:41:23
Speaker
You know, during the initial set, like in the 1800s, we do have verification of villages and we found, brief you know, remnants of these villages. So it is a sensitive area. But to say the whole area is sensitive is. It's difficult when it comes to mitigation because the Coastal Commission doesn't look at it very.
00:41:45
Speaker
precisely, it just does this blanket approach. And that's where you come into having you know mitigation that's very, very strong and maybe too strong. And it doesn't, it's not appropriate for every property.
00:41:59
Speaker
So, and then the other thing is, is that Pacific Palisades has a lot of historic landslides and, you know, prehistoric, but it has a lot of historic landslides. And so for those that maybe don't understand or are don't know that when it comes to determining whether something is eligible for, you know, like a significant resource,
00:42:23
Speaker
you really need to have your cultural deposits intact. Now, tribes don't look at that way. It's still significant to them whether it's intact or not. But when it comes to being eligible for NRHP or the CRHR, they generally need to have intact deposits. And when you have all these mudslides and then you have, you know, that are historic after habitation, a ah village Native American habitation, it's problematic for, you know, considering whether or not it's significant. And that's why geoarchaeology is such an important aspect of archaeological assessments.
00:43:04
Speaker
so As a landscapist, I'm totally cool with like the expanded fact of ah you know outside most of the definitions that we we find under national registries and stuff like that. so I'm okay with that, but I was going to ask, I might be mixing up the areas. Andrew, you'd said this was mainly a mid-century sort of- Yes, the- ... 1950s. Yeah, Pacific Palisades as a development, you know, it's it's that equivalent of like, welcome to the hyper modern world of 1960. Right. It looks like that, like the first cars to be parked there, I'm sure all had fins, you know, they're like 1960 cars. It has that vibe to it. But yes, and I'm I'm not here to say that there weren't any developments before, but everything there is very post World War Two. Yeah.
00:43:55
Speaker
True. I was going to say it was old. I mean, yeah had California in homes there. You also had mid-century homes there. Yeah. yeah and Do you guys have like a lot of modern build as well? In Pacific policies, it was interspersed. or it I would say, yeah I mean, in these two areas, you had more historic era homes than you had that would be considered that were 50 years or older than you had otherwise, than you had modern.
00:44:26
Speaker
so The question where I'm going with this is, like I imagine there's likely going to be quite a bit of CRM done in the rebuild, just because you're within a mile of the coastal and you know that there'll be a fair amount. But what is there actually going to be a lot of chances of actually finding anything in these areas?
00:44:48
Speaker
ah caino definitely you'll get peripheral stuff in the hillsides, you know hunting and gathering and stuff like that, but you don't really find much evidence you know in terms of artifacts. you know Again, like so we I've done things here where basically, you know nineteen it's it's amazing, 1960s, 70s, 80s developments almost have no impact on the underlying archaeology. like like they They built they They don't really go deep. The foundations are tiny. um The pylons, 10, 20 centimeters, like nothing. But then any modern development we do, we basically did
00:45:30
Speaker
it goes down meters and meters and it takes everything out. like everything like there's like I would say you know probably the worst is modern development in the last couple of decades. Basically, if there's been a modern building there, I can guarantee there is no archaeology surviving. Well, hopefully one archaeologist were there to take it out, not always the case, but it's just such a devastation, I was wondering like, are there areas like that of like, basically, with those modern builds, have they basically scooped out chunks of the hillside to build these houses? And, you know, is there any potential really for finding stuff?
00:46:08
Speaker
So first of all, in California, slab-on-grade is very popular, obviously not in hillside areas.
Impact of Construction Methods on Archaeological Potential
00:46:15
Speaker
In the hillside, you have caissons. So actually, just like you were saying, and it's the same thing, I mean, yeah and you know modern, anything after the 70s where you have CEQA that was involved and cultural resource requirements that that were imposed.
00:46:36
Speaker
You know, in Pacific Palisades, and I've done a lot of work there, a majority of the construction is on pilings, caissons. And so the disturbance is actually limited. You don't want to do too much disturbance if you're using, I mean,
00:46:52
Speaker
I mean, you're on slopes. They're not grading it all the way down to have a flat area. They're only going to grade a certain amount, what they have to, to have a flat area for the area they have to have flat. But the rest are on caissons, very, very deep caissons. So the disturbance is limited. And this disturbance will be limited for this new construction as well, at least in the areas that are sloped, that have the sloped terracing, which is a lot of Pacific palisades.
00:47:20
Speaker
In Altadena, it's a little different. I'm not all that familiar with Altadena, so I don't know. Maybe Andrew can speak to that. Is it slab-on-grade mainly? Yeah, I don't know. It's, oh, because it's older, it's like, it's going to be a bit of a mix. Some will some will some will be that old, like, peer, you know, foundation. And but like like when you have Victorians and craftsmen, you know, and that kind of stuff. But long story short, it's not, it's not very, there's not much disturbance happening, you know, with those. But I thought the question too on, you know, would you find like new archaeological sites or something? That's a tough one. Like I was trying to think that a little bit myself, like in the specific areas, I would actually, of course, first look for is there a creek in that area or that kind of thing. Because some I've had different experiences in locations or like Pacific Palisades in terms of the environment. Sometimes you might find, you know, an archaeological site or something. And other times there's there's really not much of anything. It just depends. That's a tough, tough question for me. Like, is this is this going to be like sort of a ah hidden support? Like, I not want to doubt it. Right. I know everything got destroyed. But yeah, no.
00:48:33
Speaker
It's also going to be massively clear up areas that not normally would ever have archaeology done and may never have archaeology done again in the future. Yeah. Is is this like a sort of Pompeii-esque chance to have ah to be able to discover a bunch of hidden archaeological sites because you you just never would get the chance to dig them for the next couple of centuries? I think that kind of chance is I think that kind of chance is very, very low. But that's just my my take.
00:49:02
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah. What would you say, Heather? Yeah, I, I, well, there are considerable areas that were, you know, that were built before cultural resources assessments were really done and they were done on slide on grade, but there's also fill. So we're not going to be digging, you know, they're going to compact fill, they're they're going to grade. Grade means both cut and fill. And so it all depends. I mean, these geotechnical reports are going to be and important to to take a look at and to see whether or not how deep the fill is. And if they are going to be just working with the current fill and they're not going to be
00:49:46
Speaker
cutting it out, then we may not even get down to the the levels where cultural resources might exist. Now, we're just talking Native American sites, right? There's obviously lots of other eras that have an archaeological potential. So I think since we're getting along, I ah do want to say, you know, ah I don't know if we've really fully ah You know, answer the question of CRM and what we can. So just really briefly, yes, CRM is going to be involved in this. I think it's going, you know, I really hope, my hope, obviously we, you know, you always want, you want work, but we don't want to um at the detriment of these people that have really suffered a lot. And so my hope is that um the assessments are streamlined and are reasonable. My hope is that. Yeah. Monitoring is reasonable.
00:50:41
Speaker
And done, you know, there's no reason to be having monitoring during, you know, when with the movement of artificial fill. That's ridiculous. There's no reason, you know, I hope that the coastal commission will be looking at their mitigation measures, their conditions of approval that they use across the board and that they really take a second look at this and the city of Los Angeles and really decide not that you're not going to have any monitoring, but what is reasonable.
00:51:09
Speaker
what needs to happen in order to make sure that if there are cultural resources there, that they are treated appropriately. That that should be the motivation, not for people to be making money off of this rebuilding.
00:51:25
Speaker
And I think that that's going to take some some delicate and very precise work to to make that happen. And it may end up being that it doesn't happen unless there's challenges, legal challenges made. And I think that, of course, we want preservation, but we don't want preservation. Unfortunately, people that just use preservation as a means to pay their bills and That's not right. And it gives us a bad name. So hopefully there's recent approaches and that there's also flexible mitigation so that, you know, it's used where it makes sense and it's avoided where it doesn't.
00:52:12
Speaker
So with that, I do think actually that this is a really good inspiration for a podcast that just talks about the different types of jurisdictions and different types of agencies and their approaches. So we'll probably do that. Also, I had a bunch of notes on you know the the ah origin of all these laws so that people understand, but I think we'll do another podcast at a later date.
00:52:39
Speaker
That's it for another episode of the CRM Archaeology Podcast. Links to some of the items mentioned on the show are in the show notes for this podcast which can be found at www.arcpodnet.com slash CRMARC Podcast. Please comment and share anywhere you see the show. If you'd like us to answer a question on a future episode, email us. Use the contact form on the website or just email chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com. Support the show and the network at archpodnet.com slash members. Get some swag and extra content while you're there. Send us show suggestions and interview suggestions. We want this to be a resource for field technicians everywhere, and we want to know what you want to know about. Thank you everyone for listening. Thank you to my co-hosts for joining, and we'll see you in the field. See you guys next time. Goodbye. Take it easy.
00:53:31
Speaker
The Archaeology Podcast Network is 10 years old this year. Our executive producer is Ashley Airy, our social media coordinator is Matilda Seabreck, and our chief editor is Rachel Rodin. The Archaeology Podcast Network was co-founded by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in 2014 and is part of CulturoMedia and DigTech LLC. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at w www.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.