Project Role
ESS provides project administration of the team at Ft. Benning, GA, responsible for managing historic preservation on this 100+ year old fort. Working with four highly trained professionals in the fields of archaeology and historic preservation, ESS provides not only management guidance, but enables the team to acquire tools and training to better enhance their jobs. Now in our third year of a five-year SBA contract, we have been instrumental in improving team performance and their ability to achieve goals essential to the project. One of our first tasks was to improve their staffing situation, which allowed them to not only achieve delayed goals, but to add new goals that had seemed out of reach. When travel was restricted due to COVID, we redirected discretionary travel funds towards classes and certifications for the entire team and acquired a dedicated computer to run software essential to their ability to map and track their work. We work closely with our sub-contractor to ensure that all needs are met for their team members, and we also work closely with our fort liaison, continually asking for feedback regarding the needs of the project and ways that improvements can be made. Because this project was outside our engineering wheelhouse, it required that we stretch our minds to embrace a new field and learn to work with a group of people who, for the most part, had been a team for some time and knew much more about the subject matter than we did. We have managed to develop a great relationship with the entire team, working together with mutual respect while encouraging them to come up to a new level of commitment to this ongoing project.
Project Description
Fort Benning has historic resources that include over 650 historic buildings, most within the Main Post Historic District but also within other cantonment areas on Fort Benning, that continue to play a vital role in meeting the training and deployment mission of the installation as well as historic housing. Fort Benning has over 3500 archeological sites with 215 eligible for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) and 535 sites requiring evaluation for eligibility to the NRHP in Georgia and Alabama, many within an archeological district situated on either side of the Chattahoochee River. In 2018, Fort Benning had approximately 700 actions reviewed under the NEPA/FB144r system. The objective of this contract is to identify, organize and report installation actions that might affect these resources. This contract will support accurate reporting to the State Historic Preservation Offices of Georgia (GASHPO) and/or Alabama (ALSHPO) during a yearly face-to-face meeting (with quarterly information provided to GASHPO). This important work is an ongoing effort by the military to ensure compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and to honor and learn about those people groups that went before us in the area encompassed by Fort Benning.
Fort Benning requires full time architectural historical services to provide expertise and guidance on the treatment of historic buildings and historic districts on the installation. In particular, these services will require review of Fort Benning actions as they appear in Work Orders, Fort Benning Form 144r-Record of Environmental Consideration, Environmental Assessments, Environmental Impact Statements, and related decision documentation for potential project effects to historic properties on the installation. Service meets, in part, requirements of the Army Alternate Procedures for compliance with Section 106 of the NHPA. In addition, it is required that the architectural historic services follow the Integrated Cultural Resources Management Plan and review of projects that might affect historic properties on the installation. Historic properties include historic buildings, historic/archeological districts, archeological sites and curation of archeological collections. The project will support assurance of coverage of Fort Benning responsibilities in compliance with The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), The Archeological Resources Preservation Act (ARPA), 36 CFR Part 79 for collections curation and other legal or regulatory mandates.