This article ran in the October 19th publication of the North Shore News.
This article is the first in a series of updates to the North Shore community about the ongoing progress of Turtle Bay Resort’s draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) Preparation Notice. This series will include in-depth highlights of particular components of the expansion plan. For more information about Turtle Bay Resort’s SEIS, please log onto www.turtlebayseis.com.
As part of its efforts in preparing a SEIS for the Turtle Bay Resort Expansion Project, the resort owners have voluntarily authorized a Supplemental Archaeological Inventory Statement (SAIS) to be conducted on the property. This survey will supplement numerous surveys that have previously been completed.
The purpose of the SAIS is to determine whether areas proposed for ground-disturbing activities (grading, trenching, or excavation) contain previously undetected cultural resources in the form of archaeological features, cultural artifacts, or burials. A series of test trenches will be carefully excavated over two hundred acres of land by a team of professional archaeologists. A plan has been submitted to the State Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Historic Preservation Division (SHPD) for approval and no SAIS test excavations will begin until the plan is approved.
In preparation of the SAIS approval, a cultural practitioner has already surveyed the land to ensure that no endangered species of plants or birds will be disturbed and initial work to remove tree and plants in these areas are currently underway.
Once the SAIS plan is approved, the excavation will take approximately three months. All excavation will be done under the supervision of the archaeological team. If any archaeological or cultural materials are discovered during the test excavations, the findings will be documented and evaluated. Any findings will be preserved in place while a plan to address the findings are prepared and submitted to SHPD for approval. A final report on all test excavations will be presented in the draft SEIS.