Intensive Archaeological Survey of Certain Segments of the Proposed Toccoa-Franklin Natural Gas Pipeline, Georgia and North Carolina

The Municipal Gas Authority of Georgia, a public corporation and instrumentality of the State of Georgia that is a wholesale gas supplier to 64 municipalities in Georgia, is proposing to construct a new gas supply line from south of Toccoa, Georgia north along a route that generally follows or parallels U.S. Highway 441 to its terminus just south of Franklin North Carolina. The project also entails the construction of six distinct natural gas distribution systems in the communities of Hollywood, Tallulah Falls Tiger, Clayton, Mountain City and Dillard in Habersham and Rabun Counties, Georgia and in the town of Franklin in Macon County, North Carolina. The project requires Section 404 nationwide permitting and must comply with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended. This act requires that any federally permitted project must take into account the effects of the undertaking on significant historic properties, which are those listed on or eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The process of locating and identifying eligible and potentially eligible properties in the project area has been multiphased, and the present report is the third to deal with cultural resources. As described below, one segment of the proposed line was archeologically surveyed in July 1998 (Braley 1998), and the entire line was subjected to a reconnaissance-level survey in September 1998 (Gresham and Braley 1998). The survey reported on herein examined those seven segments of the proposed corridor identified in the reconnaissance report as appearing to traverse undisturbed land forms. No sites were detected.