The Augusta Utilities Department wishes to expand an existing water pollution control plant that is located in east Augusta, on the edge of Phinizy Swamp in the floodplain of the Savannah River. The expansion to the north will affect about 10 ac of nearly level, elevated land that overlooks the broad expanse of Phinizy Swamp, which is a now channelized remnant of a complex river floodplain system. To comply with the Georgia Environmental Policy Act, the project area required an archeological survey to determine if any sites eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places would be affected by the undertaking. The survey was conducted in August of 2004 by the excavation of 58 shovel tests on a 20-m grid. Twenty-nine of these tests yielded small numbers of quartz and chert flakes and late nineteenth to early twentieth century artifacts. We consider all of these to be part of one large site, the boundaries of which have not yet been fully determined. Based on a comparison to extensive testing of a nearby very similar site and lesser amounts of work on another nearby site, we conclude that the newly discovered site on the project property, which has been assigned site number 9RI1111, is not likely to yield important new information and is therefore not eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. Thus, it is our recommendation that the proposed expansion of the J.B. Messerly water pollution control plant will not adversely affect significant archeological resources and should be granted clearance to proceed.
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