The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) has proposed a project to widen
US 80/SR 26 from just west of Bull River to just east of Lazaretto Creek in Chatham
County, Georgia. The proposed project will widen the existing roadway to four
lanes, widen the existing bridges and construct two additional bridges over Bull
River and Lazaretto Creek. In order to identify potentially significant cultural
resources in the project area, GDOT contracted with Tidewater Atlantic Research,
Inc. (TAR) of Washington, North Carolina to conduct a pedestrian and submerged
remote sensing survey of those areas to be impacted by projected related activities.
That survey was conducted in June 1999 and revealed no cultural resources within
the study area. In 2000, GDOT issued a modification of the right-of-way in selected
portions of the US 80 I SR 26 project area. In order to identify potentially significant
cultural resources in the extended project area, GDOT contracted again with TAR to
conduct a pedestrian and terrestrial magnetometer survey of those modified areas to
be impacted by construction activities. The work performed consisted of a
background literature review, a magnetic and pedestrian archaeological survey of
the tidal marsh and a pedestrian archaeological survey of a relic land surface east of
Lazaretto Creek. Fieldwork activities were conducted on 12 April 2001. The
pedestrian and remote sensing survey of the tidal marsh between the two crossings
revealed no cultural resources within the modified sections of the project area. The
survey of the east bank of Lazaretto Creek on the north side of the road way
revealed that the modified right-of-way is located in an area that has been highly
impacted by past road improvements and other construction activities and contains
no intact cultural resources. As a consequence of these results, no further
investigation is recommended for the proposed project.
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