Cultural Resources Update and Assessment of Effects for the Cross Terminal Road Relocation Project Chatham County, GA: Site 9CH793 (Fairlaown Slave Quarters and Church) and Resource CH-PW-25 (Avenue of Live Oaks)

On January 16, 2019, Brockington and Associates, Inc. (Brockington) completed an update to the Phase I cultural resources survey for the Cross Terminal Road Relocation Project located on the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA) Garden City Terminal (GCT). The project tract is located south of Grange Road and east of SR 25, in Chatham County, Georgia. (Figures 1 and 2). This cultural resources investigation was carried out for GPA in partial fulfilment of guidelines established for Section 404 of the Clean Water Act permit. These investigations follow standards and guidelines that are in compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966 (as amended).

GPA is proposing to relocate Cross Terminal Road and expand the Container Berths (CB) 7, 8, and 9 container yards by adding four additional rows of container storage. The road will be re-routed so that it forms the western border of the expanded container yard (the road cannot bisect the container yard for operational and safety purposes). The new Cross Terminal Road will impact the tip of a wetland (Wetland Impact 1) requiring 0.49 acres of impact. The road going west to the multimodal facility on the west side of SR 25 will be re-routed slightly to match up with a new traffic circle and will impact 0.13 acre of very low-quality ditch/wetland (Wetland Impact 2). The proposed site plan will provide a contiguous container storage area directly adjacent to the berth and will increase the overall efficiency, operations, and capacity at the berth (Figure 3).

In 1994, Braley et al. (1994) conducted a Phase I Cultural Resources Survey of 215 acres at GPA’s GCT. At the request of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District (USACE, Savannah), Brockington is conducting an update to the Braley et al. (1994) survey to determine if there are any additional historic resources that have since turned 50 years in age since the completion of the previous survey and that should be assessed with regards to the current undertaking. USACE, Savannah has identified the scope of analysis for the project to include a 100-meter (m) radius around all identified wetland impacts for the proposed undertaking. Figure 4 shows the location of the project scope as defined by USACE, Savannah. Based upon current designs for the proposed project, two jurisdictional wetlands (Wetland Impact 1 and 2) totaling 0.62 acres will be impacted by the proposed project. In addition to identifying all historic resources that were not included in Braley et al,’s (1994) investigation, we conducted an assessment of effects (AOE) for each identified cultural resource within a 100-m radius of wetland impacts.

For this investigation, we conducted archival research using the Georgia Natural, Archaeological, and Historic Resources GIS (GNAHRGIS) database to identify any previously recorded resources and investigations located within, or adjacent to, the defined scope of analysis. In addition, we performed a field revisit to identify any additional historic resources that may have since turned 50 years in age since the completion of Braley et al.’s (1994) survey.