NDDOT’s Collaborative Approach to Tribal Involvement during Project Development and Delivery

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The North Dakota Department of Transportation (NDDOT) has been working with regional Tribal Nations since 1998. In 2004, NDDOT and five of these Nations began jointly writing a Section 106 Programmatic Agreement for Tribal Consultation in North Dakota (PA). The PA among NDDOT, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and nine regional Tribal Nations was executed in 2006 and subsequently renewed in 2014. Since that time, NDDOT has worked with up to 17 regional Tribes to address project-specific issues and has also collaborated with Tribes on several issues of mutual interest. An ongoing focus of the collaborative effort known as the North Dakota Tribal Consultation Committee (NDTCC) has been the recordation and evaluation of stone feature sites. As a working group, we agreed upon a recording standard for these types of features in 2011. While National Register eligibility of these features has prompted numerous discussions with State and Federal agencies, this matter currently remains unresolved. Confidentiality of oral histories and access to imparted Tribal knowledge are foremost among the many sensitive issues of concern to Tribes. This paper will discuss various NDDOT projects, implementation of ideals in an imperfect world, and considerations for the future.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23654