Climate Change and the Dead: Interactions between Climate Reality and the Section 106 Process When Caskets Float

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Federal agencies are mandated to follow the National Historic Preservation Act’s Section 106 process when undertaking or funding projects that have the potential to impact certain historic sites or structures. These mandates have run headlong into the reality of cemetery damage from recent, increasingly devastating storms and other impacts of climate change. Between 2020-2021, Louisiana experienced damage to nearly 4,000 graves from Hurricanes Laura, Delta, and Ida. Some of this damage occurred in operating cemeteries that were not subject to Section 106. However, much of the damage occurred in cemeteries likely subject to Section 106. Navigating community needs for closure when their dead are disrupted and federal mandates for Section 106 compliance is difficult and sensitive when people’s loved ones are impacted. As climate change increases the incidence of severe weather events that will damage cemeteries, navigating these complexities will extend far beyond Louisiana. In this presentation, we review the existing methods for dealing with Section 106 compliance and we suggest programmatic changes by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation that account for the need to rapidly and inexpensively respond to cemetery impacts resulting from disasters.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52397