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Historic conservation groups are raising the alarm over a move from the federal government they say could make it harder for them to defend sensitive historic sites around the state.
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Changes pushed through by a federal agency last week could upend the federal rule that governs when and how local preservation groups and state agencies weigh in on protections for endangered properties, a process called a Section 106 review.
“We have serious concerns, because it just fundamentally reshapes how Section 106 works,” said Eric Emerson, director of the S.C. Department of Archives and History. “It basically eliminates local consultations in any of the process, and grants far more power to federal agencies to decide what the process can fast track.”
Under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, any federally funded projects must be reviewed for their impact on historic sites, including an opportunity for outside groups, local authorities and members of the public to weigh in.
But on July 24, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C., advanced a rule change meant to streamline the approval process for such projects. But preservationists worry it would eliminate any change for meaningful input from the public.
“With the revisions, they can basically decide whether they want to get the public involved,” Emerson said.
Consultation could now be as simple as notifying a state or tribal historic preservation office about a project.
“It’s a single sheet they send to us,” Emerson said. “It says this is how we will mitigate or won’t, and we can disagree, and then they can just press on.”
Historic groups say the ability for local communities to weigh in on projects helps identify potential problems or dangers to their history — without standing in the way of the project being completed.
“Locally, we’ve seen Section 106 enacted on road widening, on parking lots being built on federal or state property, and as part of the FEMA response process, so it affected the canal after the hundred-year flood in 2015,” said Suzanne Brooks, executive director of Historic Columbia, the local preservation nonprofit.
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Brooks points out that Richland County alone has nearly 200 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and several neighborhoods listed as historic districts. In the past, Historic Columbia has received federal grants for the Seibels House, Robert Mills House and Modjeska Monteith Simkins House that required Section 106 compliance requirements.
Historic Columbia has called on supporters to contact their members of Congress while the proposed change goes through review and ultimately heads for a public comment period.
“Historic Columbia resolutely opposes these proposed changes,” the group said in a press release. “They would weaken public participation, diminish meaningful consultation with Tribal Nations and state and local governments, narrow the range of historic and cultural places considered, and give federal agencies substantially greater control over reviewing the effects of their own projects.”
“This is not simply an administrative revision,” the release said. “It is an effort to dismantle the collaborative process that has helped communities protect irreplaceable places for 60 years.”
The nonprofit noted that the point of the review process is not to stop necessary projects from moving forward, and the current system doesn’t give groups like theirs veto power.
“Projects can, and routinely do, move forward after Section 106 review,” Historic Columbia said. “In many cases, they move forward with better information, greater public accountability, and fewer avoidable losses. Preservation and progress are not opposing goals. Section 106 provides a process for balancing both.”
But preservationists say the process as it exists now has been invaluable in preserving historically valuable properties across the country.
“There are a considerable number of properties being saved that would not be if not for the way it is today,” Emerson said.
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