A Field Guide for the Identification of AZGFD Divisions

Alright, how about some tedious but important subject matter? Forthcoming posts are going to refer to a slew of AZGFD divisions, branches, groups, work units, subcommittees, cabals, and whatnot that won't make much sense unless you can navigate the bureaucratic hierarchy.  A summary of AZGFD's organization follows, with attention focused on those heads of the hydra that are publicly known to have been involved with Amity. 

Please understand that I have no first-hand experience with said organization, and I have pieced this information together from publicly available sources. Clue me in if you notice errors or omissions. 

Take a gander at this somewhat watered-down version of their org chart, excerpted from their Volunteer Handbook: 

I have highlighted the units I know were involved with Amity. Let's start with the state Game and Fish Commission. Basically, the Commission is the body empowered by law to manage the state's wildlife. It consists of a panel of five voting members. You can read all about their purpose, legislative mandate, and implementing regs if you really want to here and here. For our purposes, just understand two things:

1. The commissioners are directly appointed by and serve at the pleasure of the governor.
2. The rest of AZGFD essentially works for the commission. The commission dictates     policy, the rest of the agency implements that policy and/or conducts research used to advise the commission's policy decisions.

The Commission has regularly discussed Amity according to their meeting agendas, though mostly in closed session (transcripts not publicly available). One commissioner in particular, Jack Husted, spoke in favor of the project in public session shortly before construction began. Furthermore, as the agency's policy makers, including them here is only right as part of discussion of a tragedy resulting, in my opinion, from a policy failure.

Moving down the chart. Let's skip the Director's office for now, because Director Larry Voyles has not been publicly active in the Amity case. I imagine he must be engaged internally, but based on public documents we know nothing about his activities (or lack thereof). The managerial role in this case appears to have been largely delegated to the Deputy Directors. At the time of the desecration, two men held this office, Gary Hovatter and Bob Broscheid. Of the two, Hovatter appears to have been more engaged with Amity. 

AZGFD breaks the state up into six regions (see map below, also taken from the Volunteer Manual).  These regions function somewhat autonomously, but are beholden to overarching management and technical support from the Phoenix office, particularly the central Field Operations Division. Region 1 (Pinetop) includes most of northeastern Arizona, including the greater Spingerville-Eagar area. This is where the Amity incident took place, and Region 1 staff members were on the ground during pond construction.

Fisheries Branch is fairly self-explanatory. These folks deal with fish and fisheries. Clearly they would have some involvement in a project aimed at creating a fishery, like the Lee Valley Pond. Fisheries Branch was tasked with identifying funding for the project. Beyond that, I have seen only scant evidence that speaks to the nature and extent of their involvement.

So far so good, but there under the Wildlife Management Division, Habitat Branch is highlighted. How are they involved in all this? They do what? Make sure the bighorn have access to water so we can go shoot them? In fact, yes, that is one of their functions. Perhaps that's unfair paraphrasing - they do many other, less ignoble-sounding things. 

In relation to Amity, we are really only interested in a subset of Habitat: the curiously positioned Project Evaluation Program (PEP). This AZGFD webpage describes their function as follows: "to facilitate the inclusion of fish and wildlife resource needs statewide, in proposed land and water development projects and to identify possible impacts to the Department's wildlife management authorities and State Trust responsibilities," whatever that means.
More to the point, and the reason I say they are curiously placed, the page points out that PEP "ensures environmental compliance through coordination with other state and federal agencies and other Department work units and regional staff. Further, PEP assists with the development of agreements, such as Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) or a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) [sic]." PEP also "provides technical and environmental policy guidance and oversight through coordinated reviews of internal and external projects, management plans, and related policies affecting fish and wildlife resources" [emphasis added]. 

INTERESTING. So this is where the agency archaeologist is, right? Well, no. PEP has never, so far as I can tell, included a staff archaeologist. Their project review flow chart (source) is telling:

So cultural resources fall under PEP's purview, but the group doesn't perform technical assessments or make determinations themselves - they identify "appropriate reviewers." That is, they pass the buck to SHPO.

VERY INTERESTING. More soon. In the next few posts, we'll take this academic information into the applied realm.