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Opinion: Before starting the bulldozer, ask what we stand to lose
By Bruce D. Coons
Published in the Union-Tribune, August 13, 2026
September/October 2026
Every generation decides what it will leave behind. Before a bulldozer arrives, before a road is widened, before a federally funded project breaks ground, there should be one simple question: What are we about to lose?
For 60 years, Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act has ensured that federal agencies ask that question.
Section 106 has served as one of America’s great success stories. It doesn’t prohibit housing, transportation projects, renewable energy facilities, military improvements or public infrastructure. Instead, whenever the federal government funds, permits, licenses or approves a project, it requires agencies to consider whether irreplaceable historic and cultural resources could be affected—and whether those impacts can be avoided or minimized.
Most people may have never heard of Section 106. Yet throughout California and our country, this quiet but essential process has helped communities identify historic buildings, archaeological sites, cultural landscapes and places of shared memory before irreversible decisions were made.
Now that safeguard—the public’s voice in protecting America’s history—is under the most serious threat it has faced in decades. The proposed changes by the Trump administration would dismantle a system that has allowed communities for 60 years to have a voice in decisions affecting their own history and weaken decades of bipartisan preservation policy.
Among the proposed changes is a redefinition of “adverse effect” that would limit reviews largely to direct physical damage, ignoring visual, contextual and setting-related impacts. In practice, that means a 250-foot arch could rise next to Arlington National Cemetery and across from the Lincoln Memorial, permanently altering the sightlines and setting that make those places significant, and it wouldn’t have to be weighed in the federal review at all.
You don’t have to touch a historic site to destroy what makes it meaningful. Sometimes you just have to loom over it. The same principle applies here in San Diego, where military history, tribal cultural landscapes, historic neighborhoods and border-region heritage all depend on meaningful federal review.
For nearly six decades, Save Our Heritage Organisation has worked with communities across San Diego County to protect the places that tell our collective story. We know the best projects result from thoughtful planning, early consultation and public participation.
Government agencies cannot always know the full history of the places they affect. A historic resource may not be listed on a register. It may not have a plaque. It may not appear in a database. Its significance may live in the knowledge of residents, tribal communities, historians and local organizations who understand the stories behind a place.
Section 106 does not require every historic place to be preserved. It requires informed decisions. Early consultation often prevents costly delays, redesigns and lawsuits while bringing engineers, planners, tribal nations, historians, local governments, preservation groups and communities together before construction begins. It is good stewardship of taxpayer dollars.
Historic places are economic assets. They support tourism, attract investment, strengthen neighborhoods, create skilled local jobs and reinforce the distinctive identity that makes California and San Diego communities unlike anywhere else. Once destroyed, those assets and the stories they embody cannot be rebuilt.
Protecting San Diego’s historic resources is central to Save Our Heritage Organisation’s mission. Together with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and partners across California and the nation, we will inform the public and urge Congress to reject these harmful regulations.
This should alarm every American who believes that our history belongs to all of us—not just to those with the authority to approve its destruction.
The time to speak up is now. Contact your members of Congress and tell them that protecting America’s history is a responsibility we owe to future generations.
Unlike many policy decisions, the destruction of historic places cannot be reversed. Once a battlefield, neighborhood, cultural landscape or community landmark is lost, no future generation can recover it.
Coons is executive director of SOHO (Save Our Heritage Organisation), dedicated to historic preservation in San Diego County.
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