WESTFIELD – The Community Preservation Committee (CPC) voted unanimously July 8 to provide $15,000 for the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission’s (PVPC) archeological survey of the Hampden-Hampshire Canal.

The goal of the survey is to place the canal on the National Registry of Historic Places (NRHP) and to preserve what remains of the long-defunct canal. The section of the canal in Connecticut that ran from the border with Suffield to New Haven was placed on the NRHP in 1985.

The section the PVPC is trying to survey runs through Southwick, Westfield, Russell, Southampton, Easthampton and Northampton. The PVPC has asked each of the six communities to contribute $15,000 each for a total of $90,000 to conduct the survey.

PVPC Historic Planner Shannon Walsh said during the meeting that a similar effort had been made to document the canal in the early 2000s. That effort ultimately failed because the state required all six communities to be on-board, and there were some holdouts.

“The objective is to build upon countless amounts of previous efforts documenting this canal in the 1800s and to move it forward as a cohesive project in documenting it from one end to the other,” said Walsh.

PVPC Regional and Municipal Programs Manager Eric Weiss said that Easthampton and Southwick had already put up the money, and that Northampton is in the process of doing so.

Walsh pointed out that the survey is likely to be complicated by the fact that some of the canal is certain to have run through areas that are private property today.

Weiss said that he finds the canal project to be particularly unique.

“I don’t think there is a project as unique as this one in terms of trying to protect the historic value that I think this one has,” said Weiss.

CPC member and Historical Commission Chair Cindy Gaylord said that some of the remaining infrastructure of the canal is quite visible, but one has to know where to look.

Walsh said that the survey may involve the use of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) imaging to detect walls and structures that may not be easily visible to the naked eye. She said the end-goal is to get the Massachusetts portion of the canal on the NRHP and have it finally connected to the Connecticut portion. She said the inclusion of this section on the NRHP may make it easier to preserve what remains of the historic infrastructure.

When the project is completed, Walsh said that some of the information will be readily available to the public, like the map of the canal’s path. However, some information may not be made available, like the locations of specific stones or structures, for fears of people taking them for themselves.

Gaylord said that the $15,000 for the study would come out of the historic account. Southampton and Russell have yet to commit to the project.