Santa Fe archaeological committee approves Easy Fiber monitoring plan after debate over sampling approach

The Santa Fe Archaeological Review Committee on May 22 approved an ecological monitoring plan for a proposed Easy Fiber installation after a detailed exchange about sampling methods and reporting.

Presenters for Easy Fiber described a first distribution area—roughly south of Rodeo Road, north of I‑25 and west of Saint Francis—and said their engineers estimate about 146,000 linear feet of buried conduit in the area and roughly 3,000 bore pits. "It's a 146,000 linear feet here for proposed buried lines and about 3,000 pits," said Bernica Bashevsky, a presenter for Easy Fiber. She said roughly 75% of the pits would be smaller than 12 inches and not eligible for standard profiling, leaving an estimated 750 larger pits to be profiled.

Easy Fiber proposed a judgmental sampling strategy that would profile a distributed percentage (they suggested 10–20%), organize sampling by soil unit, produce a geomorphological report of the samples and pair that work with creative mitigation such as targeted surveys and historic updates to the New Mexico Central Railroad record. "We were thinking about organizing it by soil type," the presenter said, adding the firm planned to submit a detailed plan the following month.

Committee members welcomed the effort to manage an overwhelming volume of data but insisted on safeguards. Chair Eck said the committee expects that "all ground disturbance will be monitored," noting that monitoring requirements cannot be waived even when an applicant proposes sampling or creative mitigation. Several members asked Easy Fiber to include historic aerials, a clear map legend and a reader‑friendly monitoring report so staff and future reviewers can assess variability without wading through thousands of raw entries.

The committee and applicants discussed logistics for monitoring crews, noting that construction sequencing and crew staffing affect how monitors can be deployed. Easy Fiber told the committee they would staff multiple crews and work to time monitoring so monitors remain close to active crews.

After the discussion the committee voted to approve the ecological monitoring plan for the case on 1790 Saint Michael Drive with the requested corrections and clarifications to figures, appendices and personnel listings. The committee recorded the motion as carried.

Votes at a glance

- Case 202611948 (EZ/Easy Fiber, 1790 Saint Michael Drive): monitoring plan approved with corrections and requested appendix/figure changes; committee stipulated on‑site monitoring for all ground disturbance. - Several other monitoring plans (see below) were approved with standard stipulations requiring listed downtown‑qualified archaeologists to be present during trenching or emergency excavations.

Why it matters

The approvals set expectations for how large utility and broadband installations will be monitored across Santa Fe. The discussion also highlighted a tension common to urban archaeology: balancing exhaustive sampling and documentation against practical limits on reporting and field time. The committee signaled it will accept creative mitigation only when applicants maintain full monitoring coverage, provide clear mapping and produce accessible reports.

What’s next

Easy Fiber said it will submit a more detailed sampling layout and aerial/context maps at the committee's next meeting in March; staff will verify that resource location figures are placed in appendices per city preference and that monitoring personnel are correctly listed.