Plan for mitigation of archaeological sites, San Antonio 201 Wastewater Treatment Project

Since December 1976, the Center for Archaeological Research has carried out a succession of archaeological surveys of proposed sewer line routes and sewage treatment plant construction in the San Antonio area (Fox 1977; Fox, McGraw and Valdez 1978). The data recovered, archaeological sites recorded and recommendations for future work have been provided to Radian Corporation for use in preparation of the Environmental Impact Statement. The engineers have published the 201 Wastewater Facility Plan (Pape-Dawson et al. 1978). It is now appropriate to examine this plan in relation to the archaeological work already completed, in order to assess what must yet be done to conserve archaeological resources wherever possible, and what mitigation will be necessary where sites will be threatened with damage or destruction. After working on this project for two years, some observations can be made about the problems inherent in planning archaeological surveys for a sewage collection system (or for any type of utilities system) for a dynamic municipality such as San Antonio. Unfortunately for our purposes, population growth and real estate development are not entirely predictable in location or extent. Plans made in December are often out of date by January and overrun by May. Therefore, planning and archaeological survey must be flexible and cover as many eventualities as practical and possible. Cooperation and communication between planners, engineers, city personnel and archaeologists must be maintained on a constant basis in order to keep abreast of changes in routing and funding. These changes must of necessity occur frequently to meet current problems and changing priorities.