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Logan Simpson completed a Class III cultural resources survey for the Meridian Road Improvements Project located in the Town of Queen Creek along the boundary between Pinal and Maricopa Counties, Arizona. The Town of Queen Creek is planning to construct the half-street improvements (west side) along two noncontiguous segments of Meridian Road. The North Segment is a 1.0-mile road alignment between Queen Creek Road and Germann Road. As part of the North Segment construction, Queen Creek Road will be widened for 0.25 miles east and west of the intersection with Meridian Road. The South Segment is a 0.87-mile road alignment between Riggs/Combs Road and north of Queen Creek Wash. In the South Segment, the Queen Creek Wash crossing (15-barrel cast in place box culverts) and a 30-foot temporary asphalt road from Riggs/Combs Road to north of Queen Creek Wash will be installed as a traffic reliever prior to the construction of the ½ street improvements. Approximately 2,000 feet of a 12-inch Town-owned water line will also be installed with the traffic reliever activities. Features associated with the ultimate improvements for both segments include new pavement, pavement marking and signage, traffic signals, street lighting, utility relocations, drainage channels/basins, and landscaping. The intended right of way (ROW) for the improvements along Meridian Road and Queen Creek Road is 140 feet wide (42.6 meters) and includes a series of eight retention basins on the ROW periphery within the southern portion of the project area, making the total area of the current road improvements project 42.5 acres (17 hectares) in total.

SRP requested that Logan Simpson conduct an intensive cultural resources survey of a 72.4-mile-long and 200-ft-wide (1,755-acre) segment of the SRP Coronado to Silverking 500-kV transmission line within the TNF and private land. This survey was requested for general inventory purposes and also in advance of proposed vegetation-maintenance activities within the project corridor. In addition, SRP may conduct maintenance or construction projects within the limits of the project corridor. Vegetation maintenance will be performed with mechanical mowing equipment, mounted on a track hoe or a rubber-tired frontend loader, and by hand-cutting using chain saws. All vegetation removal activities will be confined to the 200-ft-wide corridor with the exception of possible hazard tree removal, which would be accomplished using hand-cutting with chain saws only. Any disturbances that cannot be confined to the project corridor would be covered by a separate cultural resources survey once such areas are identified.

Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport (PMGA), administered by PMGAA, is upgrading and modernizing its runways and taxiways with new pavement and shoulders, drainage, and installation of utility conduits for lighting along the taxiway. SRP is upgrading the power supply from 4 kV to 12 kV as part of the project. At the request of SRP, Logan Simpson Design Inc. (LSD) conducted archaeological monitoring within the boundary of AZ U:10:127(ASM), the Will E. Coyote site, a prehistoric Hohokam site listed in the National Register of Historic Places. A Programmatic Agreement (PA) is in effect for ground-disturbing activities conducted at PMGA.

This is the report on the results of archeological monitoring of the excavation of a trench for a pipe to relocate an SRP irrigation lateral near the site of Pueblo del Alamo in Phoenix, Arizona. K. Hovnanian, in conjunction with a housing development project, sought to realign the lateral and replace it with a subterranean pipe; that action led them to comply with Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the State of Arizona Statute A.R.S. 41-865 and the City of Phoenix Ordinance on Historic Preservation (Chapter 8, Section 802) pertaining to the repatriation of human remains. The purpose of the monitoring was to address the accuracy of these site boundaries and to document and recovery cultural remains that occurred within the trenched area. These statutes and ordinances stipulate the recovery and repatriation of human burials to appropriate descendent groups. Accordingly the project focused on monitoring trenching operations in an effort to locate prehistoric deposits. A 1324 foot (403.5 meter) long by 11 foot (3.25 meter) wide trench was dug south to north on the west side of the existing canal to accommodate a 36” pipe. The trench depth was 6.5 to 7 feet and the sides were stepped back in order to satisfy safety standards. The center of the trench measured 5 feet in width by about 7 feet in depth, and the stepped areas on each side measured about 3 feet in width and 3 feet in depth. The total width of the trench was thus 11 feet (3.35 meters). The disturbed area was a total of about 14564 square feet (1353 square meters) in area with a minimum depth of 3 feet (.91 meters), and within that an area of 6620 square feet (615 square meters) was excavated further to a depth of about 7 feet (2.1 meters). Revised November 16, 2006, April 2 , 2007