2a) SOILS: (2) Relevance to Santolina

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As a background that may help to explain the reasons for the conditions leading to Janessa's letter (and
its implications for some similar soils conditions on the Santolina site). The following 'capsulizes' the
history that leads to this parallel. This is based on comments by Dr. John Hawley, C.P.G, and others.

That is: The high tableland (the Llano de Albuquerque), which we now call the West Mesa, is over
1,000,000 years old. It is part of a 'peneplain' that stretched east and southeast to include the South
Mesa (now called 'Mesa del Sol'). The Rio Grande then was in an alignment about where San Mateo
Blvd. is now (that's why some of the most productive City wells are in this corridor). A long N/S swale
on 'Mesa del Sol' still attests to this alignment. In the millennia since, the alluvium from the erosion of
the western face of the Sandias has pushed the alignment of the Rio Grande westerly until it now is
cutting against the bluffs of the West mesa (such as where I-40 cuts through to Coors Blvd).

The Huning Ranch development, on the SW corner of I-25 and Hwy. 6 on the west edge of Los Lunas,
however, appears to be on an ancient river terrace of the Rio Grande, cut out of the same ancient soils
of the West Mesa, about 100,000 years ago, as it meandered across a much shallower version of what
we now call the Valley.

The linear, E/W, Sahara-like, 10-15' high dunes on the top of the West Mesa, primarily in the area of
the proposed Santolina development, are from a later period of very strong N/S winds of about 10,000
years ago (before the river moved back easterly in this portion of the Valley, cutting the Valley deeper).
Meanwhile the Huning Ranch 'river terrace', now on a more elevated area, was subject to the same
10,000-year-old, strong N/S dune-forming winds, hence the similar (not identically named) "loamy fine
sands, 1-9% slopes" occurring in both places (for example, the Madurez-Wink soils which cover a large
portion of the 'Santolina' area are composed of ~ 20% Bluepoint and Pajarito soils).

In a much more recent history, in the late 1960s thru the mid 1970s, I was responsible, with staff, for
the inception and development of the content thru adoption of the original Albuquerque/Bernalillo
County Comprehensive Plan. As part of that work, I observed the unique dune conditions on the West
Mesa south of, then US 66, now I-40. I asked the USGS about them. They said they didn't know, and
then as a response, initiated the P. W. Lambert survey: "Map showing present and potential sources of
blowing sand in La Mesita Negra southeast quadrangle, Bernalillo County, New Mexico: U.S. Geological
Survey, Miscellaneous Field Studies Map, MF-600, scale 1:24,000".

The problem seems to be that the Santolina development proposal (and, perhaps, the reviewers in
both the County and City Planning Departments) may not have had a full recognition of these unique
and very significant soil conditions, as evidenced in the proposed, very 2-dimensional-colored-area
Santolina planning diagrams. In contrast, the two options presented in the ‘Modified Santolina
documents submitted Nov. 13, 2018 to the BCC address these concerns and, we believe, would allow a
more ecologically sound and economically superior outcome for the re-configured Santolina proposal.

The specific references in the more detailed, full 'Paper’, as attached in the Nov. 13 submission, also
identify the sections of, and the Resolution adopting, the Planned Communities Criteria (PCC), which
mandates recognition of these unique conditions, as well as the shared City/County responsibilities
relating to any development on the West Mesa.

Respectfully, Paul Lusk