OIL FIELD of DREAMS : Parklands: The Sheriff’s Department donated land for a Santa Clarita Valley sports complex. But a title search shows petroleum companies, among many others, hold rights to the parcel.

In the beginning, everybody agreed that the desolate stretch of land in Castaic inhabited by lizards and a few hardy steers would make a great spot for some ball fields.

Scouts for the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation reached that conclusion after scouring the Santa Clarita Valley for a spot to build a much needed sports complex. With private land too exorbitant to buy, parks officials were happy when the Sheriff’s Department offered to donate the land, which it considered to be surplus.

The land was flat. It was conveniently located next to the county’s regional parks office. And the property was vacant except for two oil wells on the periphery.

But the county’s luck ran out quickly. The trouble began when county officials learned that oil investors, who they didn’t know existed, had rights to drill almost anywhere on the property. If they wanted, they could legally erect an oil well in the future on a baseball field pitcher’s mound.

“We figured the Sheriff’s Department had clear title, then the more we looked the worse it got, the more complex it got,” said Ruth Roess, a county park planner.

A title search of the 51-acre spread uncovered more problems, said Jane Graham, a senior real property agent in the county’s Internal Services Department, who is trying to help untangle the mess.

The real estate report showed that the title was clouded with 55 entities that had current or old interests in the property. Many of the interests were held by utility companies that have easements running through the property.

There also were some odd entries. The county discovered that the federal government had reserved the right for someone to live on the property decades ago. The federal government also had protected its right to enter the property for purposes spelled out in the “Act of June 10, 1920 (42 Stat. 1063).” No one has looked that up yet.

What’s more, the county was surprised to learn that it doesn’t even own the entire acreage. Two or three acres are owned by Southern California Gas Co., with oil rights on that small plot shared by people who hold as little as 2/108 interest, the title report showed.

“It’s unusual to have a little piece of property out there in the middle of nowhere,” Graham said. “You wonder, ‘Gee, how did that happen?’ They might not know they’ve got it,” she said, referring to the gas company.

The real estate snags have delayed the project for two years, said Etsel Yamasaki, the park project coordinator. Neither Yamasaki, nor anyone else, can say with any certainty whether the entire project can be saved. County officials, however, said they are confident that at least part of the complex can be built by designing the park to accommodate oil wells.

Plans call for the construction of a swimming pool, gymnasium, softball and baseball fields, tennis courts and a playground.

The sports facilities are greatly needed, said Cecilia Foley, recreation superintendent with the city of Santa Clarita. Several thousand softball players now share just four city ball fields. Numerous teams have been waiting for a baseball diamond for at least a year. The city triggered a barrage of complaints this year when, in an effort to free up the fields for more teams, it started limiting the number of teams a person could play on. “Everyone is competing for the same space,” Foley said.

The county is spending $80,000 to study whether the sports complex project is feasible as proposed, should be cut in size or shelved. The studies should be completed by January.

As part of the study, a consultant will try to pinpoint the location of the many natural gas, oil, water and phone lines crisscrossing under the property to see if they would interfere with the park’s construction plans.

Others will try to contact everyone mentioned in the title report. The people will be contacted to see if they would be willing to either abandon or sell their claims to the property.

Elaborate efforts must be made to find all the missing people. Phone books, motor vehicle and voting records and military rolls will all be used in the search. And the hunt doesn’t end if the person is deceased.

“Then you have to find out who their children were and where they are. That’s what we’re up against,” Graham said.

If a person cannot be found, the county must demonstrate to a judge that it has exhausted all avenues before his or her claim is nullified. Sometimes it takes a year to locate people or their heirs, but the county would not have to postpone all work on the project until everyone is located, Graham said.

Perhaps the biggest decision for the county is whether it wants the sports complex to coexist with oil wells.

The county received the encumbered piece of property in 1953 in a swap with the federal government for land in the Angeles National Forest. As part of the transaction, the federal Bureau of Land Management retained the mineral and oil rights to the land. This fact never mattered because the land, fenced off as part of the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho, wasn’t used for much except cattle grazing and crops.

Initially, county officials believed that they would only have to work around two wells on the property that are owned by Commander Oil Ltd. But one day they were contacted by a representative of another oil venture, which plans to erect up to seven oil wells on or near the park site. The venture leased the oil rights from the BLM five years ago and is only now getting ready to drill.

Kaye R. McCown, the geologist for the joint oil venture, said he has assured the county that he and his partners want to cooperate.

“We hope to get all these oil fields in before they build the park, then it will be easier for them to work around it,” McCown said.

L.P. Brown III, the president of T&F; Co. in Beverly Hills, which is the venture’s financial backer, said the wells don’t have to be eyesores.

“If anything, it might make this whole Santa Clarita Valley sports complex aesthetically intriguing or interesting.”

“You can paint them any number of colors,” Brown said. But he added, “we won’t make them Art Deco or anything.”