Judge Gives Go-Ahead for Prison in Lancaster : Corrections: He rejects environmental objections. The action boosts a proposal to build a prison in East Los Angeles.

A judge on Monday rejected environmental challenges by Los Angeles County and Lancaster officials aimed at blocking construction of a state prison in the high-desert city, freeing the state to begin grading the site.

The ruling boosted a state plan to build new prisons in Lancaster and East Los Angeles. Latino activists and Los Angeles city officials are trying to block the latter facility with a lawsuit.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Edward M. Ross turned down portions of a lawsuit by Lancaster and the county that sought to force the state Department of Corrections to produce a new environmental impact report on the $250-million, 2,200-bed Lancaster prison. The judge said that the report done by the state was adequate.

“There’s no impediment at this point for this to proceed,” said state Deputy Atty. Gen. Chuck Shoemaker. “We’re ready to go.”

City and county attorneys said they did not immediately know whether they will appeal Ross’ ruling. But they noted that sections of the suit challenging the proposed prison on constitutional grounds are still intact and scheduled for a Nov. 14 hearing.

The Lancaster and East Los Angeles prisons were linked in a 1987 “pain-for-pain” compromise hammered out in the Legislature. Lawmakers agreed to permit a prison in heavily Democratic East Los Angeles if another were built in the heavily Republican Antelope Valley in northern Los Angeles County.

Gov. Deukmejian and other state authorities have argued that Los Angeles County has an obligation to provide prison space because it has no state prisons but generates almost 40% of the state’s inmate population. The governor has charged that prison opponents are endangering the overcrowded state prison system with frivolous legal action.

Deputy County Counsel Helen Parker argued during a one-hour hearing Monday that the state environmental impact report was inadequate because it did not fully analyze the impact of building a prison for maximum- and medium-security inmates on a 252-acre site in the thinly populated west side of Lancaster.

Parker also said the report did not properly consider alternative locations and failed to explain state assertions that it would never be occupied by more than 190% of its planned capacity.

But the judge rejected those arguments, saying the environmental report properly addressed the issues.

“You raise a lot of smoke, but I don’t think you raise a lot of fire,” he said.

The county wants to expand its jail and courtroom facilities on the Lancaster site, and a state prison there would force county officials to scale back their plans or buy land elsewhere, Parker said. The county owns the property, but the state is trying to acquire it through the power of eminent domain.

“The state beat us to our own property,” Parker said. “It’s unfortunate because when you have local detention needs as well as state detention needs, you ought to be able to accommodate both of them.”

The ruling also disappointed Lancaster citizens seeking to block construction of the facility. Residents and officials are worried that construction of the lockup will hinder home development on the fast-growing city’s west side.

“We felt there were very substantial arguments as to the inadequacy of the EIR,” said Danielle Marvin Lewis, a Lancaster real estate broker who heads a citizens committee opposing the prison.

“But we’re very hopeful that the city and county will continue by filing an appeal,” she said.

Shoemaker, the deputy attorney general, said state corrections officials plan to open bids Oct. 4 for a $4.9-million contract to grade the prison site. He said delays caused by the court action were increasing the facility’s costs by $650,000 a month.

The lawsuit by Lancaster and the county also challenges the constitutionality of the compromise legislation that authorized the two prisons.

The suit argues that by authorizing two prisons on two sites paid for by separate appropriations, the deal violates a state constitutional provision that legislation be limited to a single subject. That issue will be taken up at the Nov. 14 hearing.