Law Firm Enters Debate Over Proposed Jail : Santa Paula: The Environmental Defense Center says a study of the site fails to properly document the risks of quakes and floods.

An environmental law firm with a string of victories in Ventura County has entered the debate over a new jail the Board of Supervisors wants to build on farmland near Santa Paula.

The Environmental Defense Center, which has won court battles over air quality and the site of a state university in the county, has concluded that a county consultant’s study of the Santa Paula jail location is severely flawed, a spokesman said.

At a hearing this afternoon, the firm’s attorneys will tell county supervisors that the environmental study is inadequate primarily because it does not properly document the serious risks of earthquakes and floods on the 157-acre jail property at Todd Road and the Santa Paula Freeway.

“Obviously, they need to go back and do some serious work,” said the center’s chief counsel, Marc Chytilo. “And the Board of Supervisors needs to do some serious thinking about whether this is the best site.”

The law firm, which represents a Santa Paula-area group called Citizens to Save the Greenbelt, is one of 46 organizations or individuals that have responded to the county’s draft environmental study since it was released six weeks ago. One response includes 750 form letters, all in opposition.

Critics of the study--and the project--include the Sierra Club, the Environmental Coalition of Ventura County and the city of Santa Paula.

Supervisors approved construction of the 752-bed first phase of the new jail in 1990 after a preliminary environmental study found few problems with the Santa Paula site.

A second, more detailed study--the one now under consideration--was required before construction could begin. Officials say the new jail is needed because existing lockups can handle less than a third of the 3,500 inmates projected for Ventura County in the year 2010. The existing central jail usually holds more than double its 440-inmate capacity.

Today’s hearing, scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in the supervisors’ chambers in Ventura, allows the public to respond to the new study.

In the next few weeks, county officials will either reject criticisms as invalid or correct those flaws in the report. Supervisors are expected to make a final decision next month.

Despite the new objections, coordinators of the jail project said the new study shows that the Santa Paula location has no major drawbacks likely to block construction of the $54-million facility.

The site would not be significantly threatened by earthquakes or floods, though it is near a river and a major seismic fault, said county Public Works Director Arthur Goulet, project coordinator.

Nor will it necessarily prompt more construction on the sprawling agricultural lands that border it, Goulet said. That has been a prime concern of many area residents.

“Any person with an open mind who goes out and looks at the site understands we’re not in the middle of a pristine greenbelt; we’re on the edge of an industrial area,” Goulet said. “This has already been debated. But because of the process, the people now have the opportunity to say the same things again.”

New to the debate, however, is the Santa Barbara-based Environmental Defense Center.

The nonprofit law firm sued in 1989 to force the state to do a more extensive environmental report on the Taylor Ranch, where the Cal State system then wanted to build a university. The firm also sued the federal Environmental Protection Agency and eventually forced the county to enact a stronger anti-smog plan.

Chytilo maintains in an 18-page document filed Friday that the jail study fails to meet legal requirements in evaluating the facility’s effects on the environment.

The lawyer said county consultants failed to conclusively establish the probability of an earthquake or flood on the site. “They have to quantify the risk,” he said.

The property lies near, and perhaps over, the major Oak Ridge Fault. “The highest probability is that it is somewhere on the property,” Chytilo said. And the October, 1989, Loma Prieta earthquake shows the damage that a major temblor can cause, even when it is centered several miles below the surface, he said.

A thorough analysis is “particularly important here, because this is a facility where people are not going to have the ability to flee. They’re going to be exposed involuntarily.” In addition, most of the jail site would be inundated during 100-year floods of the adjacent Todd Barranca and Santa Clara River, Chytilo said. That would flood the jail’s sewage plant and block the jail’s access road, he said.

In response, Goulet said the county had done far more research on earthquakes and flooding than is required by law.

He said the jail would be constructed to prevent catastrophic damage during major temblors and flooding of facilities even during rare events such as 100-year floods.

The floors of the jail will be one foot above the high-water line in such a flood, he said. Berms will be built around the jail sewage plant to prevent overflow, he said.

Goulet said Chytilo’s additional concerns about possible disruption of a Chumash Indian cultural site and disruption of a spring and creek on the property are issues that have been thoroughly studied. The spring will not be disrupted, and the consultant has concluded that it is highly unlikely that an Indian village was on the site, he said.

Nor does the county intend to pave over the Todd Barranca as a flood-control measure, as Chytilo assumes in his report to the county, Goulet said.

“He dropped this on us on the last day,” Goulet said.

“It’s a mixture of statements, questions, suppositions and irrelevancies,” Goulet said. “We have to wade through all of that and determine what it is we need to respond to, and we will.”

The new jail, if finally constructed, would cover 43 acres of prime farmland. The Sheriff’s Department has said it plans to continue to harvest the 95 acres of orchards on the jail site with inmate labor.

The department estimates that it will cost $10 million to $12 million a year to operate the first phase of the jail, which could be in operation by 1994. The first phase would accommodate 752 inmates in buildings covering 20 acres. It would eventually house about 2,300 inmates.

County officials have said construction of the jail could be delayed for months because the county has no money to operate it.