Ahmanson Foes Question Safety of Soil

In a last-ditch effort to stop the Ahmanson Ranch development, its opponents tried to persuade a state appeals court Wednesday that the ground under the proposed mini-city may have been contaminated by chemicals and even radioactive material from Rocketdyne’s nearby rocket-testing facility.

Unbuilt and long-mired in lawsuits, the 3,050-home development is planned for a long sliver of land in easternmost Ventura County, between Thousand Oaks and the Los Angeles County line. The tip of the planned community would abut a small part of Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory, but not the area set aside for housing.

During oral arguments Wednesday asking the 2nd District Court of Appeal to throw out an earlier decision by a Ventura County Superior Court judge, attorneys for a local environmental group told the three-judge panel that such close proximity to the Rocketdyne lab could be dangerous for future residents of the development.

The group argued that winds could have carried chemicals and radioactive materials from the rocket-testing site to the area where the Ahmanson Ranch development will be built, contaminating the soil.

Foes say the original development plan, approved by the Ventura County Board of Supervisors in 1992, did not take the possibility of such contamination into consideration.

“They’ve tested the ground water, but never tested the soil,” said Rosemary Woodlock, the attorney for Save Open Space.

Outside the court’s Ventura headquarters, Mary Weisbrock, one of the founders of Save Open Space, pointed to discoveries several years ago of soil and ground-water contamination on two parcels of land adjacent to the Rocketdyne property to support the group’s contention.

Samples from the Brandeis-Bardin Institute, a center for Jewish studies in the hills above Simi Valley, and from a piece of Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy land were found to contain low-level radioactive pollution in 1991. The Brandeis-Bardin Institute sued Rocketdyne over that contamination last year.

Lawyers representing Ahmanson Ranch and Ventura County at the hearing could not be reached for comment. But Ahmanson spokeswoman Mary Trigg dismissed any possibility of soil contamination on the sprawling, oak-dotted former cattle ranch.

“That was studied in the original environmental review,” she said. “That is my understanding. And since then, we have continued to monitor both the water and the soil on the ranch, and there is no contamination.”

Furthermore, Trigg said, the actual houses will be built in the southernmost portion of Ahmanson Ranch, with 500 homes in Bell Canyon sandwiched between them and the Rocketdyne property.

Rocketdyne spokeswoman Lori Circle said there is an additional buffer--a strip of unused land--between the Bell Canyon homes and any chemical activity at the Santa Susana site. She too downplayed any possibility of soil contamination, saying Rocketdyne has had no impact on the Ahmanson property. The environmentalists have no grounds for their appeal, she said.

“When you’re in a fight, you’ll pull in everything you’ve got,” Circle said.

Circle said Rocketdyne did extensive studies in 1992 and 1994 looking for contamination of ground water, soil and vegetation in the surrounding communities, including samples from Bell Canyon.

“The results of that study showed that our former operations had no adverse impacts on our neighbors,” Circle said.

The appellate panel is expected to issue an opinion within the next month.

The environmentalists’ plea is the latest in a string of legal fights over the giant development. After county supervisors approved the development plan in 1992, several groups filed suit, claiming that the supervisors had overlooked environmental impacts on Los Angeles County, where all the traffic in and out of the development would be routed.

That lawsuit was rejected by Ventura County Superior Court Judge Barbara Lane in 1994 and later by the 2nd District Court of Appeal. Efforts to get the appellate court to rehear that suit have also failed.

Wednesday’s hearing was over a second lawsuit arguing that a three-year extension granted to Ahmanson on its development plan nullified the environmental impact statements that have already been conducted.

Lane also ruled in favor of Ahmanson and Ventura County in that case, prompting the appeal by Save Open Space, the city of Calabasas and the homeowners’ association for Mountain View Estates.

Trigg said Ahmanson is in the final stages of settling several other lawsuits over permits and access points into the development.

She declined to say when ground might be broken on the mini-city.

“We try to stay clear of estimating the time,” she said.