Newhall Ranch Development

* Re “Newhall Ranch: The Fundamental Stall Tactics Apply, as Time Goes By,” July 9

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was designed to facilitate a dialogue between the public, the government and the developer. CEQA would define a system of development planning. It was intended to find an environmental balance. However, just as in our national political system, the influence of money took over.

Newhall Land & Farming Co. has been generous to politicians with its largesse. The campaign committees of L.A. County Supervisor Michael Antonovitch, who presided over the approval of the Newhall Ranch development, have historically benefited from developers.

The result that evolved is the CEQA acceptance of a level of planning that, to me, does not even meet the definition of preliminary engineering. Sketchy drawings and maps backed up by thick environmental impact reports are accepted. In the Newhall case, for over 22,000 housing units for 65,000 people, to cover up the deficiencies of the project and mitigate its faults, the draft EIR consists of 4,700 pages. In it, problems would be mitigated by future studies and engineering.

Ventura County Supervisors, concerned residents, farmers and environmentalists of the Santa Clara River Valley challenged the EIR in court, and Judge Roger Randall agreed with important aspects of their challenge--particularly the lack of a guaranteed water supply.

The area is seismically unstable. Development in the flood plain now is counter to state and national land-use policy. One of Newhall’s prime residential areas will be built on an aging oil field. Abandoned oil and gas wells, buried pipelines and old oil sumps can become portals of pollution.

Heroic engineering measures and large outlays of money are needed to mitigate such environmental hurdles. The Newhall Ranch planners, reviewers and approvers ignored these problems. The sad truth is, the L.A. government showed little interest in anything except accommodation.

The lessons of ongoing geological and natural disasters are ignored. Upstream watershed development has dire consequences on priceless California resources. Our beautiful beaches are starving for the replenishment of the mountain sediments washing down to the sea. A Newhall Ranch development ignores the fact that the Santa Clara River, the last free-flowing river in Southern California, acts as a conveyor belt to carry this sediment. However, since there is no biological process without waste, an additional 65,000 inhabitants will use the river to deliver polluted runoff to the shores.

It is not the job of private developers to set limits. It is their job to make money as fast as possible. The insurance industry, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration wait in the wings for taxpayers to take up the slack. The present scale of the Newhall Ranch project is too large. With its river-altering demands it will act as a “noose” around the neck of our beautiful Santa Clara River Valley. The project should be reduced to fit more moderate growth.

CLARENCE FREEMAN

Fillmore