Racetrack Plan Worries Water Officials

A Brea developer’s plan to build a $35-million harness-racing track is raising concerns among Orange County Water District officials that runoff from the track and its parking lots would harm the Santa Ana River, the single-largest source of Orange County’s drinking water.

William R. Mills Jr., the agency’s general manager, wrote to officials in Norco, the rural Riverside County town where the track would be built, arguing that a thorough environmental review is needed because “of the clear potential for serious impact to water resources and the surrounding environment.”

The agency manages the river and the ground-water basin it feeds, supplying 2 million Orange County residents about 75% of their water. Its staff also worried about the track’s effect on flood waters and on the Santa Ana sucker--a river fish recently listed as threatened by federal authorities.

Private environmental groups are waving a red flag too. “Their biology report is woefully insufficient,” said Cynthia D’Agosta, who monitors Santa Ana River development on behalf of the Wildlands Conservancy. “The city’s not doing its homework.”

The proposal for the track, the first in California dedicated to harness racing, even has critics in Norco, a town that would seem to embrace everything equestrian: hitching posts at McDonald’s, horse-crossing signs at every busy corner, the hay and grain stores that outnumber muffler shops.

The project, to be built where Interstate 15 crosses the Santa Ana River, seems to be on the fast track for approval at City Hall, where officials say it is a logical addition to Norco’s lifestyle. But critics worry that it would ruin their treasured small-town ambience, harm the river, create traffic problems and noise, and bring gambling to the community.

“This simply isn’t racetrack country,” said Katie Schroeder, who works behind the counter at Linda’s Feed and Supplies on 6th Street. “Here, you go out to the backyard, grab your horse and ride the trails to meet friends.”

Her boss is worried too. “The city could use an increased tax base, but a lot of people don’t want the [negative] impact the track will have,” Linda West said. “Norco is a very protective town. We already have enough traffic problems, with people riding horses on trails alongside roads where cars go speeding by.”

Concerns also are being raised by Orange County Water District officials, who worry that runoff from the track and its parking lots would harm the Santa Ana River. Other state and federal agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Fish and Game, have yet to weigh in.

Leading the cheers for the racetrack is Norco Mayor Frank Hall, who, like each member of the City Council, is a horse owner.

“A harness-racing track will add to our distinction as another equestrian amenity,” he said.

The track is proposed by Frank Cossey, whose Brea-based, privately held company, TLC America, buys and sells commercial and residential real estate. An owner of racehorses and greyhounds, Cossey said races would be run 22 to 28 weeks a year, with off-track satellite wagering available on site year-round.

Cossey, who said he will pony up 70% of the investment, said the Silverlakes Racing & Entertainment Center would feature a seven-eighths-mile track, bleachers and a clubhouse with a restaurant rising to the height of a three-story building. Up to 4,000 people, 2,000 vehicles and 750 horses could fit on the grounds.

During non-racing weekends, the facility could be used for horse and car shows and other community events, he said.

Why Norco? “Because it already has the horse ambience, and location is everything,” Cossey said. “There are tracks in Arcadia, Inglewood, Los Alamitos and Del Mar, but nothing in the Inland Empire.”

Harness races now run part time at only two tracks in California: Los Alamitos and Sacramento. “It will give the city of Norco something to hang its hat on, a great place for entertainment,” Cossey said.

The mayor dismissed concerns about the track’s effect on the community.

“When people think about racetracks, they think about Santa Anita or Hollywood Park--big thoroughbred tracks,” Hall said. “Harness racing has a lot less impact, and when you look at the impacts of growth all around us, and the traffic that it’s bringing in already, this will pale by comparison.”

He said businesses would profit from visitors to town, and the city would reap new tax revenue as well as an unspecified share of the track’s proceeds.

Hall said he is not concerned about possible environmental damage to the Santa Ana River, which runs along the south side of the track site. The facility would be constructed just west of Interstate 15 and east of its major frontage road, Hamner Avenue.

“The area they’re looking at is not pristine. It’s not an endangered-species habitat,” the mayor said. “It’s an area that has been used for years for recreation and horses. It’s been so heavily impacted already, they could just as well pave it by now. Any problems can be mitigated.”

City officials did not order a full environmental impact report on the project, summarily declaring that it would not have any significant negative effects.

That notion infuriates others, who say the city and Cossey are running roughshod over environmental issues that need to be addressed in greater detail.

Riverside County officials are raising an eyebrow too. The site is in unincorporated county territory, but Cossey is seeking annexation to Norco because, he said, the project would be more favorably received by horse-friendly city officials.

“It does seem that Norco is rushing ahead at lightning speed,” said John Field, an aide to Riverside County Supervisor John Tavaglione, whose district includes Norco. His boss has remained neutral on the issue so far but has serious concerns about whether the racetrack’s problems can be eased, Field said.

Steve King, the Norco city planner shepherding the project, shrugs off environmental anxieties. “Whatever impacts there are--and there aren’t that many--can be effectively mitigated to a level that they’re not significant,” he said. “There’s nothing that can’t be resolved.”

The proposal has been heard by the city Planning Commission, which continued discussion on it until May 19. King said the project should go to the City Council for approval in mid-July. If the track is approved, the developer said he will seek horse-racing dates from the California Horse Racing Board, and hopes to open the facility by fall 2001.

Some local horse people are champing at the bit for development of another equestrian venue in town.

“We’ll be able to ride our horses over to the track and meet friends for lunch,” said John Aikins, president of the Norco Horsemen’s Assn. “It’s going to be a great hangout.”

But others say they have little use for it.

“We moved here because it’s a town where you can raise chickens and ducks and ride horses and join 4-H,” Jeanine Adams said. “We didn’t move here for traffic, and that’s what this is going to bring.”