New Suburb Will Have Enough Water, Firm Says

Armed with a foot-thick stack of reports, the firm planning the largest housing development in Los Angeles County history assured officials one more time Wednesday that they have enough water to supply the new suburb.

The 21,600-home Newhall Ranch project was temporarily blocked last June by a judge who demanded more proof that there is enough water to support the new community in the Santa Clarita Valley, especially during dry years.

After an eight-month analysis, Newhall Land and Farming Co. asked the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission for another approval. Los Angeles County had approved the gargantuan project once before.

On Wednesday, the developer promised to buy and store enough water to meet nearly twice the expected demand of 70,000 residents.

“What we have here is a surplus” of water, said Thomas Worthington, Newhall Land’s environmental consultant. He cited several additional sources of water--including overflow from Castaic Creek and from state sources--that could fortify aquifer supplies already earmarked for the development.

The massive new suburb is planned for the banks of the Santa Clara River just east of Ventura County, prompting a water war with Ventura County officials, who have argued that the project would suck dry their region’s fertile citrus groves. Los Angeles County planners approved the development in 1998, and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors followed suit in 1999.

“Water, water, water,” Ventura County Supervisor Kathy Long intoned as she testified Wednesday. She argued that Newhall’s testing of available ground water was incomplete and that lawsuits filed by Ventura County and environmentalists against various local water agencies could complicate the project’s plans to obtain water from them. The lawsuits allege that those agencies have overstated supplies and understated demand at Newhall and other developments.

“You still have some assumptions out there that may not be decided immediately,” Long warned.

“In Santa Clarita, there are 30,000 to 50,000 potential entitlements [where building permits have been granted] out there that will also need water as that community grows,” Long said. “I would ask that this be looked at as a region.”

Ventura County and several environmental groups filed the court challenge that resulted in the initial delay. Kern County Superior Court Judge Roger D. Randall temporarily blocked construction last year, ruling Newhall’s plan was based on “mere guesses on the capacity of aquifers which, if wrong, could substantially impact water availability” to the people living in the development and downstream in Ventura County.

Randall also ordered further studies of the project’s effect on Ventura County traffic, the Salt Creek wildlife corridor and aquatic life along the Santa Clara River, and he required the developers to examine alternative sites for a water-reclamation plant beside the river.

Worthington said Wednesday that the project would not significantly affect traffic or wildlife, but said the developer planned to move the reclamation plant slightly to preserve riparian habitat.

If not for the court fight, Newhall Ranch might already have broken ground on its first tract, one of five distinct neighborhoods to be built over 30 years. Construction once planned to begin in late 2000 is now on hold until at least 2003, said Marlee Lauffer, spokeswoman for Newhall Land.

During a three-hour hearing Wednesday before planning commissioners, Worthington described the various streams of water that would flow into the future faucets of Newhall Ranch. The existing supplies include drinking water that would come mainly from Newhall’s alluvial aquifer (traditionally used for watering crops), non-potable water from the Castaic Lake Water Agency, and a new water-reclamation plant proposed as part of the development.

All together, the sources would meet the anticipated demand for 17,680 acre-feet of water annually, Worthington said. There are 326,000 gallons in one acre-foot, about enough to supply two average-size families for one year.

On top of that, the developer proposed tapping about 7,000 acre-feet per year from Castaic Creek and storing it for future use. Newhall would also purchase up to 9,066 acre-feet annually from Kern County and the Castaic Lake Water Agency’s share of State Water Project supplies. During wet years, water could be stored in two ground-water banks--the Semitropic Groundwater Storage District in the Central Valley and the Saugus aquifer, the historic source for water supplies in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Dora Crouch, a Santa Paula resident, challenged the notion that Newhall could inject clean water into the Saugus aquifer for later use.

The aquifer was already contaminated by sewage from Santa Clarita and naturally occurring minerals, she said, adding: “How are you going to get only pure water out?”

The hearing will resume July 16 to allow more public testimony. If the revised environmental plans are approved by the county Planning Commission, they will head back to the Board of Supervisors for more hearings and a vote, and then to the judge who ordered them for the additional review.