Newhall Says It Has Enough Water

The developer of the massive Newhall Ranch project released the findings of a new environmental report Monday that declares it has access to enough water to supply the 22,000-home suburb planned near the Ventura County line.

Newhall Land and Farming maintains in the report that 17,000 acre-feet of water would come from the State Water Project, ground water supplies, reclaimed water from the development site and purchases from a private water company in Kern County. Additional water would be stored in an underground aquifer for dry years.

“We have more than enough water to serve Newhall Ranch,” said Newhall spokeswoman Marlee Lauffer.

But Lynne Plambeck, president of the Santa Clarita Organization for the Preservation of the Environment, criticized Newhall for relying on a private company -- the Nickel Family LLC -- for 1,600 acre-feet of its water supplies. An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons, enough water to supply two average families for a year.

Plambeck said she fears the deal could usher in an era of water privatization in which the richest developers would reap the benefits. “The highest bidder can destroy whatever watershed to create urban sprawl,” she said.

The supplemental environmental impact report will be presented to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Jan. 28. If the board approves the report, a Kern County judge will then decide whether the project can move forward.

The new report was ordered by Kern County Superior Court Judge Roger D. Randall in 2000 following a legal battle between Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The case was moved to Kern County to avoid potential legal conflicts.

Ventura County sued to block the project, arguing that the initial environmental study was flawed because the developer had failed to prove it could acquire enough water from the State Water Project and an underground storage aquifer during multiple drought years.

The development site is just across the line from eastern Ventura County, near Six Flags Magic Mountain. Its 12,000 acres straddle the Santa Clara River, the region’s last free-flowing river.

Ventura County officials worried that the project, which would be built out over the next 25 years and ultimately serve nearly 70,000 people, posed a significant threat to ground water supplies and sensitive wildlife habitat. They urged Randall to overturn approval of the project.

Ventura County officials said Monday that they had yet to read Newhall’s new environmental study and therefore declined to comment on its findings.

Specifically, the new environmental report states that 7,000 acre-feet of drinking water for the housing development would come from the State Water Project; 9,000 acre-feet of nonpotable water would come from reclaimed water on the Newhall Ranch property and from a local water district and the remainder from the Kern County purveyor. The developer also plans to store about 5,000 acre-feet of water in an underground storage bank for drought years.

Meanwhile, the Newhall Ranch developer acknowledges in its new report that tens of thousands of endangered San Fernando Valley spineflowers were found on its property slated for development.

The developer had earlier reported finding a single stand of the flowers on a 50- to 75-acre stretch of dirt road.

Those flowers were eventually plowed over during the course of Newhall’s agricultural operations, which legally allows for such actions.

In the new environmental report, Newhall said that it had previously found several other locations of possible spineflowers, but did not submit those specimens to labs for confirmation and eventually stopped looking for the plants.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office is investigating Newhall’s handling of the spineflowers and has filed a single misdemeanor charge of unlawfully altering a streambed against the developer.

Newhall argues that the law allows it to move ahead with construction as long as it maintains a preserve for the spineflower. But critics said they want to know more about the extent of spineflower growth on the development site and what can be done to protect the rare plant.

“They need to do the surveys and mitigation now, before the whole project is approved,” said John Buse, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Center.

Lauffer argued that Newhall has provided enough detail about its plans to protect the spineflowers and will continue to work with the state Department of Fish and Game on the issue. She said the developer will lay out the precise boundaries for its spineflower preserves when it applies for building rights.