News
Litigation
Feb. 26, 2002
Conflict Over Old Mine Pits Feds Against County
LOS ANGELES - To stop the reopening of an abandoned mine in a Santa Clarita neighborhood, its opponents acknowledge, county officials would have to ignore legal precedent and a federal order.
That's just what opponents are hoping for today when the Board of Supervisors considers the surface mining permit application of the company that wants to reopen the mine near Soledad Canyon.
"How much authority does the board have? I think the county would like to believe that the federal government can't just walk into the county and steamroll our regulations," Conal McNamara, a deputy for Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who opposes the project, said.
Rick Putnam, consultant to the city of Santa Clarita, said the record of division gives state, county and city agencies authority to approve or deny the project based on environmental standards.
"I would agree to the effect that we are not going to stop mining in the area," Putnam said. "This project as it is proposed has too many environmental impacts to go forward.
"Reasonable mitigation that doesn't come close to protecting the environment doesn't go far enough."
Azusa-based Transit Mixed Concrete Co. holds a 20-year contract with the U.S. Department of Interior to mine more than 56 million tons of sand and gravel and to run a concrete plant at the 500-acre property on unincorporated county land.
The company has sued the county in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, complaining that county officials have delayed its permit unreasonably for more than two years. Cemex v. County of Los Angeles, CV02-00747 (CD Cal., filed Jan. 25, 2002).
A coalition of neighborhood associations, local governments and environmental groups has spent more than $1.5 million on a lobbying effort to convince the Board of Supervisors that the mining activities would compromise air quality, increase traffic and tax the water supply.
Opponents also alleged that Transit Mixed Concrete Co. had a poor environmental track record at other mining sites it operates, according to a county planning commission report.
The planning commission has recommended that the board deny the permit application, saying that the draft environmental impact report showed that "adverse impacts on air quality and visual quality from the project remain significant after all feasible mitigation measures are employed."
In January, the federal Bureau of Land Management rejected an appeal by Santa Clarita civic leaders who cited threats to endangered wildlife and to the environment.
Two weeks later, the company filed the federal lawsuit to force the county to approve the project and to pay the company damages for lengthy delays.
"The argument is that the mineral resources at issue in this project are owned by the United States of America, and under the U.S. Constitution and federal statutes and the implementing decision, the federal government controls the land use decisions for the federal mineral resources," Kerry Shapiro, attorney for Transit Mixed Concrete, said Monday.
Although the supervisors have authority to impose "reasonable environmental standards" on the mining project, they don't have the power to cancel it, Shapiro, of Baker &McKenzie of San Francisco, said.
"Nor do they have power to impose regulations that impede or frustrates or interferes with federal statutes or decision making," Shapiro said.
The company also may look to state laws that designate certain minerals, including sand and gravel, as critical to the construction industry and protect them from encroaching urban developments, Shapiro said.
"It's an ongoing problem," he said.
The supervisors are well aware that a denial of the permit would constitute a challenge to local land use authority, a spokesman for Supervisor Mike Antonovich, whose district includes Santa Clarita, said.
"We have been told by county counsel that the board has ability to put reasonable land use restrictions on this project because of environmental concerns," McNamara said. "My understanding is that we have the ability to make changes to this project."
Land use attorneys said local governments more frequently are ending up in court over land use disputes that pit new housing developments against established industrial land users.
In the Transit Mixed Concrete case, over the past decade, residents have moved into an area that had been used for sand and gravel mining for 30 years, according to the planning commission report.
"The real issue in this case is that the land use decisions had been made and rests with the federal government," but the county succumbed to political pressure from residents to reopen the matter in the guise of environmental concerns rather than a zoning change, Shapiro said.
As developers and governments try to shoehorn housing into formerly commercial and industrial areas, such conflicts are becoming unavoidable, according to local land use attorneys.
"Homeowners' groups are increasingly better organized and better funded, and where you have upper-income housing, you are going to have more complaints," said Donna Black, a land use attorney with Brown Winfield & Canzoneri in Los Angeles.
Although state law favors existing businesses that meet California Environmental Quality Act guidelines, governmental entities are under extreme pressure to favor housing, she said.
William Delvac, a partner in Latham & Watkins' land use group, said developers are beginning to build one to two years of litigation costs and time into new projects.
"The need for housing in Los Angeles is so dramatic that every available area that can be built for housing is under review by developers," he said. "There is a process that allows for zone changes ... but when the cities make decisions there is potentially an opposition."
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Gina Keating
Daily Journal Staff Writer
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