ACTION DELAYED ON GRAVEL PROJECT.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

Local government and environmental officials won a two-month extension Wednesday to study the potential effects of a mining operation proposed for a 500-acre site east of the city.

The request by Transit Mixed Concrete Co. for a surface mining permit was scheduled for discussion by the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission, but a dozen Santa Clarita Valley organizations convinced the panel to grant a continuance until June 14, said Julie Moore, case planner for the county Department of Regional Planning.

That means concerned parties will have more time to review the draft environmental impact report on the proposal for the property, at 12101 Soledad Canyon Road, and to submit their comments to the county Regional Planning Commission.

Mayor Jo Anne Darcy sent a letter to the department on behalf of the city of Santa Clarita. The proposal would involve ``surface mining of 83 million tons of material on a 460-acre site just outside the (city's) eastern boundary,'' Darcy said in her letter.

``In addition, concrete processing is proposed to occur on a 40-acre area (and) both the surface mining and concrete processing operations are proposed to extend over a 20-year period,'' Darcy's letter stated.

Other groups that voiced their concerns, in person or by letter, were: the Santa Clarita Valley Canyons Preservation Committee, a group active in fighting a proposed landfill in Elsmere Canyon; the Sierra Club's Santa Clarita Valley chapter; Friends of the Santa Clara River; Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment; Sand Canyon Homeowners Association; the Acton Town Council; the Agua Dulce Town Council; the Agua Dulce Civic Association; the Santa Clarita Valley Citizens Transportation Committee; the Santa Clarita Valley Democratic Club; and the Natural History Club of Acton-Agua Dulce.

Moore said Transit Mixed Concrete Co. would lease the 40-acre property from C.A. Rasmussen, a Simi Valley-based construction company.

Meanwhile, the federal government owns the mineral estate of the 460-acre property, which is overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. Moore said the surface rights to that land are owned by Canyon Country Enterprises Inc., which does business as Curtis Sand and Gravel.

The Friends of the Santa Clara River group is concerned about the mining operation in part because the land is near the river, habitat of an endangered fish, the unarmored three-spined stickleback.