AID SOUGHT FOR MINE FIGHT CITY WANTS DAVIS, LOCKYER TO INTERVENE.

Byline: Heather MacDonald Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - The City Council has asked Gov. Gray Davis and Attorney General Bill Lockyer to intervene in the federal court battle over a massive sand and gravel mine in Canyon Country.

Santa Clarita officials are hopeful that the governor and attorney general can convince U.S. District Court Judge Dickran Tevrizian to block Cemex, Inc. from mining 56.1 million tons of aggregate from the Soledad Canyon hillside.

``We needed to turn up the heat on the governor and the attorney general,'' said Jeff Lambert, Santa Clarita's planning director. ``They need to get involved.''

Santa Clarita officials have spent almost $2 million fighting the massive mine, which they contend will have a devastating impact on north Los Angeles County by polluting the air, choking area roads and freeways with traffic and threatening the area's water supply.

The resolution, a last-minute addition to the agenda for Tuesday night's City Council meeting, was prompted by concerns that the county's lawyers were about to settle the case, or that Tevrizian was preparing to rule in favor of the mining company.

``We wanted to stay ahead of any developments,'' Lambert said.

Cemex spokesman Brian Mastin acknowledged that company officials had met with county representatives to discuss settling the case.

The suit pits federal mining law against the power of municipalities to regulate surface mining within their jurisdiction.

City and county officials insist that the county Board of Supervisors properly followed state law in rejecting Cemex's application for a surface mining permit after the company refused to complete an additional traffic study, and want state officials to back up that claim in federal court.

Tevrizian has repeatedly ruled against the county and Santa Clarita, and he has indicated his sympathy for Cemex's argument that county officials inappropriately used the environmental review process as a tool to delay and interfere with the federal government's approval of the mining plan.

In addition, Tevrizian allowed the federal government to intervene in the case on behalf of Cemex in order to defend the two 10-year contracts awarded to the company and assert the supremacy of federal law.

Cemex will pay the federal Bureau of Land Management $28 million for the right to mine 460 acres south of the Antelope Valley Freeway in between Soledad Canyon Road and Agua Dulce Canyon Road.

Based on Tevrizian's rulings and statements, city officials believe the likelihood of the county prevailing in federal court has decreased significantly over the last several months.

In turn, that prompted Santa Clarita officials to expand their strategy against the mine by hiring Cy Jamison, a former director of the BLM, to urge federal officials to end the dispute by decreasing the size and scope of the mine. Those discussions are ongoing, officials said.