CITY'S STANCES MAY BE AT ODDS.

Byline: Heather MacDonald Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - Councilwoman Laurene Weste's concern that the City Council jeopardized Santa Clarita's $1.5 million campaign against a planned Soledad Canyon mine by approving the Golden Valley Ranch project is unjustified, city officials said.

In the Golden Valley Ranch project, developers plan 498 homes and a 600,000-square-foot shopping center east of the Antelope Valley Freeway on land designated by the federal government as critical habitat for the coastal California gnatcatcher, a protected bluish-gray songbird.

``This is the exact same issue,'' Weste said at a recent council meeting in a 45-minute speech comparing the Transit Mixed Concrete and Golden Valley Ranch proposals.

Weste, city officials and environmentalists agree that the documents analyzing the mine's effect on the surrounding environment fail to account for its impact on a half-dozen endangered species. TMC officials say the potential effect on the area south of the freeway, between Soledad Canyon and Agua Dulce Canyon roads, has been amply studied.

Weste said the Golden Valley Ranch environmental impact report also is flawed.

``TMC is a direct parallel to Golden Valley Ranch,'' Weste told the council. ``We are trying to protect the same plants and animals.''

On Tuesday, the City Council is expected to authorize the city staff to begin the process of annexing the 1,300-acre site to Santa Clarita while formally adopting the development agreement for Golden Valley Ranch, which the council approved 4-1 last month.

``We can't have it both ways,'' Weste said in her recent speech.

Local environmentalists agreed with Weste, who is running for re-election in April. They said it is hypocritical to approve housing developments in sensitive areas while arguing for protection of endangered plants and animals near the mine.

``I was very impressed that someone on the council spoke up,'' said Lynne Plambeck, first vice president of the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning and the Environment, popularly called SCOPE. ``It was a brave thing to do.''

Weste said environmental documents for the Golden Valley Ranch's proposal are incomplete and inadequate because they were completed before the federal government designated 25,000 acres in Placerita, Box Springs and Plum canyons as the northern end of the gnatcatchers' habitat.

However, a series of nine protocol studies - involving 270 work hours by a team of biologists - sufficiently assessed the potential effect of the project on the gnatcatcher, said senior planner Lisa Hardy. The studies were ordered after a single gnatcatcher was seen on the property by a biologist, she added.

``We took a pro-active, conservative approach and required them to work with the federal Fish and Wildlife Service,'' Hardy said.

The bird seen by the biologist was most likely migrating, not nesting there, Hardy said.

In fact, even if the land had been identified as critical habitat before the completion of the environmental studies, nothing different would have been done, Hardy said.

Before work on the Golden Valley site begins, developer Pac Sun LLC must consult with both the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to make sure no protected birds are at risk. Those agencies are charged with protecting the habitat of endangered species, Hardy noted.

``Weste is incorrect, and her statements were totally false,'' said Allan Cameron, a representative of Pac Sun.

City officials have requested, through Los Angeles County officials, that TMC finance surveys on the mine site like surveys the city officials required the Golden Valley Ranch developer to finance, said Santa Clarita Planning Manager Vince Bertoni.

``We have been entirely consistent,'' Bertoni said.

TMC representatives say such studies are not necessary. No gnatcatchers have ever been observed on the 460-acre mine site.

Plambeck said Weste should oppose other projects in the Santa Clarita Valley - such as the 21,600-home Newhall Ranch project - that threaten protected plants and animals. The Newhall Land and Farming Co. plans the massive development.

``Newhall Ranch (development) is just as destructive as the mine,'' Plambeck said. ``It is hypocritical not to see that.''

Environmentalists believe an endangered toad species is being harmed by Newhall Land's developments in the San Francisquito Creek and along the Santa Clara River. They say they are disappointed city officials are not pushing for additional studies and measures designed to protect creatures in that area, although they are pushing for such protection at the proposed mine outside their jurisdiction.

``Because of this, they are being taken a lot less seriously by other agencies,'' said Teresa Savaikie, a member of SCOPE and several other environmental organizations.

Newhall Land spokeswoman Marlee Lauffer said none of the company's developments would hurt the toads.