CLUB QUESTIONS DEVELOPMENT'S WATER SUPPLY.

Byline: Erin Gebroe Daily News Staff Writer

Worried about water availability, the Sierra Club is calling on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to re-examine the previously approved environmental study for Tesoro del Valle, the 1,791-home development planned for San Francisquito Canyon.

The environmental impact report, according to the Sierra Club, overstates the amount of water available to the Tesoro project.

``We are alerting them to what we consider is new evidence,'' said Martin Schlagater, Sierra Club conservation coordinator.

The ultimate decision to re-examine the environmental report lies with the Board of Supervisors, which approved the report in December. The board, however, is not expected to accommodate the Sierra Club's request.

``It is unlikely that the board would revisit that document at this point,'' said John Hartman, county supervising regional planner. ``My guess is that they're not raising any new issues here.''

While the supervisors have approved the environmental report and adopted a resolution to amend the county's General Plan, they still must consider additional items before the project wins final approval.

The board is expected to vote on tract maps, the oak tree removal permit and the conditional use permit at its April 27 meeting, Hartman said.

The Sierra Club is basing its request for re-examination on figures recently released by the Castaic Lake Water Agency.

Until now, the CLWA has said that its water supply includes 54,200 acre-feet from the State Water Project, said Lynne Plambeck, a former member of the Newhall County Water District board who acts as a local information source for the Sierra Club.

But in an environmental document relating to its proposed acquisition of the Santa Clarita Water Co., the CLWA reported that ``the net reliable (state) annual supply is approximately 27,000'' acre-feet.

The CLWA cannot rely on the total 54,200 acre-feet of water because how much it gets depends on snow and rainfall.

``We've been screaming about this for eight years,'' Plambeck said. ``Nobody should be basing development approvals on full entitlement.''

County planners received the Sierra Club's request Thursday and had not yet determined how much water the Tesoro environmental report says is available to the project, said Kerwin Chih, who handles environmental impact reports.

Robert Sagehorn, general manager of the CLWA, was not in the office Thursday afternoon and was unavailable for comment.

Critics have also maintained that water the CLWA bought at the cotton farm Devil's Den cannot be counted as available because the CLWA cannot get it to Santa Clarita.

Although the CLWA owns the rights to 12,700 acre-feet of state water there, it does not have the right to use the Metropolitan Water District pipelines to transport the water.

``People think we have this big reservoir but it's not for here,'' CLWA board member Ed Dunn said in a recent interview.

Originally proposed in 1996 by Evans-Collins Community Builders of Newport Beach, Tesoro del Valle initially faced opposition by residents concerned about traffic and strains on public safety services.