COUNCIL VOTES TO ANNEX PARCEL CITY FIGHTS TO LIMIT FUTURE GRAVEL MINING.

Byline: Judy O'Rourke Special to the Daily News

SANTA CLARITA - The City Council has approved a zoning change and annexation of Soledad Canyon land where Mexico-based Cemex plans to mine 56.1 million tons of sand and gravel, a project Santa Clarita continues to battle on several fronts.

City planners cannot seize on Tuesday night's decision until the council formally approves the process Nov. 22. The wheels are in motion to file an application with the agency that oversees municipal boundary changes in Los Angeles County.

``We will prepare the application to submit to the Local Agency Formation Commission within the next week or so,'' said senior planner Kai Luoma.

Luoma met with LAFCO officials several weeks ago lay the groundwork, discussing where logical boundaries might be drawn.

The city's plan to annex 1,885 acres, about 1,000 of which it owns, is part of a strategy to limit mining on the property, where the federal Bureau of Land Management owns the mining rights.

The zoning would allow residential development, parkland and open space. An area that would overlap a portion of the open space would permit mining, pending court decisions on Cemex's entitlement to mine in the area.

Cemex and its attorneys previously had filed two letters of opposition to the city's annexation plan. On Wednesday, the company declined to comment on the council's vote. Susana Duarte, Cemex's vice president of communication and community relations would only say, ``We are evaluating the situation.'' City planners said the annexation and prezoning would have no significant environmental impacts.

Luoma said the BLM initially had lodged no concerns or opposition to the city's plan, but weeks after an official comment period ended the agency did an about-face.

An Oct. 21 letter penned by Mike Pool, state director for the bureau, said the city failed to adequately describe the site's mineral resources and Cemex's plans, and the potential impact an annexation could have in the face of the dispute.

``The conclusion ... that the annexation project will have no impacts to mineral and energy resources is not supported by the fact that the city has continuously opposed the CEMEX and other mining projects in the Soledad Canyon area,'' the letter said. Council members were not persuaded. ``Everything that was prepared for this action certainly satisfied me, gave me a level of comfort to move forward,'' Mayor Cameron Smyth said Wednesday. Luoma said the application could be in LAFCO's hands for six months and the land could become part of the city by next May.

On another front, attorneys for the city will seek a judgment today in a U.S. District courthouse in downtown Los Angeles in a lawsuit filed against the BLM and the federal Department of Fish and Wildlife. The city claims the agencies shirked their duty to perform a proper environmental analysis before granting Cemex permission to mine the land.

``If we win, they have to go back and redo the environmental analysis on-site and comply with the Endangered Species Act and the Environmental Policy Act,'' said Geralyn Skapik, an attorney with Burke, Williams and Sorensen LLP. A favorable ruling could put the mining project on the back burner until the bureau fulfills its obligations.

If the agencies prevail at the administrative hearing, the court will have found they complied with their obligations ``and the project will likely be one step closer,'' Skapik said.

Judy O'Rourke, [phone]

judy.orourke(at)dailynews.com