DEVELOPERS MAKE FINAL PLEA FOR AHMANSON.

Byline: Grace Lee Staff Writer

VENTURA - Developers of the 3,050-home Ahmanson Ranch project, in a last opportunity Tuesday to sway Ventura County supervisors, derided opponents' use of ``overnight experts and out-of-state lawyers that tell us how to solve problems that our people have been working on for five years.''

Steve Weston, chief counsel to Ahmanson Land Co., addressed supervisors for a final time before public comment on the project was closed. He said all the project's impacts have been responded to, including traffic and the potential dangers of the contaminant perchlorate found in a well, which has sparked fears the chemical has migrated from a nearby Boeing laboratory.

Supervisors will meet this morning to begin public deliberations on whether to approve plans for the first phase of the project and a supplemental environmental report.

Arguing that Ahmanson developers have been held to a double standard, Weston contended on the third day of hearings that critics expected the company to solve problems it had not created.

``Thousand Oaks, Calabasas and Los Angeles builds, but we have to fix traffic. We have been told (the nearby Boeing laboratory) Rocketdyne is a health hazard, but somehow we are required to fix it,'' Weston said.

The developer - Washington Mutual - has ``set standards which far exceed anything I've ever seen in a project or perhaps this county has ever seen,'' Weston said. He urged the board not to impose burdens on the company that it would not impose on other projects.

Among those who testified against the project earlier in the public hearing were the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Carol Browner, as well as the agency's former regulators. Browner argued Tuesday that the solutions offered by Washington Mutual did not meet the protocol for ensuring that perchlorate did not pose potential long-term risks. She called for more testing to ensure that perchlorate would not endanger pregnant mothers, fetuses or children.

Washington Mutual has agreed to continue testing the well to be used for golf course irrigation and has stated plans to clean it to drinking standards. If drawing water causes the contaminant to spread, the company has agreed to shut the well.

Dennis Hawkins, who is on the county's planning staff that recommended approval for the environmental report, also maintained that the solutions offered by Washington Mutual addressed the dangers of perchlorate.

Weston and consultants to Washington Mutual countered the long-held criticism that the traffic study included in the 1992 environmental impact report did not take into account increases in traffic and the change of traffic patterns.

Dick Kaku, the traffic engineer who did studies for development, stated Wednesday that the 1992 EIR ``does not understate what will happen.'' Kaku said that traffic experts had based their traffic figures on data from the Southern California Association of Governments for the year 2010.

Calling for more time before moving forward with the project, Gary Guzy, a former regulator and past general counsel to the Environmental Protection Agency, said more studies needed to be done to enable supervisors to take into account the possible consequences of perchlorate. He argued Wednesday that the 1992 environmental report and its following supplement was ``not a complete, good-faith effort at full disclosure.''

If the board approves the map for the project's first phase and certifies the environmental report, the developers would still need to get permits from state and federal agencies as well as the city and county of Los Angeles.