GROUP PRIMED TO SEEK REVIEW OF DAM PROJECT; T.O. RESIDENTS TO ADDRESS BOARD.

Byline: Cecilia Chan Staff Writer

A group of residents is expected to ask the Ventura County Board of Supervisors today to do more environmental studies on a 1,200-foot dam planned at Lang Ranch, on the heels of a regulatory agency's request that further review be done.

More than a dozen homeowners knocked on doors and handed out fliers this weekend, rallying their neighbors for today's meeting as the supervisors receive a staff report on the history of the controversial project. The report was prompted by a Thousand Oaks resident's concerns about the project that environmentalists worry will destroy too many oak trees.

``We feel confident in our legal position that a supplemental (environmental impact report) needs to be done,'' said Westlake Village attorney Ed Masry, who has been retained by a number of homeowners in the Lang Ranch area.

If the county fails to heed the request for more studies, Masry said, he will ``file in court and ask for sanctions.''

Recently the state Department of Fish and Game requested that the county prepare a supplement to the already approved environmental report because it felt there were significant changes to the project since it was initially approved.

The regulatory agency also said that if the county failed to do the extra environmental work, it would step in and start the review from scratch, pushing the project back by as much as a year.

County Public Works Director Arthur Goulet, however, said the residents and Masry are barking up the wrong tree.

The county is building the project for Thousand Oaks, which is under a judge's order to build the dam as part of the city's approval of a housing community to be built in the area.

``The board will tell them, I hope, that this is an issue that should be addressed by the city of Thousand Oaks,'' Goulet said. ``We, the county, are nothing more than the contractor carrying out a project that the city approved.''

The project as planned calls for a 11.5-acre detention basin downstream on the west side of Westlake Boulevard and a 3.3-acre debris basin upstream on the east side of the boulevard. The basins are designed to catch runoff that is expected to result from a 2,257-home development at Lang Ranch and protect homes downstream.

According to the county's report, the original project as designed would have removed 126 prized oak trees but the county was able to work out a plan that would remove a total of 47 trees from both the detention and debris sites.

Masry also has begun an investigation into the $4.9 million in Mello-Roos taxes that homeowners in the Lang Ranch area are paying to build the dam and debris basin.

``From what I have read, it would appear that the tax is unfairly being levied,'' he said.

``There are cases directly on point on this issue that say you cannot do this,'' Masry said. ``We are not quite ready to go to war over the assessment, but we are ready to go to war over the EIR.''