PROPOSAL SLASHES MINE PLAN CITY WOULD CUT 90% OF PROJECT.

Byline: Heather MacDonald Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - City officials want Transit Mixed Concrete to reduce the size of its planned mine by 90 percent because of a lack of water, under a counterproposal released Thursday.

But Transit Mixed Concrete representatives said the city's proposal for the 460-acre Canyon Country mine, south of the Antelope Valley Freeway between Soledad Canyon Road and Aqua Dulce Canyon Road was unworkable.

``We'll take a hard look at the proposal, but that's just not feasible,'' said Brian Mastin, TMC's environmental affairs manager.

Azusa-based TMC proposed reducing the size of the mine by 11 percent last week, a plan that city officials said did not go far enough in addressing the mine's potential impacts on the Santa Clarita Valley.

City officials said that mining more than 5.6 million tons of sand and gravel from the canyon's hillside would harm the Santa Clara River and threaten an endangered fish and flower because of the amount of water that would be needed.

``The large reduction is justified because the city is using good science,'' Mayor Laurene Weste said. ``This area is a fragile ecosystem and good science requires a smaller project.''

The city's proposal would shrink the Soledad Canyon mining project to the size of mines typically permitted by the federal Bureau of Land Management, city officials said. Under current plans, TMC would pay the BLM $28 million for the right to mine the land.

The city also wants TMC to shelve plans to pump water from the Santa Clara River, operate just nine hours a day, 240 days a year, and build a rail line to carry away the sand and gravel from the gravel pit.

Representatives from the city of Santa Clarita, the county of Los Angeles and TMC met for the second time behind closed doors to try to reach an agreement on the size and scope of the planned mine.

City officials want TMC to bring in imported water for the mine, rather than use nearby wells. That, along with additional surveys of endangered species and another redesign of the mining plan to avoid impacting rare plant species and important habitat, would address city officials' concerns that the mine would harm the Santa Clara River and threaten the Santa Clarita Valley's water supply.

Representatives from TMC, which has pledged to protect the environment, say the Soledad Canyon mine is needed to avoid a looming shortfall of sand and gravel, which could cause construction and public works projects to grind to a halt. Their proposal also offered to cut truck traffic during rush hour and eliminate a huge storage area.

The current plans for the mine call for it to operate 24 hours a day, all year long. The city wants to restrict the mine to nine hours a day, 240 days a year to alleviate the impact on nearby residences.

A rail line would have to be built through a Significant Ecological Area, which would violate county ordinances, Mastin said. City officials acknowledge that additional studies of the impact of a rail line would be necessary.

``We've already looked at that suggestion,'' Mastin said. ``It's not workable.''

City officials said a rail line would prevent trucks traveling to and from the mine from choking area freeways with traffic, another of their concerns about the mine.

The city also wants to ban dust-control chemicals that contain chloride, prevent the major ridge line in the area from being lowered and reduce emissions of dust and chemicals into the air.

In addition, the mining plan should be redesigned to avoid three Indian ruins and a new assessment should be made of the mine's impact on nearby earthquake faults, according to the counterproposal.