WATER AGENCY TO ANSWER CRITICS OF $41 MILLION PROJECT.

Byline: Teresa Jimenez Daily News Staff Writer

Now that the public comment period has ended, the Castaic Lake Water Agency will begin responding to critics of its plan to buy 41,000 acre-feet of state water for about $41 million - water that could supply the proposed Newhall Ranch development.

Among the critics is the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment. SCOPE submitted a five-page critique of the agency's draft environmental impact report that evaluated the water purchase.

One of group's complaints is that the agency does not have the capacity to handle the new water. The pipeline system is inefficient, SCOPE member Lynne Plambeck said, and the filtration plants aren't big enough.

``They don't have the capacity to filter the water,'' Plambeck said. ``They only have capacity for 31,000 acre-feet of water and they already get close to that much.''

SCOPE also criticized the agency for not holding a public hearing for the draft EIR, though a hearing will be held once the document is complete.

The agency, which has proposed the water acquisition based on Santa Clarita Valley growth, will spend the next couple of months responding to criticisms of the document, said agency board President Bill Cooper.

Until that final document is complete, probably at the end of the year, the board will reserve comment, Cooper said.

And observers of the Newhall Ranch proceedings will be waiting. The Newhall Land and Farming Company has proposed the 21,000-plus home development west of the Golden State Freeway to the Ventura-Los Angeles county line.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to consider the project in October. But Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich made it clear at the last meeting in July that though the project may get approval, it cannot be built until Newhall Land can show a water source for the future residents.

The purchase of the 41,000 acre-feet would provide for new developments, Cooper said. And that includes Newhall Ranch.

Agency representatives have said that the additional water, which would be bought from Central Valley agencies that either do not need or cannot afford their share, is not being sought for Newhall Ranch.

Instead, water need within the agency's service area was determined by giving land a water-use designation based on its current zoning in the county and city general plans. For Newhall Ranch, that use is agriculture, which has one of the highest water demands.

Kiza Stratton, spokeswoman for the agency, said the study showed that the Santa Clarita Valley will eventually need 175,000 acre-feet, but it currently receives only 54,200 acre-feet from the State Water Project.

But SCOPE, in addition to questioning the agency's approach to evaluating water need, has asked for explanations as to why water usage was designated for areas such as flood plains, natural open space, national forest land and irrigation of natural hillside management land.

``These erroneous assumptions have artificially increased the supposed requirement for water for current land use planning in the Santa Clarita Valley,'' SCOPE's letter to the agency states.