Newhall Ranch’s Potential Drain on Water Crosses Line, Officials Say

Picture 70,000 newcomers moving to a swath of semiarid desert over the next quarter century. Make that 70,000 thirsty people--with showers to take, lawns to groom, pools to fill and cars, laundry and dishes to wash.

Those masses could be flocking to the behemoth Newhall Ranch project near Ventura County’s northeastern flank. Quenching the residents’ thirst will take a steady, heavy flow of water as the project is built in stages over 25 years.

But a growing number of critics on both sides of the county line insist that Newhall Ranch doesn’t have--and will not be able to get--the water it needs. If approved, they fear, it will gulp down precious water that belongs to someone else.

As the proposed city of 24,351 dwellings along the Santa Clara River, just beyond Ventura County’s border, wends its way through Los Angeles County’s planning process, opponents believe a lack of reliable water sources should stop it. And fast.

Ventura County Supervisor Kathy Long is among them. She and her colleagues are considering a lawsuit to halt the project if a flood of water concerns isn’t answered satisfactorily.

“My concern is the elusiveness of the Newhall Ranch water flow chart,” said the supervisor whose district abuts the project. “There have been major wars fought over water. . . . And this [project] is certainly something that our board is concerned with.”

Newhall Ranch’s water plan relies on a mix of imported water from the State Water Project, creek flood flows and water recycling, but makes little mention of ground water.

“It looks like a bit of a shell game,” said John Buse, a staff lawyer for the Environmental Defense Center in Ventura. “It’s not unlike what a lot of developers say about water: We’ll get it somewhere.”

Newhall Land & Farming, the developer planning the city called Newhall Ranch, is well aware of the water concerns expressed by Ventura County officials, said spokeswoman Marlee Lauffer.

But the fears are baseless, she said.

“We are confident that the water will be there when we’re ready to build Newhall Ranch,” possibly as soon as the year 2000, she said. “When the time comes to pull building permits for the actual development, the county [of Los Angeles] has a safeguard in place to make sure the water is available.”

As protection, each individual stage of the development must show water availability before building starts.

With a project of such sheer magnitude, assurances and building permit safeguards aren’t good enough, though, say Ventura County supervisors, planners, environmentalists and the head of a neighboring water district.

Complicating matters is the location of the development--the most populous project of its kind in the history of both Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Politically, the development is in Los Angeles County, somewhat shielded from Ventura County opponents by an arbitrary boundary drawn on maps.

But geographically, the Newhall Ranch development would stretch across the Santa Clara Valley, sharing ground water, air and a river with Ventura County’s cities of Piru, Fillmore, Santa Paula and beyond.

As a result, critics worry what would happen in future droughts, if an instant suburb in the middle of parched lands is built on a shaky foundation of unreliable water.

They fret that Newhall Ranch could sap underground water reserves dry before they trickle downstream into Ventura County’s aquifer system. And their fears are only exacerbated by Newhall Ranch’s draft environmental impact report, which gives scant ink to effects the project could have on Ventura County.

So concerned are area government leaders and water experts that they have begun to lay a thick paper trail in preparation for legal battle.

Ventura County officials answered Newhall Ranch’s voluminous draft environmental impact report--whose volumes stacked on top of one other are as tall as a full-grown Afghan hound--with a 132-page response, plus attachments.

“Our concern is that they’re not addressing the [project’s] impacts to Ventura County,” said county Senior Planner Scott Ellison, who worked on Ventura County’s rebuttal to the document.

“They’re not identifying the impacts; they’re not mitigating the impacts--they’re ignoring us,” Ellison said. “Most of their analysis stops at the county line. . . . That’s not permitted under state environmental law.”

Los Angeles planners said they will answer those concerns--plus those raised by other groups--by the end of October.

By year’s end, the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission is expected to vote on the project’s Specific Plan, according to planner Lee Stark.

Los Angeles County’s Board of Supervisors could then begin public hearings on the plan, which covers 19 square miles and includes 10 new schools, a man-made lake and a golf course.

Newhall officials say the project is eco-friendly, setting aside vast stretches of open space and leaving the 100-mile-long Santa Clara River, Southern California’s last free-flowing waterway, all but unscathed.

Critics scoff at those claims. If approved, the city would dump traffic onto California 126. They claim it will further foul the Santa Clarita Valley’s already murky air and possibly threaten three endangered species--including the recently listed steelhead trout.

“I think the threat of a lawsuit is very serious,” said Ventura County Supervisor John K. Flynn. “The solution to the project? The best solution is no project. . . . The Newhall Ranch proponents should just drop it.”

The supervisors’ complaints aren’t complicated. They claim the project’s plans flout the California Environmental Quality Act by not considering all the known--and reasonably foreseeable--consequences of the development beyond the Los Angeles County line.

The Friends of the Santa Clara River, an environmental group that champions the river’s preservation, may also sue despite legal costs that could easily climb into the six figures.

“It’s not just Newhall Ranch that has a [water] problem, it’s all of Southern California that has a problem,” said the group’s chairman, Ron Bottorff. “But L.A. County does this all the time. Everybody hopes for the best, crosses their fingers and gives it their approval. That’s not the way we should do business.”

Company Counts Its Water Sources

To scuttle Newhall Ranch, foes on both sides of the county line are scrutinizing the project’s water sources. When every last house is occupied, Newhall Land & Farming estimates the project will consume 19,345 acre-feet of water a year--enough to fill the Los Angeles Coliseum about two dozen times.

So where will the water come from?

In a typical year, 37% of the total will come from reclaimed water, said James M. Harter, an executive with Newhall Land. The company plans to build a $7-million treatment plant to turn sewage effluent into usable water for irrigation and other non-potable outdoor purposes.

About 28% of the project’s water could be supplied by Newhall Land’s historic right to rainfall runoff from Castaic Creek--water that would have naturally flowed downstream to the property if the Castaic Dam hadn’t been built.

Under a state agreement signed by Newhall Land and three water agencies, Newhall Land can only tap that water before May 1 of any specific year, after which the water belongs to the State Water Project.

Harter said his company will attempt to rework that agreement to lift the restriction, so that the new development has access to the water year round.

But two of the other parties--United Water Conservation District and Newhall County Water District--oppose any such change, saying it would limit the amount of flood flows that naturally seep into aquifers.

Another 35% of the project’s water would be imported from Northern California through the State Water Project, delivered by wholesaler Castaic Lake Water Agency to retailer Valencia Water Co.

Neither Castaic Lake nor Valencia--which is owned by the Newhall Ranch developers--have the facilities to handle the additional water.

But both water agencies plan major expansions to coincide with the development if it is approved.

Nor do they now have enough water committed to serve all 70,000 residents of the proposed Newhall Ranch--plus the many other subdivisions, industrial parks and shopping centers anticipated to pop up nearby in the next 2 1/2 decades.

But Bob Sagehorn, Castaic Lake’s general manager, said the shortfall can be made up by water his agency is entitled to from the State Water Project. He said he also hopes to buy water from areas flush with water, such as Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Furthermore, he said, his agency could benefit from the so-called Monterey Agreement, now tied up in the courts, that would allow agricultural water users to sell about 130,000 acre-feet of water to urban customers so long as both seller and buyer are willing.

Even if those water sources come through, the environmental report still forecasts that the Castaic Lake Water Agency will face a gaping shortage in 2010--provided that growth projected by Santa Clarita and Los Angeles County occurs.

Meantime, the State Water Project is already overbooked, and many water districts don’t receive their full allotment of imported water.

And Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt is saying California must learn to live within its hydrological means. He is threatening to cut California’s use of water from the Colorado River by 20%.

A Hundred Other New Towns Are in Line Too

Furthermore, Newhall Ranch isn’t alone in trying to buy water on the open market. About 100 “new towns” in the Central Valley also covet water from limited sources.

But Newhall’s Harter assures that with enough time, work and money, ample water will be found for Newhall Ranch.

“We believe Newhall Ranch is absolutely, meticulously planned,” he said. “We don’t have the [project’s] roads today, but the roads will be built. We don’t have all the water today, but we’ll acquire it.”

That’s the abridged version of the project’s water supply.

What’s more, the percentage of water taken from each source can vary widely depending on whether it’s an arid or soggy year. In times of drought, the environmental report says, the project will lean more heavily on Northern California water imported by the State Water Project.

The hitch: Imported water allocations are slashed in droughts.

“The way I would look at [the project] is to repeat the [drought] years of ‘88, ‘89, ’90 and ‘91,” said Frederick J. Gientke, general manager of United Water Conservation District, which manages the Santa Clara River basin in Ventura County.

“Where’s the water going to come from?” he asked. “It’s not going to be flood flows, so take that out of the picture. State water is going to be diminished, so that’s reduced. Ground water--that’s what’s left. They’ll use ground water.”

Both Harter and Robert DiPrimio, Valencia Water Co.’s manager, dispute that conclusion, saying the Newhall Ranch project won’t require any ground water beyond what is already being pumped in the area.

Like many water companies, Valencia typically sells its customers a blend of ground water and state water.

That is not to say the Santa Clarita Valley won’t see any more pumping of aquifers, DiPrimio said. More ground water will doubtless be sucked up as the valley continues its rapid growth, he added. Still, Newhall Ranch doesn’t expect to use any of it.

How much ground water will be drawn is hard to predict. “That’s not an answer anyone can give you,” he said. “We attempt to manage our basin so that the water returned to the ground is adequate to replace the supply we extract.”

Yet Newhall Ranch foes aren’t convinced that ground water will remain untouched.

“Because they’re playing fast and loose with the analysis, we’re worried that they’re making mistakes now and will correct them later by drawing out ground water,” said Ellison, the Ventura County planner. “They’ll say, ‘Oops, you’re right. We made a mistake. Now give us our ground water.’ ”

If Newhall Ranch does turn to the underground basins, it could siphon water that would otherwise reach downstream users in Ventura County, he said.

The aquifers below the Santa Clara River function much like a series of sand-filled cups, pouring water into each other downstream. The Saugus aquifer below Newhall Ranch tips water into the Piru basin, which waters the Fillmore basin, on down the line to Oxnard and the ocean.

County Already Stresses Aquifer

The problematic thing about the Saugus aquifer, though, is that it’s surrounded by an impermeable layer of shale called the Pico Formation, Ellison explained. That dense layer--right near the county line--reaches up toward ground level, coming within 20 feet of the surface.

So water beneath the ground can only pass from the Saugus basin to others through a 20-foot crevice. Should the aquifer’s water level fall below the shale formation, he added, the liquid will not make it downstream.

Were Newhall Ranch--or any other project--to drain the water too far, it could be “potentially very significant” for the water drinkers and farmers of Ventura County, Ellison said.

“It could literally stop [Ventura County’s] ground water flow at some times of the year where we would otherwise have ground water,” he said. “Given Southern California’s cycle of wet and dry years, their greatest draw on the aquifers is likely to be in dry years. That puts a greater strain in our aquifer.”

All this worrying strikes Harter as ironic, considering Ventura County’s decades-long history of pumping more water from subterranean water basins than rain and runoff can naturally replenish.

County water managers have just begun to reverse the overdrafting problem--and resulting seawater intrusion--by diverting river water into settling basins so it can seep deep into the ground, according to a recent study.

“Ventura County is already overdrafting their basins,” Harter said. “Now they’re concerned that someone else will do exactly what they’ve already done. It’s the ‘Do as we say; don’t do as we do’ mentality.”

A member of the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment, Lynne Plambeck, believes the project’s water sources don’t add up. And she says the stakes are too high to gamble.

“If the houses are built, 70,000 people move in, and there’s a drought, are we going to let them go without water?” asked Plambeck, who also sits on the Newhall County Water District board of directors. “No, we’re going to pump the river.”

Nonsense, says Newhall’s Harter. While critics’ concerns about water are understandable, they are downright wrong, he said.

“Ventura County has a source of water--ground water--and there is a fear that some outside agency will come in and take the water they have,” he said. “That’s a legitimate property rights concern. [But] I think you have to look at the facts as they are presented . . . and not speculate without considering those facts.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Newhall Ranch Project

* Projected population: 70,000

* Size: 12,000 acres

* Number of units: 24,351, 55% of which will be attached.

* Open space: 5,886 acres.

* Neighborhood parks: 334 acres.

* Other amenities: A lake, 200-acre business park and golf course.

* Schools: One high school, one middle school and eight elementary schools.

* Projected completion date: 2025, 25 years after construction begins.