Return to
Transit Mix index
To the Vanguard
News Home page 9-13-99 Mr. James Kenna Bureau of Land Management - Palm Springs/South Coast Field Office PO Box 1260 North Palm Springs, 92258-1260
Re: Soledad Canyon Sand and Gravel Mining Project DEIS OEPC #DES99-13
Dear Mr. Kenna: SCOPE will focus its comments on a review on the Water Resources Section of this DEIS. However, we wish to incorporate by reference the objections of all other agencies and organizations such as the City of Santa Clarita, the Sierra Club and S.A.F.E. particularly pertaining to the sections regarding traffic analysis, air quality, noise and alternative analysis.
Transit Mix has no claim to riparian water rights for this project. The existing wells that it proposes to use are located on property owned by CA Rasmussen, not by Transit Mix. Review of background reports included as references to the DEIR (Evaluation of Water Systems in the Vicinity of the Transit Mixed Concrete Co. - Rasmussen Co..., April,1993, Ground Water Systems, Inc.) indicates that geological formations beneath the actual project site are most probably bedrock and non-water bearing. Riparian rights involve the diversion of surface flows or flow from an underground stream having defined bed and banks. The above referenced report indicates there are not sufficient surface flows to allow diversion without impacting public trust rights, and that water geological formation will preclude water producing wells on site. Due to the presence of a listed endangered specie, the Unarmored Three-Spined Stickleback, water rights under public trust law will be asserted with all due diligence by many organizations if attempts to divert surface flows will result in elimination of habitat.
Riparian rights exercised from an underground stream require that the underground flow have defined bed and banks. The geological data in the above referenced report does not indicate the presence of defined bed and banks in this area of the Santa Clara River. (See especially Appendix F correspondence from California Geophysical Group, Inc. where data sheets attached indicate extensive sand formations rather than granite bedrock).
It is unlikely that Transit Mix will be awarded appropriative water rights for this project for the goelogical reasons outlined in the above paragraph. Transit Mix and others have had applications before the SWRCB for appropriative rights on the Santa Clara River for many years. Protests to these applications have been filed by all municipal water companies in the area, by several private parties and by our organization. It is our understanding that these applications have been combined and will not be heard until June of next year. Due to the doubtful outcome of Transit Mixed Concrete's Application, it would be prudent for the County to delay approval of this project until this water source issue is resolved.
The sustainable yield for this project is calculated to not produce drawndowns greater than 40% ( See report by Western Technologies, 1989, introduction). Surface and subsurface flows in the area have been found to be inter-connected (see report by Ground Water Systems, April 1993 Chapter 11.2 Section B). A 40% draw-down will therefore affect surface flows. The extent of this affect and its potential to impact, indeed, eliminate, the unarmored three-spined stickleback, was not investigated by any of the water resource reports or the DEIS. Failure to disclose this impact is an EIS deficiency and must be addressed. Such impacts would constitute a violation of Public Trust Law and a violation of the Endangered Species Act.
If the water source at the Rasmussen property is found to be percolating
ground water (it is our belief, based on existing geological and
hydrological reports, that this is the case), than use of water will be
subject to the availability of that resource in relation to its use by
others on the River and subject to Public Trust rights. Therefore, the
DEIS must specifically examine the water flowing into the area to address
whether there is an excess of this resource available. This question was
specifically avoided by Transit Mixed Concrete Co. (See Appendix A Scope
of Work, Ground Water Systems Report April 1993).
Rather, only the water
resource as it leaves the property was identified for study (see page 4
and page A-1). Further, no data was even obtained for inflow estimates.
("As can be noted data from Cross Sections AG-AG, BG-BG, FG-FG, HG-HG,
and IG-IG through OG-OG have been excluded from Table 5-2. This
exclusion was done because data from such cross sections is either absent
or inconsistent for August 1989", pg. 36 and " Subsurface flows
through
cross sections AG-AG and BG-BG have not been calculated", pg. 43).
However, the charts on page 3-44 of the DEIR from a hydrological study
conducted by Richard Slade in 1990 indicate the available water in the
immediate upstream Acton basin (2339 AF) is fully utilized by existing
purveyors and private users (2540 AF). That means there ARE NO EXCESS
FLOWS INTO THE TMC AREA. Therefore, the only excess flows that may be
available are those emanating from the Bear Canyon Watershed. The DEIS
should evaluate the water available from this watershed only. Our
preliminary review of the background reports indicates that water
available from this source falls far short of the 746 acre feet required
annually to support this project. Without an adequate water resource
this project must be denied.
Further, all water resources studies are based on information compiled and analyzed between 1989 and 1991. This makes all data a minimum of eight years old. Considerable building has occurred both upstream and downstream from this site. Updated water usage data must be supplied prior to final consideration of this project to ensure that existing users will not be impacted.
Total water usage for this project is estimated to be 442 AF for phase I
and 746 AF after phase II is implemented (p.3-63). These figures are
arrived at only after a 35% reduction for the use of clarifiers.
Therefore, clarifiers must be made a project condition if even the water
usage levels sited in the DEIS are to be achieved.
This water usage will over-draft the existing water resources of the
Santa Clara River. As indicated in the section labeled "Storage Capacity
of the Alluvial Aquifer" (Introduction, no page numbers indicated), by
Western Technologies, Inc., 1989 , the sustainable yield in this area is
283 AF in a dry year to 419 AF in a wet year based on 80% of water return
from the project to the River.
However, the DEIS states on page 3-63 "No
waste or return to the River of water is planned". Further, for the
purposes of this report sustainable yield is defined as "the maximum
amount of water that can be withdrawn from the alluvial aquifer in the
study area without creating average drawdowns greater than 40 percent of
the original saturated thickness." This is an unusual definition of
sustainable yield. Sustainable yield is commonly accepted to indicate
water usage that will not degrade water quality or desiccate wetlands,
yet the study definition would do both (a 40% draw down would affect
surface flows since they are inter-related, see referenced report by Geo
Water Systems, Chapter 11-2 B. "Surface Water Flows in the Santa Clara
River Valley" and the Law/Crandell, 1991 Water Quality Analysis "pg. 8
"There may be a slight increase in total desolved solids content"..)
We
therefore object to this definition sustainable yield as being an
oxymoron and self-contradictory. It disguises the fact that real and
substantial over-draft problems will occur if this project is approved.
In a table on pg. 3-69, the DEIS mistakenly cites an annual safe yield from the Saugus Aquifer as being 22,000 acre feet. In fact, this is a wet year estimate that has never and may never been achieved from the Saugus Aquifer. In his "Hydrological Study of the Saugus Aquifer, 1988, Richard Slade found the Saugus aquifer yield to be from 11,000AF to 22,000. The Castaic Lake Water Agency Water Transfer FEIR uses the 11,000AF figure for all water calculation (See Table 2-1, pg.2-10, attached) and highest water usage of the Saugus occurred in 1991 when 14,900 AF were pumped according to Table III-7 in the Upper Santa Clara Water Supply Report.) Usage of the Saugus aquifer is usually substantially less (around 5000AF) due to hardness of water and other water quality problems from this source. This figure should therefore be corrected to indicate the dry-wet range or to use the figure accepted by Castaic Lake Water Agency.
The safe yield of the Santa Clara River eastern basin was calculated to be 25,000AF by the USGS in 1972 (attached) and 31,600-32,500AF by Richard Slade in 1986 (attached). Both these two figures have been exceeded by municipal and private pumping for the last 5 years as indicated in Table III-7 of the Santa Clarita Valley Water Report, 1998, (attached). Since the proposed project will exceed available water resources on site, it will add to over-draft of the alluvial aquifer. Such over-draft is inconsistent with the water resources section of the Santa Clarita Area Plan.
Since there are no other water sources than the Santa Clara River identified for this project, approval under the present circumstances would constitute a violation of public trust law and a violation of the Endangered Species Act. Therefore, this project may not be approved as proposed.
Thank-you for your consideration of these issues.
Lynne A. Plambeck 1st Vice President