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California’s 2nd District Court of Appeals dealt Cemex a blow and handed Santa Clarita an opportunity this week, in a long-running battle over sand-and-gravel mining rights in Soledad Canyon.
Cemex sued the State Water Resources Control Board over the agency’s decision to renotice its water rights application.
During a hearing on the appeal last month, attorneys for Cemex blamed the state water board for delaying its attempts to fulfill mining rights purchased in 1990. Cemex’s attorneys were suing the board, saying they should be able to appeal the state water board’s 2024 decision to renotice its applications for water rights.
Attorneys for the State Water Resources Control Board said that there were many reasons why the mine had been delayed for so long, citing political efforts and objections from other agencies, including the federal Bureau of Land Management.
Ultimately on Thursday, the three-judge panel that heard the appeal agreed with the State Water Resources Control Board, which argued that Cemex shouldn’t be able to appeal the decision to have a hearing, because it’s not considered a final ruling.
That could come next year, after a hearing that’s more than 35 years in the making.
Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, authored a bill that would have mandated that hearing. The bill made it to the governor’s desk before Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it in 2023, with a veto letter stating the board already said the hearing was going to take place — and then Cemex sued.
Schiavo, who was following up on a previous bill from former Sen. Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, said in a phone interview Friday that it is critical to have a hearing on the project.
“This mine has been going through the permitting process — people have grown up and have their own children in that period of time, and haven’t had a voice in this project,” she said, adding the community has changed significantly in that time.
The history
The original applicant, Southdown Inc. at the time, purchased the mining rights for up to 56 million tons in two contracts in 1990. Cemex, a Mexico-based multinational company, later acquired Southdown.
The 78.1 million tons allowable for mining in order to extract that tonnage represented the largest contract of its type at the time, according to previous reports.
In its 16-page ruling, the appellate court summarizes the three decades of bureaucracy, politics and court battles that followed, thusly: “Since then, the project has been reviewed by various government entities and has been the subject of litigation in California and federal courts. In August 2015, the federal government rescinded Cemex’s mining material contracts. Cemex filed suit in May 2019, and in 2022, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia vacated that rescission.”
Concurrent to the original efforts involving the land, the mining company filed an application for a water permit in June 1991, in order to use water from the Santa Clara River for its mining operations, which triggered a protest period that came and went without the then-4-year-old city of Santa Clarita filing a protest.
In June 2004, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors approved the mining operation with a 3-2 vote over objections from the city about health concerns and the impact to local quality of life.
Those in favor of the project cited demand: Federal estimates indicate the demand for housing in the area over the next 20 to 30 years could require more than 400 million tons of sand and gravel to be mined, and the government had only permitted about 16% of that tonnage.
That same year, the city asked the state water board to re-notice the application, but the board declined.
However, the state water board did tell Cemex it would pause everything until the federal legal questions were resolved.
Why it matters now
After the federal district court vacated the rescission of Cemex’s contracts, the State Water Resources Control Board told Cemex in June 2023 it was processing its application. It also told CEMEX the Board’s executive director had “determined the application will be re-noticed,” according to the ruling.
The letter said the application was 30 years old, and since, “the circumstances of affected downstream water users or other interested persons have changed.”
Cemex petitioned the board in response and was told the decision was not subject to appeal, which brought the lawsuit.
In the appellate court’s ruling, it also said the state water board could collect legal fees for its costs from Cemex.
The hearing on the permits for water board appeal is significant. The project has its federal mining rights secured and a 2004 county approval to build mining operations in Soledad Canyon.
Now the mine just needs water to run its operation, more specifically about 322 acre-feet per year from the Santa Clara River, which is the equivalent usage of approximately 600 households, according to recent local usage estimates from the Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency.
Cemex said in court arguments that the reason for its appeal is that a new hearing process could cost it millions of dollars and create financial damage for the company that could not be undone by a future court hearing.
Now the way is paved for a hearing, and it will be on the State Water Resources Control Board to post a notice — and this time around, Santa Clarita is planning to file a protest, according to a previous statement from Masis Hagobian, the city’s intergovernmental relations officer.
The State Water Resources Control Board did not have a date for the hearing as of Friday.
Schiavo said it was really important for the community to show up and let its concern be known. “This is part of the decision-making process for the state water board,” she said. “There’s serious concern about how this could impact the Santa Clara River, which is the last existing natural river in Southern California. And you know, I’m glad that the water board is opening this up and taking another look at it and considering what our community has to say and considering the changes that have happened over time.”
