On the same July day that the developer of the proposed Newhall Ranch project scored a victory with approvals for its first two subdivisions, lawyers for environmental groups filed an opposing lawsuit aiming to nullify the decisions. It is the fifth litigation action seeking to halt or minimize Aliso Viejo developer Five Point Holdings’ attempts to build 21,500 homes in northern Los Angeles County. Environmentalists have succeeded so far at stalling the project for 14 years since it was first approved in 2003. In this latest round, the groups hope L.A. County Superior Court will suspend the recent Board of Supervisors’ re-approvals of a revised environmental impact report for Landmark and Mission villages and their potential 5,500 homes plus a school, library and commercial space. They also call on the court to require Five Point to redo or revise sections of the project’s 1,400-page, six-year-old environmental document, because the groups say there are new post-drought water supply conditions and other critical and significant changes that warrant re-evaluation. Lynne Plambeck heads up the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment, or SCOPE for short, one of the two main groups that continue to challenge Newhall Ranch. “This is one of the things with a project that goes on for a long time – there have been changes,” Plambeck said. “We say they should be looking at the documents again.” Water supply If built, Landmark and Mission villages would replace about 2,400 acres of what is currently fallowed farmland and mountain foothills along State Route 126 in an unincorporated section of L.A. County. The sites sit across from Wolcott Way and a few miles east of the border with Ventura County. A good landmark for orientation is the brightly colored spires and roller coasters of Six Flags Entertainment Corp.’s Magic Mountain that peek above the mountains between the projects and the amusement park. Between 2012 and 2017, California, and particularly its southern half, went through a prolonged drought significant enough to have caused the local water table in the Santa Clarita area to drop about 90 feet since 2005 due to overuse of the aquifers underlying the project, according to Plambeck and the lawsuit. SCOPE and Friends of the Santa Clara River are co-plaintiffs on the litigation. The groups are being represented by attorney Dean Wallraff with the nonprofit firm Advocates for the Environment in Shadow Hills, who is also representing them on two other ongoing complaints. “We’re saying that because of the drought, the water table – the level of water underground – has gone down 80 to 90 feet – not necessarily under the project, but nearby, and that’s an indication that the underground water has been overused, or over drafted,” Wallraff said. “Essentially the environmental impact report, or EIR, should have been revised to take a look at that so we know what’s going on.” Five Point declined to comment for this story, citing the active litigation. But in a previous interview with the Business Journal after the county re-approved the village communities in July, Chief Executive Emile Haddad said that Newhall Ranch was originally envisioned to use water from the State Water Project when county supervisors approved the project in 1998. But that was challenged, he added, and since then Five Point revised the plan to provide the project with the agriculture water it had been using for crops that would be replaced by the villages. There is also water it has been storing in Kern County, as well as treated recycled water it could use from the plant it intends to build on the site, Haddad said. According to the 2015 Santa Clarita Valley Urban Water Management Plan, and a 2012 agreement between Newhall Land & Farming Co. now owned by Five Point, and Valencia Water Co., which provides water to the area where Newhall Ranch would be built, the full Newhall Ranch project would require just over 7,000 acre-feet a year of groundwater, which was the amount committed for crops on the land. One acre-foot equals about 326,000 gallons. Although purposed for agriculture, the water would be treated at Newhall’s water wells to meet drinking water standards, and nothing other than Newhall’s communities, once built, would be able to use it. The total from all Newhall’s sources is about 12,600 acre-feet, according to the water management plan, excluding the recycled water which would deliver non-drinking water. In the master-planned city of Irvine, the average water district customer uses about 26,000 gallons of water a year based on data as recent as July. The comparison indicates the 7,000 acre feet of water available for the master-planned Newhall Ranch would be enough for about 85,000 customers. “The concern is we have insufficient water for residents, and then you are building another 21,500 homes,” Plambeck said, referring to the state-mandated 25 percent cutback on water usage since the drought. SCOPE and the Friends groups also cite new water quality concerns in the complaint that have appeared since those sections of Newhall’s environmental impact report were approved in 2011, such as recently detected contamination found in wells in the Santa Clarita area. During the supervisors’ public hearing, most approved the two villages, including Supervisor Kathryn Barger who represents most of northern L.A. County. But Third District Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, a member of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, abstained from voting, which equals a “no” vote. She cited concerns about limited open space and farming land, air quality and water supply. “I think the water issue is questionable,” Kuehl said. “It looks like the contracts are good but I’m not sure. You know that’s been a major concern over the last decades about this plan.” The project has garnered the support of myriad business groups, because of the estimated $22 billion benefit from construction and an estimated $5.4 billion in annual economic benefits and nearly 90,000 jobs, according to Five Point. Chiquita Canyon Landfill The environmental impact report’s latest review also failed to consider the impacts of the expanded Chiquita Canyon Landfill on a school planned for Newhall Ranch, the groups’ lawsuit argues. The landfill sits across the 126 freeway from the Landmark Village site and should have closed, as it had approached caps set on its tonnage limit last year by its initial permit before it obtained a temporary waiver. County supervisors agreed in June to extend the landfill’s permit by 30 years and double its tonnage limits. But SCOPE and the Friends of the Santa Clara River cite that the EIR should have considered possible impacts. “The continued operation of the Chiquita Canyon Landfill casts substantial doubt on Newhall’s plan to build a school within 100 to 500 feet of the landfill site, due to the serious air pollution emanating from the landfill,” the complaint says. “The Landmark Recirculated Analysis should have considered whether the school will need to be moved, and what effects that will have on the overall project and its environmental impacts.” “This just isn’t about caring for the environment; it’s also about caring for the community,” Plambeck said. Finally, the litigation revisits the greenhouse gas emissions of Newhall Ranch that Five Point was ordered to correct by the California Supreme Court in a previous lawsuit decision. Five Point presented a plan to build Newhall Ranch as a zero-net greenhouse gas emissions community through measures within and outside the project, such as installing electric vehicle charging stations inside homes. While the supervisors re-approved the projects based in part on that plan, Wallraff and Plambeck say the concept lacks sufficient evidence – and that the supervisors’ approvals weren’t justified. The next step will be assembling an administrative record and setting a trial or hearing date, which will take two to three months, according to Wallraff. Between other significant changes that have occurred since the 2011 EIR, the lawsuit has merit, Wallraff said. “There are two reasons for doing a subsequent EIR,” he explained. “One is changed circumstances, and the other is new information, and both have to be significant. I think the water supply issues are those things.”