Officials with the City of Santa Clarita held a press conference Thursday to celebrate a “landmark” federal decision that essentially struck down a proposed Cemex mine in Soledad Canyon, ending a decades-long battle against the mega mine.

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The Press Conference

Santa Clarita City Councilmembers Laurene Weste and Bob Kellar opened up the conference together.

“This is a landmark decision, and a landmark day,” Weste said. “I’m just glad I lived long enough to see this come to fruition.”

Kellar then went on to explain the decision reached by the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA), which terminates the contracts that Cemex has in Soledad Canyon in July of 2020.

“This means that mining will never take place in our community,” Kellar said.

Weste made a point to thank City Intergovernmental Relations Manager Mike Murphy, who has worked “tirelessly” on the Cemex issue for nearly two decades.

“He has worked with our elected officials, he has attended countless meetings and he has been a steadfast advocate every step of the way for this community,” Weste said.

Kellar then proceeded to thank everyone who had worked to get to this point.

“We must continue to be vigilant in our efforts over the next 16 months,” Kellar said. “But if you came to a rally, if you signed a petition, if you wrote to your local officials or spoke up in council meetings, thank you.”

Congresswoman Katie Hill, D-Agua Dulce, echoed Kellar’s sentiment that even though the decision is heavily in the City’s favor, the issue is not finished yet.

“This isn’t over,” Hill said. “We’re going to watch it the entire way.”

State Senator Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, praised the unity of the Santa Clarita community that rallied against the mega mine.

“This is a phenomenal victory,” Wilk said. “(Cemex) never met a community as united as the Santa Clarita Valley.”

Kellar and Weste both thanked former Congressman Steve Knight, R-Santa Clarita, who worked with Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, to input language in the 2018 federal budget that would ultimately set up the “one-two punch” that renders the current Cemex contract “worthless.”

“For nearly two decades, Santa Clarita has worked tirelessly to prevent Cemex from mining on federal land,” Jade Suh, a field representative for Feinstein, read from a statement from the senator. “I’ve been a strong supporter of the City’s efforts, and am extremely pleased that their battle is coming to a successful conclusion.”

The Background

Since the 1990’s, the City of Santa Clarita has been battling against the creation of a Cemex mega mine in Canyon Country.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) awarded two contracts to Cemex in 1990 to extract roughly 56 million tons of sand and gravel in Soledad Canyon, according to officials.

City officials who have opposed the mine have stated that the extensive mining proposed for the site would have far-reaching negative effects over the entire Santa Clarita Valley, including air pollution and increased traffic.

From 1999 to 2006, the two sides engaged in “an aggressive legal and public relations battle,” and Santa Clarita officials reportedly spent more than $7 million fighting the mine before a truce was reached in 2008.

That truce appeared to vanish in February of 2015, when, after repeated attempts by former Congressman Buck McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, to make a deal with the mine that would have prevented its opening failed, Cemex eventually announced it planned to pursue its mining contracts.

Then, in March of 2015, the BLM rescinded Cemex’s contracts, forcing the mining company to appeal the decision to the IBLA.

Cemex then named the City of Santa Clarita in a lawsuit in December of 2017 for the alleged breaching of a 2005 contract challenging the city’s annexation of the Cemex Soledad Canyon mine, according to the lawsuit documents.

The lawsuit claimed that the City proposed annexing over 2,500 acres that includes almost all of the mine site during a Nov. 14, 2017 city council meeting. Documents show the City provided a public comment period, but allegedly did not notify Cemex or the BLM.

On Dec. 5, 2017, the 21-day public comment period closed. The Santa Clarita planning commission approved a recommendation that the city council adopt a resolution favoring annexation, according to documents.

“The City also admitted, in multiple public statements, that the true purpose of the annexation was to interfere with and stop the Soledad Canyon Project,” reads the lawsuit. “With the 2017 Annexation Project, the City has done, and is doing, precisely the same things for the same reason.”

The lawsuit also claimed that the City had not filed an environmental impact report (EIR) for the potential annexation.

Several months later, Wilk introduced a bill that called on the federal government to stop the mining project once and for all.

“The proposed mega-mine project has threatened our community for over 25 years,” Wilk said at the time. “Its implementation would wreak havoc on our roads, our environment, our quality of life and our most precious resource, water. It is absolutely imperative that we do all we can to stop this disastrous project.”

Within the week, then-Congressman Steve Knight, R-Santa Clarita, led an effort along with Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, to include language in the 2018 federal budget that would ultimately conclude the decades-long dispute over the proposed mineral mine.

“This is a huge win for the Santa Clarita Valley and I’m very happy we were able to include this language which is now law,” said Knight. “This has been a battle our community has been fighting for nearly 20 years, and we finally have a law on the books to address the issue.”

The bill signed into law includes language that would permanently remove mineral mining rights for the site and would prohibit any mining operations for any future contracts.

However, the existing contracts remained under review by the IBLA and were not impacted by this provision.

With Wednesday’s decision from the IBLA, the mining rights for Cemex in Soledad Canyon are set to expire in July of 2020, meaning that Cemex would not be able to mine any material from the area after that date due to the federal litigation Knight helped get passed.

“Even though their contract will not expire till 2020, it would take them at least three years to get their operation up and running,” Kellar said in a statement Wednesday. “The importance of this decision cannot be understated – this is a monumental victory for our residents and our environment.”

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