CEMEX in Santa Clarita. We know it's more than mining.
"It was one of my earliest cloak-and-dagger experiences as a reporter. It was the early 1990s. I got a call from a guy — let’s call him John (not his real name) — who said he had information on a news story that would be the biggest ever to hit Santa Clarita.
He was cryptic. He wanted to meet me to talk about it, at a diner down in Van Nuys next door to a fleabag motel.
I was skeptical. (If it were today, I would have been concerned for my safety.) But I met the guy for lunch, and he brought a banker’s box of documents. (This was pre-internet.)
“John” said it was all about a massive proposed sand and gravel mine, right on the outskirts of Santa Clarita, that would pollute our air, threaten our water supply, endanger wildlife and dump more than 1,000 rock-spewing gravel trucks onto the 14 freeway every day.
In the box were records of the application, by a company called Southdown, to secure mining contracts from the Bureau of Land Management.
“John” was right.
Mexico-based CEMEX would soon acquire Southdown, and with it the proposed Soledad Canyon mega-mine . . .
1) The BLM in 2015 canceled the original mining contracts, which is an important step toward stopping the mine. However, CEMEX is appealing the cancellation and the Interior Board of Land Appeals is taking its sweet time reviewing the appeal. Since it was filed, all we’ve heard is crickets.
2) Rep. Steve Knight, who’s running for re-election Nov. 6, authored legislation — part of an omnibus appropriations bill signed into law by President Trump — that prevents any future mining on the site subsequent to those original contracts that are still under review by the IBLA. It bears noting that Knight and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein cooperated on the bipartisan legislation, the first major congressional victory directly affecting mega-mining in Soledad Canyon.
Knight touted his accomplishments on our community’s behalf during his opening statement in a debate last weekend against his Democratic challenger Katie Hill. (Video: signalscv.com/decision2018)
Said Knight: “In my first nine months in Congress, we did the No. 1 priority in this valley, and everyone talked about it. It was CEMEX. In nine months we turned around the contracts, 180 degrees, they cannot mine. CEMEX cannot mine. In my next session in Congress, we did a bill, making sure that there wouldn’t be any mining in that area in the future. That is a result.”
Knight added: “For the last 24 years, CEMEX has been the No. 1 issue. Absolutely anyone in Santa Clarita would say that.”
Hill sees it differently. Very differently. Her response to Knight:
“I’ve been a resident of Santa Clarita for most of my life. And Congressman Knight keeps saying that CEMEX is the No. 1 issue, and I hate to say it but that’s not the case for most people I know. And I think that CEMEX is an important issue of course, but it’s something that I hadn’t even heard of until relatively recently. And it’s certainly something that my parents, my friends, my family hadn’t heard of.”
Wait. What? That’s a jaw-dropping admission. Never HEARD of it?