The Santa Clara River Greenway Campaign:
Protecting Southern California’s Last Major Wild River

Contact:
Lynne Plambeck, Chair, Santa Clara River Greenway Campaign, (818) 845-7651
Jennifer Robinson, Conservation Program Coordinator, (213) 387-4287 ext. 204

Fighting to Save a Vital Resource
The Santa Clara River, Southern California’s only remaining major wild river, provides cities with drinking water and irrigates farmland as it winds its way from the San Gabriel Mountains to the Pacific. The largest long-term threat to the health of the Santa Clara River’s ecosystem is urban development.

Newhall Ranch, a development proposed by the Lennar Corporation, would construct a new city of 60,000 to 70,000 inhabitants along an undeveloped section of the Santa Clara. This project—if completed, the largest ever in Los Angeles County—would place heavy demands on already scarce water supplies in the Santa Clarita Valley. Furthermore, Newhall Ranch would damage unique Southern California ecologies, increase highway traffic, worsen air pollution, squander badly needed open space and threaten endangered species, including the unarmored threespine stickleback, a unique freshwater fish

The Sierra Club agrees with Los Angeles County supervisor Zev Yaroslovsky that Newhall Ranch is “dumb growth with a capital D.” The Sierra Club’s Santa Clara River Greenway Campaign aims to stop the Newhall Ranch project and to urge public officials to adopt alternative conservation-minded approaches to development—approaches that value and protect Southern California’s unique environment, rather than destroy it.

History of the San Clara River Greenway Campaign
In 1999, the Sierra Club, Ventura County and other environmental organizations filed suit against the Newhall Land Company, charging violations of the California Environmental Quality Act. In 2000, Kern County Superior Court Judge Roger D. Randall ordered the Newhall Ranch project to be put on hold until developer Newhall Land Company (purchased by the Lennar Corporation in 2003) addressed concerns about the project's water supply, biological impacts on the Santa Clara River area, and traffic impacts on Ventura County roadways.

In 2003, Judge Randall dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that Newhall Land Company had addressed issues in the case and furthermore had agreed to designate 1,500 acres of its property next to the Newhall Ranch development, in Ventura County, for a wildlife corridor.

The Sierra Club continues to fight sprawl as a national priority and oppose this development in an effort to preserve vital environmental diversity, ensure adequate water supply and clean air to existing residents, and preserve Ventura County’s agricultural heritage. Sierra Club volunteer members have been planning rallies, testifying at public hearings, providing educational events and filing public interest lawsuits to oppose Newhall Ranch and other similar developments along the Santa Clara River.

Campaign Partners and Supporters
The Sierra Club is allied with other partners and supporters who advocate the long-term protection of the natural and cultural resources of the Santa Clara River watershed. These partners and supporters include:

• California Native Plant Society
• Audubon California, Audubon San Fernando Valley Chapter
• Public Citizen
• Heal the Bay
• Ventura Coastkeeper
• Visual Journeys
• Friends of the Santa Clara River
• The River Project
• Environmental Defense Center
• Santa Clarita Organization for Planning & the Environment
• Center for Biological Diversity
• Wishtoyo Foundation

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