Both sides argued Thursday over whether Cemex should be able to challenge a state water board decision before a final ruling is expected in February, during a hearing broadcast live on the 2nd District Appellate Court of California website. Cemex’s attorneys laid blame for the decadeslong delay in the company’s plans to mine 56 million tons of Soledad Canyon’s sand and gravel on the State Water Resources Control Board; the state board said an appeal before any final decision has been made is inappropriate and said the board is not to blame for inactivity, mentioning a stay and then several legal challenges. “If that were true, that would be a great fact or allegation for the petitioner, so they certainly would have come out and said it,” said Benjamin Lempert, deputy attorney general in the Natural Resources Law Section of the state’s Department of Justice. Lempert said it’s not in the brief because it’s not true. Cemex’s counsel disagreed with that contention. “I would allege that,” said Matthew D. Hinks of Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell, on behalf of Cemex, during his rebuttal. “Because it is true.” Hinks said the current appeal is really about an opportunity for Cemex to be able to litigate its claim in front of the State Water Resources Control Board after the international mining giant was told that the water agency’s decision to renotice the application was not subject to appeal. Cemex sued the board in L. A. County Superior Court and lost, which brought the case to Thursday’s hearing. “There might have been a small period of time when the project was on hold,” he said, which was the result of an effort “to try to resolve the matter with the city of Santa Clarita.” The resolution efforts ultimately ended up in federal court, with Cemex winning a major decision after years of the issue being a political football, the subject of promises from one SCV congressman after another for at least two decades. Ultimately, Sen. Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, and Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, carried legislation to the governor’s desk in 2023, which would have mandated the re-noticing of the more than 30-year-old water permits. Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed that legislation, reasoning in his letter that the agency had already agreed to renotice the Cemex application, which was the only one in the state impacted by the law. The state water board’s executive officer then announced there would be a public hearing on a re-noticing for the water rights, which led to Cemex’s lawsuit in February 2024.
https://signalscv.com/2025/11/opinion-on-cemex-fight-due-in-february/
