On the recordMarch 2, 2010
I am pleased to introduce the Soledad Canyon High Desert, California Public Lands Conservation and Management Act of 2010. This bill would resolve a twenty-year-old mining dispute between the City of Santa Clarita and CEMEX USA, and have numerous other benefits for communities in Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties, CA. In 1990, the Bureau of Land Management awarded CEMEX two 10-year consecutive contracts to extract 56 million tons of sand and gravel from a site in Soledad Canyon. The City of Santa Clarita strongly opposed CEMEX's expansion of mining in this area. After 2 decades of conflict and nearly a decade of litigation, the two parties announced a truce in early 2007, and started working out an agreement. This legislation would implement the terms of that agreement. It would require the Secretary of the Interior to cancel CEMEX's mining contracts in Soledad Canyon and prohibit future mining at this site. The BLM would sell lands near Victorville, CA, that are currently on its disposal list, and would use the proceeds to compensate CEMEX for the cancellation of its mining contracts.
