After a battle that has lasted more than a decade and involved more than three years of litigation, Contra Costa Superior Court Judge Barry P. Goode issued his final opinion in the case challenging the Port of Los Angeles’s approval of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway’s Southern California International Gateway (SCIG) project, a proposed railyard facility that would load cargo from trucks onto rail lines closer to port docks, allowing the railroad company to increase capacity and efficiency and purportedly give a boost to the port’s competitiveness within the international-trade industry.
On March 30, Goode ruled that the Port of Los Angeles and BNSF had violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in their environmental analysis of the SCIG project. Goode’s decision required that a new environmental-impact assessment be conducted before the port and BNSF could continue with the project’s development.
BNSF then objected to that decision, arguing that the court could not, under federal law, require the port to rescind its approvals while considering off-site environmental impacts.
On July 26, the judge rejected BNSF’s arguments, bringing an end to the trial-court period of the case.
However, in an emailed response to the Signal Tribune on Wednesday, Phillip Sanfield, director of Media Relations for the Port of Los Angeles, said now that Goode has issued a final judgment in the lawsuit, all parties in the SCIG litigation have 60 days to consider an appeal.
“The Port of Los Angeles will review the final judgment and consult with the Board of Harbor Commissioners,” Sanfield said. “The Port will also continue discussions with BNSF regarding the future of the SCIG project.”
According to Sanfield, BNSF Railway proposed building the new, state-of-the-art intermodal railyard facility to load onto trains cargo from the ports of LA and Long Beach at a location four miles away from the docks instead of trucking it to BNSF’s East Los Angeles Hobart Facility 24 miles up the 710 Freeway. Sanfield explained that the project would replace an existing drayage and warehouse operation on the site and eliminate over a million truck trips a year between the ports and the Hobart railyard east of downtown LA.
“The Port of Los Angeles spent eight years and a great degree of care preparing the SCIG environmental impact report (EIR), which was 5,000 pages of analysis and backed by extensive expert studies,” Sanfield said. “On March 30, the court ruled on challenges to the SCIG EIR, stating in its opinion: ‘The EIR is an impressive piece of work. It is clear that a great deal of careful thought has been given to the environmental impacts of the project.'”
Sanfield said the EIR contained expert technical modeling and conclusions that Port staff strongly believe fully met all requirements of CEQA to inform the public and decision-makers of the project’s effects.
“The court reviewed dozens of issues raised by petitioners and validated much of the SCIG EIR’s analysis as complying with CEQA,” he said. “Nevertheless, the court concluded that certain specific areas required additional analysis.”
Although Port of LA officials view the project as one that would be environmentally beneficial to the region, as it would decrease local cargo traffic to one sixth of its current amount, many Long Beach stakeholders oppose SCIG— which would lease operations to the railyard for the next 50 years— because those activities would be concentrated in an area that would affect the health of residents in the western part of the city.
In a press release issued by Nina Erlich-Williams of Public Good PR, on behalf of the City of Long Beach, the new railyard would have directed thousands of diesel trucks and miles of diesel trains close to schools, daycare centers, playing fields and residences on a daily basis. “By 2035, the project would have generated two million truck trips per year to and from the site,” states the press release, “and the loading and unloading of up to 1.5 million shipping containers annually.”
According to that press release, the Port and the City of Los Angeles voted to adopt the project’s EIR in 2013 over the “strenuous objections” of numerous public agencies and nonprofit organizations concerned about its environmental impacts.
Seven lawsuits were consolidated into one case— Fastlane Transportation, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, et al.— that focused on the increased pollution that would result from the project. The original petitioners included: the City of Long Beach; several community and environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council; the Long Beach Unified School District; the South Coast Air Quality Management District; and several transportation companies that conduct business at the port.
The California Attorney General’s Office later intervened on behalf of the petitioners, and, at the request of the City of LA and the port, the case was moved out of LA and the parties agreed to Contra Costa County as the new site for litigation.
“We understand that the Port of Los Angeles provides an important economic engine to the region, but that doesn’t mean that it can bypass laws designed to protect the environment and public health,” said Michael Mais, assistant city attorney for Long Beach, who, along with outside counsel Rachel Hooper and Winter King of Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, represented the City in the case. “The Port of Los Angeles was required to do its best to limit the environmental harm of this project, and the court agreed with petitioners that the port’s efforts fell far short.”
Chris Eftychiou, spokesman for the Long Beach Unified School District, said the court agreed with the school district that the approval of the SCIG project should be set aside due to noncompliance with CEQA during the EIR certification process.
“We could not support a project that posed a health risk to our students and staff,” Eftychiou said. “Our school district’s primary goal is to provide a safe learning environment. We’re pleased with the careful attention the judge paid to the potential health effects on students, staff and residents who live near the proposed project area, and we’re glad to see the ruling affirmed.”
The most obvious shortcomings in the EIR, according to the Public Good PR press release, related to air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, noise and traffic impacts. In particular, the court found that the EIR used a flawed approach to measure the noise impacts of the proposed facility, which would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“Instead of considering the maximum acceptable level of individual noise events, the document focused on ‘average’ noise impacts,” states the press release. “This approach was misleading because residents will likely be awakened on a regular basis by nighttime train passbys that would exceed existing local noise ordinances.”
After Goode’s ruling, the Port of LA must vacate the project approvals and suspend all of its related activities until the port and the City of LA comply with CEQA.
“This ruling affirms that the proposed project cannot proceed without additional measures to protect Long Beach neighborhoods, which is a win for Long Beach and westside residents,” said Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia. “As proposed, this project would have endangered the health of our children and damaged the neighborhoods where many people live, study and work.”
Seventh District Long Beach Councilmember Roberto Uranga’s constituency includes many of those who reside on the city’s west side.
“The EIR was ruled to be incomplete,” Uranga said. “It did not address the environmental effects the SCIG would have on west Long Beach area neighborhoods and schools in regard to traffic, noise and air quality. We continue to experience these issues, and we are working to mitigate them under the current circumstances. We still need to address port growth, but we need to do so responsibly.”
According to BNSF, acting responsibly was indeed part of the plan.
Lena Kent, director of Public Affairs for the railway company, said BNSF would have made substantial investments in the region and done so with high environmental standards.
She said BNSF would have invested $500 million in the regional economy, going well beyond legal requirements, including $100 million in green technologies such as electric cranes, ultra-low emission locomotives and solar energy. Additionally, she said, BNSF committed to allowing only clean trucks on designated industrial routes with GPS tracking and support for zero or near-zero emissions.
“As BNSF has noted previously, this ruling was not only disappointing for the company and the Port of Los Angeles, but also a major loss for both ports, the local community and the region,” Kent said. “The ports miss the opportunity to have a green, efficient facility that serves their customers and bolsters their competitiveness, while the community and broader region won’t benefit from the traffic reductions, air quality improvements and good jobs SCIG would have brought.”
