Long Beach wins lawsuit against LA over $500 million rail yard plan for Port of Los Angeles

A judge ruled in favor of Long Beach and other litigants in a pivotal lawsuit challenging a $500 million rail yard project approved by the Port of Los Angeles, according to court documents.

Long Beach argued BNSF Railway’s Southe Califoia Inteational Gateway Project, also known as SCIG, would negatively impact air quality in West Long Beach. Judge Barry P. Goode agreed that the Port of Los Angeles and the City of Los Angeles failed to properly analyze the environmental impacts of the project, which would allow trucks to load cargo containers and put them on trains closer to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

“This is a huge win for Long Beach, and in particular our Westside residents who would have been dramatically impacted by this proposed project. The health of our children and the protection of our environment have been at the forefront of our conces,” Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia said in a statement.

In Goode’s analysis, the environmental impact report that won Los Angeles harbor commissioners’ and City Council’s approval failed to assess the total impact to air quality that may result from the construction of SCIG as well as activities at other rail yards in and around Long Beach. The judge also found flaws in the analysis of potential noise pollution and traffic impact, ultimately voiding Los Angeles officials’ approval of the project and ordering a suspension of any activities related to the construction of SCIG.

East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice was one of the several parties that filed suit against the project. Organization co-founder Angelo Logan said after the ruling came out that it appears BNSF and Los Angeles have the options of redoing their environmental review to meet the court’s standards or redesign the project with greater environmental protections.

“The Port (of Los Angeles) and city can go back to the drawing board and do long-range plaing,” said Logan, who also said his group would favor that railheads be built adjacent to the docks themselves.

Port of Los Angeles officials have yet to decide how they will respond to Goode’s ruling.

“We are disappointed with the Court ruling that delays or deprives the region of many environmental benefits and both ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach of important rail infrastructure. We will study the decision and discuss next steps with BNSF and the Board of Harbor Commissioners,” read a statement from the Los Angeles port.

Port of Los Angeles spokeswoman Rachel Campbell said the agency would not have any further comment on Wednesday.

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BNSF could not be reached immediately for comment.

Long Beach wanted more mitigation measures to lessen the impact of the project, including landscaped buffers and the establishment of a community grant program to pay for the installation of double-paned windows and home air-filtration systems.

Other petitioners included the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Air Quality Management District, the Long Beach Unified School District, and several community groups in Wilmington.

Los Angeles and BNSF officials, meanwhile, have argued that the rail yard would curb truck traffic and pollution by removing the 1.3 million aual truck trips that would have been made on the 710 Freeway to BNSF’s Hobart Yard 24 miles away.

In many cases, the Los Angeles port and BNSF Railway Co. went beyond the requirements of the Califoia Environmental Quality Act and agreed to provide substantial benefits requested by the community that were not required by the state, according to a legal brief filed by the port and BNSF.

The Port of Los Angeles “concluded that all potential environmental impacts were either less than significant or would be mitigated to the maximum extent feasible, given the limits of existing and reasonably foreseeable technologies,” according to the brief.

The rail yard project, approved in 2013, would have allowed BNSF to handle as many as 2.8 million containers headed to destinations east.