BNSF, Los Angeles appeal court decision rejecting massive rail yard opposed by Long Beach

Seeking to salvage a $500 million rail yard project, the city of Los Angeles and a national railroad company on Tuesday filed an appeal of a court decision that halted the controversial project near a low-income community.

The appeal could mean years of legal wrangling for the Southe Califoia Inteational Gateway, a project nearly a decade in the plaing and opposed by the community, the city of Long Beach, its schools and several environmental groups.

“I am not surprised to see the judgement appealed,” Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia said Tuesday. But Garcia said that he held out hope that all the parties could still negotiate while the appeal moves forward. “We will have to wait and see.”

In the latest twist of what has been a three-year-long legal battle, the city of Los Angeles and BNSF Railway rejected a Contra Costa judge’s finding that the city failed to adequately analyze the environmental impacts the rail yard would have on the West Long Beach community, as required by state law. In that final judgement, Judge Barry P. Goode ordered the city of Los Angeles to set aside its environmental analysis needed to move forward, along with the 50-year lease of the proposed 185-acre rail yard.

Judge’s ruling analyzed

“This ruling is a loss for the region and it sends a strong message that green investment is unwelcome in Califoia,” said BNSF’s lawyer Roger Nober in a prepared statement. “The community and broader region won’t benefit from the traffic reductions, air quality improvements and good jobs SCIG would have brought.”

Nober said the company made the decision to appeal out of worry the judgement could set a precedent that would affect the development of future facilities or port projects. He said unless the ruling was reversed, “building SCIG is less likely.”

Sold as a quicker and cleaner way to move millions of cargo containers from the port to trains and into the heartland of the United States, BSNF Railway and the city of Los Angeles boasted the project would create hundreds of jobs, support zero-emission technology and include soundwalls and landscaping. Company officials said they plaed to spend $100 million on green technologies such as electric cranes and low-emission locomotives.

In explaining why the Port of Los Angeles joined the appeal, Executive Director Gene Seroka framed the project as a linchpin to goods movement. He said in a prepared statement the project is “vitally important” to improve the efficiency of the entire San Pedro Bay Ports complex, the Alameda Corridor and the region.

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Community impact

But, project foes say the railroad and city underestimated the damage the project would cause the surrounding community.

“The SCIG project is uecessary and as designed it is a step backward in terms of clean air and public health,” said David Pettit, a lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Fund, which was among several environmental groups that sued.

“Even by the ports own metric, the additional capacity (created by SCIG) won’t be needed until 2035 or later and by then I expect there to be more on-dock rail on existing port land that could pick up any slack.”

One of the opponents’ central criticism was of BNSF’s claim that the new facility would take big rigs off the road by diverting them away from the 710 Freeway, which truckers take on their way to the company’s Hobart facility in Commerce, one the largest intermodal yards in the United States.

Opponents said SCIG —about 4 miles from the port — would merely allow for greater capacity and create more traffic congestion all around.

“We are fully confident the judge did get it right,” said assistant Long Beach city attoey Michael Mais. “He spent an enormous amount of time putting together a 200-page rationale.”

At stake is the environmental health of the city’s west side where people work, live and attend schools, Long Beach officials said.

The case was a consolidation of seven different lawsuits from the city of Long Beach, the Long Beach Unified School District, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, two transportation companies, residents and other environmental group.