BARSTOW, Calif.— A coalition of conservation and environmental justice groups sued the city of Barstow for approving a 5,000-acre rail yard and warehouse project that will worsen already poor air quality and destroy desert habitat without performing the required environmental reviews.
Yesterday’s lawsuit, filed in San Bernardino County Superior Court, asserts that the city failed to evaluate and mitigate the project’s multiple environmental harms and violated the California Environmental Quality Act.
“For years my neighbors and I have told the city council that this expansion will have severe impacts on our community including increased air pollution and the deterioration of a beautiful ecosystem into a loud, 24-hour a day intermodal rail yard right outside our front doors,” said Sherry Baily, a community advocate and Sierra Club member who lives across from the proposed project. “The city council admitted there would be ‘significant and unavoidable impacts’ in its environmental review. In doing so, they ignored our concerns to side with a massive corporation. The impacts could be avoidable if they approved a plan that required developers to reduce pollution and meaningfully addressed our concerns, but instead we are being treated as disposable, unimportant and as a sacrifice to the profits of big business interests.”
“It’s unconscionable that a city in this day and age would allow a giant industrial project that will result in so much increased diesel pollution, which is damaging to people and the environment. Barstow needs to go back to the drawing board,” said Seth Alston, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “If this goes unchallenged, communities will be choking on the fumes of the city’s mistake and the animals who rely on the Mojave River won’t stand a chance.”
The massive Barstow International Gateway project will operate 24 hours a day near schools and homes and the railyard will be the largest rail facility in the country. The new facility plans to use diesel-powered trains, trucks and railyard equipment to transport goods 130 miles from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to Barstow, and more diesel trains to ship goods to the rest of the nation. The city approved the railyard without any requirements to electrify its fleet.
“This massive rail facility will spew diesel fumes from the San Pedro Bay Ports to the High Desert of Barstow 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, adding to the dirty air that communities have been forced to breathe for decades,” said Yasmine Agelidis, senior attorney on Earthjustice’s Right to Zero campaign. “Fenceline communities across Southern California need relief. You’d be hard pressed to find a more suitable rail project to electrify today, which is why the developer and operator must invest in readily available non-polluting technology — instead of locking the region into diesel-guzzling technology for yet another century.”
The project — which includes 9 million square feet of warehouse, rail storage and logistics space — is expected to emit each year more than 550 tons of nitrogen oxide, the pollutant that causes serious health problems, and burn more than 18 million gallons of diesel every year. The project will increase greenhouse gas emissions by 134,471 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year — a 41% increase over the existing emissions. Those figures are likely undercalculations based on faulty assumptions that the coalition is challenging.
To make matters worse, the harms to both air quality and the climate will affect communities that are already burdened by the existing pollution in the region. The railyard will operate just 120 feet from homes and 520 feet from an elementary school. Parks and churches are also nearby. This project comes after the Los Angeles region experienced the smoggiest first five months of the year in more than a decade. The railyard will also encroach on the Mojave River channel, a biodiversity hotspot.
“Los Angeles County residents living on the frontlines of the San Pedro Bay Port Complex are also boxed in by over 10 major railyards and forced to breathe a toxic mix of port and rail pollution daily,” said Paola Vargas, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice Long Beach organizer. “Barstow’s project is designed to further expand rail infrastructure between Barstow and Los Angeles, while accelerating cargo movement stemming from the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach. For frontline residents already disproportionately harmed by high rates of asthma, cancer, and cardiovascular disease associated with port operations and diesel-fueled locomotive operations, this project is a threat to life expectancy. Increased locomotive activity will only worsen emissions, truck traffic, and pollution burden.”
The lawsuit states that the city did not adequately analyze the project’s effect on the Mojave fringe-toed lizard, Mojave desert tortoise, western burrowing owl and other special status wildlife and plants. The city also failed to thoroughly analyze the energy, water, noise, cumulative impacts and growth-inducing impacts associated with this approval.
In early June, the Barstow City Council approved an update of its general plan, paving the way for the approval of the railyard project two weeks later. The project proposed by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company (BNSF), a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., requires the annexation of county land into the city and will take over thousands of acres of residential areas and open space along the Mojave River corridor.
“The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company has refused to plan for a clean zero-emission rail facility and continues to focus on speed rather than public health,” said Alison Hahm, an attorney at NRDC. “Thousands of lives are on the line between Barstow and Los Angeles, where this project would run, yet the company is bent on running diesel locomotives through communities, threatening to concentrate pollution in neighborhoods already overwhelmed by truck traffic, warehouse expansions, and surging cargo volumes flowing from the ports.”
This rail facility is an opportunity to build a future that protects people and the planet. The project is ideally suited to operate entirely — or at least partially — with non-polluting equipment, including switcher locomotives, captive fleet locomotives, railyard equipment, and trucks. In fact, earlier this month, Los Angeles’ local air district distributed $190 million for 31 battery-electric switcher locomotives and charging infrastructure, the largest award ever granted.
“Zero-emission equipment is available, cutting edge, and cost-effective,” said Agelidis, of Earthjustice. “Yet, the city of Barstow and the railyard company claim non-polluting locomotives are not feasible. Barstow residents deserve a future where their health is protected, not put on the sidelines in favor of corporate profits.”
The lawsuit was filed by Sierra Club, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, and Natural Resources Defense Council, who are represented by Earthjustice; East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and NRDC, who are represented by NRDC; and the Center for Biological Diversity, who is represented by in-house counsel.
