Proposed Rail Yard Raises Concerns in Long Beach

After a seven-hour hearing, the Los Angeles Harbor Commission Thursday approved a proposed $500 million rail yard near the Port of Los Angeles BNSF Railway officials claim would reduce truck traffic by transferring cargo containers onto freight trains closer to the port, instead of near downtown Los Angeles.

However, the proposed rail yard has raised some concerns amongst West Long Beach residents as well as the mayor.

The unanimous decision by the port's governing body followed a hearing that included comments from almost 200 union workers, members of environmental groups, area mayors and council members and residents who crowded into the port's cavernous Cruise Terminal Annex for the meeting.

The 153-acre rail yard project, the Southern California International Gateway, SCIG, still needs the approval of the Los Angeles City Council.

BNSF executives cheered the board's decision.

"The commissioners' vote today validates that building SCIG is the right choice for green growth in Los Angeles and will be a new environmental model for the rest of the country," BNSF Chairman and CEO Matthew K. Rose said.

"We appreciate all the support from a wide range of stakeholders and stand ready to invest $500 million to build this state-of-the-art facility and bring jobs, air quality and traffic benefits to Southern California while helping keep the San Pedro ports competitive," he said.

The company said the chief benefit of the project will be taking trucks off of the Long Beach (710) Freeway. Rail yard equipment will be either electric or low-emission, and trucks will bypass residential areas via specialized routes, and by 2026, 90 percent of the trucks serving the facility will be low-emission liquefied natural gas vehicles, according to BNSF.

The project has generated opposition from some residents in the Wilmington and West Long Beach areas who complained about its proximity to schools, parks and low-income neighborhoods.

Angelo Logan of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice today criticized the project's assertions about its environmental and health benefits as "lipstick on a pig, and SCIG is a pig that reeks of environmental racism."

Several residents opposing the project repeated the slogan, "we're just trying to breathe" and recounted instances of asthma and other respiratory illnesses suffered by their friends and neighbors that they believe will worsen with the arrival of the facility.

Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster said residents in his city would bear the brunt of the project's impacts, and complained that BNSF has not been responsive to their suggestions on the environmental impact report that was under consideration today.

"If you understand California law and politics around environmental impact reports, it's 'We're going to wait 'til you sue us, before we pay any attention to you."' Foster said. " I think that's counterproductive."

Port staffers told the commission the project would reduce air pollution in the region by taking trucks off the Long Beach Freeway and putting cargo onto trains faster.

The port's environmental management director, Chris Cannon, who has dealt frequently with environmental justice groups in the years leading up to today's vote, said at the start of the hearing said the site for the project has been designated a heavy industrial zone since the 1930s, which is not something that the port can address within the project's environmental impact process.

"So as these communities began to move and populate these areas, they moved next door to a heavy industrial area," Cannon said.

Cannon also said that as soon as zero-emission electric vehicles become "commercially and technically feasible, we believe they should be required for operating at the facility."

Environmental groups and David Pettit, an attorney from the National Resources Defense Council, disputed whether the port's agreement with BNSF Railway adequately ensures that trucks using the rail yard would be converted to zero- or near-zero-emission. They contended the project would generate more truck traffic and pollution in a community already affected by respiratory health problems.

Supporters have touted the project as an economic necessity in the face of a major trade port being constructed in the Panama Canal that could steal business away from the Los Angeles port.

Union workers and representatives of business associations came out today to express their support for the project which they believe will protect jobs in the region.

Ron Miller, executive secretary of the region's Building and Construction Trades Council said the project would solve Long Beach and urged the commissioners to approve the project's environmental impact report.

"Our members care about the quality of life of our neighborhoods," Miller said, "But this will provide 1,500 jobs a year with good wages and health benefits and retirement ... let's not let good jobs go to waste. Let's be real here."

Commissioner David Arian explained his vote today saying he grew up in a family of dock workers and knows the health dangers intimately.

"My dad died of asbestos ... that he contacted off of the waterfront," Arian said. "I understand these issues and have other relatives that have died of these exposures that all of us workers face everyday."

Arian said the knowledge does not take away from the big picture.

"There's got to be additional rail for us to stay where we're at," he said. "The history of rail in America ... that was what connected the East Coast and the West Coast, whether you like how they did it .. they are essential for our future."