The environmental group Communities for Higher Atmosphere has filed a lawsuit towards the Port of Oakland, which manages the Oakland Airport, claiming the Environmental Influence Report authorized the airport’s proposed terminal redevelopment fails to account for the hurt the venture would do to marginalized communities of East Oakland.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Alameda County Superior Courtroom, alleges the port’s environmental evaluation “understates the true impacts” of air high quality, noise air pollution and site visitors on the predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood of East Oakland. CBE is asking the court docket for an injunction to cease the terminal redevelopment venture from transferring ahead.
“It’s very clear in our eyes that they did not do all the things that (the California Environmental Quality Act) requires,” CBE affiliate legal professional Sarah Chen Small mentioned. “It’s very concerning that a project could move forward and have potential environmental impacts that have not been disclosed and haven’t been analyzed.”
CEQA requires builders to determine and disclose the potential environmental impacts of proposed tasks — together with water and air high quality, noise and lightweight air pollution, and extra — by an Environmental Influence Report. The port’s commissioners unanimously authorized the ultimate EIR on Nov. 21 to ship the proposal for a federal evaluate.
Port officers plan to construct a brand new, fashionable terminal to exchange the getting older infrastructure of Terminal 1. Constructed within the Sixties, the terminal’s infrastructure is old-fashioned with fashionable requirements of effectivity, security and seismic requirements, they are saying. Additionally they consider the substitute of the terminal is required to accommodate the upper demand for air journey they anticipate on the Oakland airport — airport code OAK — over the following 20 years.
“The EIR is a product of years of careful study, community outreach, and careful deliberation preceding the November vote,” Oakland Airport spokesperson Kaley Skantz mentioned. “The project being proposed would improve passenger experience at OAK, modernize the airport’s facilities, and meet the region’s travel needs.”
CBE’s lawsuit takes explicit difficulty with the destructive impacts on air high quality associated to the proposed Oakland Airport improvement, pointing to a 63% enhance within the quantity of nitrogen oxide over 2019 ranges cited within the Port’s remaining EIR. Residents close to the airport expertise among the highest charges of bronchial asthma in California.
Although air high quality is the first concern for CBE, Small famous different considerations in regards to the impacts of elevated site visitors and noise air pollution that would negatively impression the neighborhood’s well being. She linked increased noise air pollution to elevated charges of metabolic problems like diabetes, cardiac illness and decrease educational efficiency for youngsters.
“Sometimes noise sounds like it’s just about annoyance, but it is really essential to protecting community health,” Small mentioned. “The limited information that is supplied is already incredibly concerning and indicates really serious impacts.”
Initially Printed: December 19, 2024 at 4:16 PM PST
