SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — A coalition of environmental groups has filed suit to overturn the City of Barstow’s approval of BNSF’s Barstow International Gateway, citing what they say are deficiencies in the city’s environmental assessment that understate the project’s impact.
“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,” Seth Alston, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a press release.
The 4,500-acre, $4 billion Barstow International Gateway will enable containers to move by rail from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to Barstow, where they will be organized into trains heading east. Among other features, the project will also include facilities allowing international cargo to be transloaded into larger domestic containers.
While BNSF plans extensive measures to mitigate the project’s impact, the suit filed July 1 by environmental groups argues that the project should require electrification of BNSF’s route between Barstow and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach…