AG CHALLENGES WAREHOUSE DEAL

Environment:

By Beau Yarbrough

byarbrough@scng.com @LBY3 on Twitter

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra says the Moreno Valley City Council illegally disregarded California environmental law in 2015 when it approved a massive complex of warehouses that could ultimately cover a 10th of the city.

“California is already suffering from the onerous effects of climate change — including wildfires, droughts, and harmful air pollution,” Becerra is quoted as saying in a news release. “We have a responsibility to our communities, particularly those that are disproportionately affected by pollution, to make sure all feasible mitigation measures are taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in projects like the World Logistics Center.”

But Moreno Valley City Councilwoman Victoria Baca on Friday responded: “I disagree with the attorney general and hope that the courts will rule in our favor so we can get this project on the road.”

Baca was not on the City Council when the project was approved but now supports it.

“Let’s get it built,” she said.

City officials did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

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STAFF FILE PHOTO

TOP: An overview of the area where the World Logistics Center is proposed to be built is seen from Cactus Avenue looking north to the 60Freeway in 2015.

ABOVE: California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, right, alleges in a friend-of-the-court brief filed Friday morning that Moreno Valley ignored environmental law in approving the World Logistics Center.

RICH PEDRONCELLI – THE ASSOCIATE PRESS

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Eric Rose, spokesman for World Logistics Center developer Highland Fairview, said in a statement that a Riverside County judge ruled that the city properly analyzed greenhouse gas emissions and that work complied with state law. Becerra’s and state officials’ “argument is with the judge’s ruling and not with the city or Highland Fairview.”

The project “already has the highest environmental standards, including the strictest emission controls in the state,” he said.

On Friday, Becerra filed an amicus — or “friend of the court” — brief with the 4th District Court of Appeal, writing that city officials have inaccurately said the logistics center would fall under the California Air Resources Board’s Cap-and-Trade program.

The program, referred to as “emissions trading” by the Environmental Protection Agency, limits the pollution companies can produce and allows companies below that limit to sell credits to companies over the limit. The system is intended to create incentives for companies to emit less pollution than the cap and to do so quickly enough that they can economically benefit by selling the credits to companies that are slower to comply.

But the environmental impacts of warehouses and logistics centers must be regulated by local governments, rather than by the state air quality board’s cap-and-trade system, according to Becerra.

“Local governments like Moreno Valley must do their part as regulators if we are going to safeguard the well-being of residents and meet California’s longterm climate change goals,” he said in Friday’s news release.

By saying the center’s emissions were covered under the Cap-and-Trade program, Moreno Valley failed to consider more than 95% of the greenhouse gases — as required by the California Environmental Quality Act — that could be emitted by 40 million square feet of warehouses on 2,610 acres, Becerra alleged.

The American Lung Association gives Riverside County an F grade for both ozone and particle pollution and says that 38,245 children and 142,916 adults in the county suffer from asthma.

In a 2019 report, the association ranks Riverside County as the second-most ozone-polluted county in the United States.

Highland Fairview representatives have previously said the logistics center would create 20,000 permanent jobs, but an environmental report said the center would also generate 68,721 daily vehicle trips, including more than 14,000 truck trips.

“Large distribution centers with heavy truck traffic must take responsibility for the greenhouse gas emissions and smog-forming exhaust they generate,” California Air Resources Board Chair Mary D. Nichols is quoted as saying in Becerra’s release. “They cannot hide behind legal fictions to ignore the need to protect public health and the environment.”

According to the attorney general’s office, the center is expected lead to more 385,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases to be released into the atmosphere each year — almost 40 times what the South Coast Air Quality Management District considers to be significant greenhouse gas emissions.

“The message for this developer — and others contemplating this illegal ploy — is clear: Distribution centers need to move towards zero-emission trucks and cargo equipment,” Nichols said in the release. “They can’t duck their responsibility to the community where they are located, or pass on the costs of their pollution in the form of unhealthy air and poor health.”

In the brief, which comments on two different lawsuits against the city and Highland Fairview, Becerra argues that the city’s environmental analysis deprived the public of the information it needed to evaluate whether residents — and their elected officials — should support the project.

In addition, the city’s environmental analysis didn’t look at the center’s emissions beyond the year 2030, “despite the fact that the project’s full operation will not start until five years later, in 2035,” the brief reads in part.

Staf f writer David Downey contributed to this report.

Supporters of the World Logistics Center proposal clap after a resident spoke in favor of the project during a City Council meeting at the Moreno Valley Conference and Recreation Center in August 2015.

STAFF FILE PHOTOS

Developer Iddo Benzeevi walks past a small collection of signs protesting his World Logistics Center proposal while outside the Moreno Valley Conference and Recreation Center in 2015.