A judge’s ruling in favor of Long Beach and other litigants in a pivotal lawsuit challenging a $500 million rail-yard project at the Port of Los Angeles puts the project on an indefinite pause and may give Long Beach officials considerable leverage in negotiating greater environmental protections for any future project design.

“It certainly strengthens our hand, definitely,” Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia said after Wednesday’s ruling was announced. “The city is now in a position where we have a court standing on our side.”

The case centered on BNSF Railways’ plan to build a 185-acre rail yard, called Southern California International Gateway, on land in the Wilmington area of Los Angeles. The project site is located near neighborhoods, schools and the Century Villages at Cabrillo veterans housing complex in West Long Beach. Los Angeles’ City Council approved the project, which is also known as SCIG, in May 2013 and several parties filed lawsuits against the project shortly thereafter.

Long Beach officials contended in their lawsuit that Los Angeles and BNSF failed to provide a complete analysis of the SCIG’s potential environmental impacts, which would have been disproportionately borne by people living in West Long Beach.

The multiple lawsuits were consolidated into a single case and proceedings moved to Contra Costa County Superior Court in January 2014. Judge Barry P. Goode ruled in favor of Long Beach and the other litigants on Wednesday after concluding the project’s environmental impact report failed to deliver a complete analysis the environmental impacts of the project.

His decision voids Los Angeles officials’ approval of the project and orders a suspension of any activities related to the construction of SCIG.

Long Beach Councilman Roberto Uranga, whose 7th Council District borders the proposed SCIG site, also hailed the decision on Wednesday.

“My constituents and I, especially those that live in West Long Beach can breathe a little easier now,” he said in a statement.

The ruling

Los Angeles and BNSF officials argued that the rail yard, approved in 2013, would curb truck traffic and pollution by removing the 1.3 million annual truck trips that would have been made on the 710 Freeway to BNSF’s Hobart Yard in Commerce 24 miles away.

In many cases, the Los Angeles port and BNSF Railway Co. went beyond the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act and agreed to provide substantial benefits requested by the community that were not required by the state, according to a legal brief filed by the port and BNSF.

The Port of Los Angeles “concluded that all potential environmental impacts were either less than significant or would be mitigated to the maximum extent feasible, given the limits of existing and reasonably foreseeable technologies,” according to the brief.

In Goode’s analysis, however, the environmental impact report that won the Los Angeles City Council’s approval failed to assess the total impact to air quality that may result from the construction of SCIG as well as activities at other rail yards in and around Long Beach.

For example, Goode concluded the environmental report was incomplete for not providing a detailed look at how SCIG’s development may change the activity levels at Hobart, where BNSF workers and trains would be expected to handle domestic freight if the company had won the go-ahead to build SCIG.

“What, if any, are the impacts of that at Hobart? In the surrounding area? The EIR does not assess these,” Goode observed.

The judge also found flaws in the analysis of potential noise pollution and traffic impact.

Port of Los Angeles officials and BNSF executives have yet to decide how they will respond to Goode’s ruling.

“We are disappointed with the court ruling that delays or deprives the region of many environmental benefits and both ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach of important rail infrastructure,” according to a statement from the Los Angeles port. “We will study the decision and discuss next steps with BNSF and the Board of Harbor Commissioners.”

Port of Los Angeles spokeswoman Rachel Campbell said the agency would not have any further comment on Wednesday. BNSF did not provide answers to specific questions, but the firm did issue a statement of its own.

“While BNSF is still carefully reviewing the lengthy ruling, upon initial review, we are disappointed, because the decision appears to delay a nationally and regionally significant transportation infrastructure project,” the company’s statement read.

BNSF went on to state the company’s employees have worked on the project for more than a decade and the company still “stands ready” to spend more than $500 million on the Wilmington rail yard.

The future

Goode’s ruling requires the petitioners to propose the terms of a judgment that could end the case, or at least set the stage for Los Angeles officials to decide if they want to appeal Goode’s ruling.

Long Beach City Attorney Charles Parkin and deputy city attorney Mike Mais said a decision on an appeal cannot be made until a judgment is issued, so he and others on Long Beach’s side of the case are waiting to find out what happens next.

An appeal is not the only possible scenario, and Mais said it may be possible for Los Angeles and BNSF to proceed without resetting the environmental review process if the parties are able to negotiate a strong settlement.

Long Beach officials have already demanded such environmental protections as landscaped buffers and the establishment of a community grant program to pay for the installation of double-paned windows and home air-filtration systems.

East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, a Commerce-based environmental group, was one of the several parties that filed suit against the project. Organization co-founder Angelo Logan said after the ruling came out “the Port (of Los Angeles) and city can go back to the drawing board and do long-range planning,” Logan said.