Port rejects Audubon appeal to spare endangered birds from trucking facility
Eli Saddler, conservation director for the Audubon Society, said that commissioners didn't ask him a single question before casting their votes. The vote gave Kansas-based developer Swan Terminal LLC the green light to build a motor freight transfer terminal on an eight-acre lot at the northeast end of Pardee Drive in the Airport Business Park in east Oakland. The proposed terminal includes a 19,800 square foot building with 64 dock doors for freight transfer. The facility will operate 24 hours a day transferring goods from larger trucks coming from a regional distribution center in Sacramento to smaller trucks used to deliver goods throughout the Bay Area. The lot, however, is adjacent to the 72-acre Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline, which is home to more than 90 bird species, including the federally protected California clapper rail, which is found only in San Francisco Bay salt marshes. Endangered California least terns and brown pelicans also inhabit the salt marsh, and many species of federally protected migratory birds regularly return to the area twice a year to feed and rest, according to Saddler. An endangered mouse, the salt marsh harvest mouse, also lives in the wetlands. "There are plenty of other places for a trucking terminal, but the birds really have nowhere else to go, nor do the people of East Oakland, for that matter," Saddler said. In addition to wildlife, an estimated 300,000 people visit the park each year, according to the Audubon Society. In its appeal, the Audubon Society claimed that light and noise from the proposed trucking terminal would disturb sensitive endangered species and called for a full environmental impact study to be conducted. The commission has claimed that the trucking terminal would have minimal impact on the nearby habitat and that the developer had agreed to take steps to reduce light and noise pollution. Port of Oakland spokeswoman Marilyn Sandifur said on Monday that the port commission had followed the California Environmental Quality Act guidelines and determined that a full environmental impact report was not required for the terminal. Saddler, however, said today that an environmental impact study was required for the property under the terms of a settlement from an earlier lawsuit. In 1986 Port of Oakland employees were caught illegally dumping fill into marshland to create more land, according to Saddler. The Audubon Society, along with several other environmental groups, sued the port for the destruction of wetlands. The California Attorney General's office also brought a lawsuit against the port to enjoin it from filling any more wetlands. After 10 years of litigation, a settlement agreement was reached and the City of Oakland, which owns the Port of Oakland, paid $2.5 million to restore the wetlands along the Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline. According to Saddler, the settlement also included a provision that the Port of Oakland wouldn't build any facility on the adjacent property that would attract predators or drive wildlife out of the restored wetlands. When they voted to deny the appeal Tuesday, the board "basically ignored the intent of the consent agreement," Saddler said. He noted that a second developer wanted to build another trucking transfer terminal next to Swan Terminal's facility and an environmental impact study was necessary to evaluate the potential cumulative impact of the two facilities. The Audubon Society now has 30 days to file a California Environmental Quality Act lawsuit, and unless they get an injunction, construction on the terminal could begin within the next several weeks, Saddler said. The Audubon Society is also exploring other options, including filing a federal lawsuit under the Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. "We believe that the commission has acted irresponsibly," Saddler said. "Now the Port of Oakland, the City of Oakland, the developer and environmental and community groups will be spending time and money for something that could have been prevented in the first place." Copyright 2007 by Bay City News, Inc. |