LOS ANGELES-BNSF Railway has released a draft environmental impact report for the railroad’s proposed Southern California International Gateway, a $500 million intermodal facility that would allow containers to be loaded onto rail four miles from the docks, rather than traveling 24 miles to downtown rail facilities. The project is designed to be "the greenest intermodal facility in the US," according to an announcement from BNSF, which states that the new facility "will allow 1.5 million more containers to move by more efficient and environmentally preferred rail through the Alameda Corridor each year, greatly reducing truck traffic congestion in Southern California."
The EIR concludes that SCIG reduces health risk to a far greater extent than even the port’s own goals for new projects. In building SCIG, BNSF will clean up an existing industrial site and replace it with a facility featuring wide-span all-electric cranes, ultra-low emission switching locomotives and low-emission rail yard equipment.
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In addition to these steps, BNSF has committed to initially allow only trucks meeting the port’s Clean Air Action Plan goal of 2007 or newer trucks to transport cargo between the marine terminals and the facility. Ultimately, by 2026, 90% of the truck fleet will be LNG or equivalent emissions vehicles. Trucks will be required to avoid residential areas by traveling on designated, industrial routes with GPS tracking to ensure adherence.
Matthew Rose, chairman, and CEO of BNSF, said in the announcement that the railway has worked closely with elected officials, staff and stakeholders to develop a facility that "proves that ‘green’ and ‘growth’ can go together." The draft environmental impact report analyzes potential impacts from the project on topics ranging from air quality to traffic.
The draft EIR announcement is available here. As part of the environmental review process, BNSF has asked interest parties to submit their written comments for the official record to the Port of Los Angeles by December 22, 2011 to Christopher Cannon, director of environmental management via mail or e-mail to [email protected]. They will be included in the final environmental impact report.
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