In 2015, the City of Moreno Valley approved the World Logistics Center, an immense development that would include 40.6 million square feet of warehouse space on more than 3,800 acres. The project would add over 14,000 truck trips moving to and from the site each day. These trucks would generate an enormous amount of pollution, severely impacting air quality in
a low-income community already suffering from severe air pollution. Indeed, Moreno Valley and its surrounding area have some of the state’s worst concentrations of ozone and particulate matter, traffic density, and diesel truck pollution. Residents of the area experience high rates of asthma, as well as other respiratory health conditions.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District, Riverside County, community groups and environmental organizations challenged the project under CEQA. After the CEQA actions were filed, the air district and the county entered separate settlement agreements, requiring the developer to provide further mitigation for the project’s air quality and transportation impacts.
Nearly five years later, after the community and environmental groups prevailed in the litigation, they won a settlement securing nearly $50 million in additional mitigation and other commitments to protect the vulnerable community in Moreno Valley. Finalized in 2021, this settlement calls for significant project modifications further reducing the large warehouse’s effects on air pollution, climate, traffic, noise, light and glare — changes that will protect the health and wellbeing of local residents. The settlement also provides additional protection for wildlife habitat at the nearby San Jacinto Wildlife Area.
Sources: The Housing Workshop (2021), CEQA: California’s Living Environmental Law, pp. 80-81; Earthjustice (2021), “World Logistics Center Settlement Agreement,” https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/wlc_settlement_agreement_executed.pdf.