Less than a month after the Barstow City Council cited overriding considerations in disregarding ecological concerns to give approval to what was touted as being the world’s largest rail freight handling and truck transfer complex at a site on the city’s west side, a coalition of conservation and environmental groups and local residents has filed a lawsuit that seeks to block the $4 billion project.
In concert, Earth Justice, the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice assert in a lawsuit filed in San Bernardino County Superior Court that the seven-square-mile project will weak havoc on the wildlife in the area of the Mojave Desert where it is to be established, exacerbate already dangerously intense air pollution and impose upon those living nearby serious health and safety hazards.
The Barstow International Gateway project is a 4,500-acre project that is to create an integrated rail facility, consisting of a new and separate rail yard than the one that already exists in the city, what is to entail an intermodal installation and warehouses for transloading freight from international ship containers to vessels suitable for domestic train or truck transport.
The facility will allow the direct transfer of containers from ships at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to trains for transport through the Alameda Corridor onto the Burlington Northern Santa Fe mainline up to Barstow. Once the containers reach the Barstow International Gateway, they will be processed at the facility using cargo-handling equipment powered by clean energy, and then staged and built into trains moving east via Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s network across the nation.
Touted as having a $1.5 billion baseline cost when the project was first unveiled in 2022, the evolving scope of Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s plans have pushed the total estimated price of the undertaking to $4 billion. Whereas the proposal’s primary focus four years ago was on the core rail yard, transload warehouses, and the intermodal facility required to shift freight from international containers to domestic ones, the revised project reflects broader and more comprehensive goals that include extensive supplementary infrastructure. The higher price tag accounts for zero-emission cargo-handling equipment, channel upgrades to reduce regional flooding, roadway circulation enhancements, and the replacement of the Hinkley Road Bridge over the Mojave River.
The initial $1.5 billion estimate contained in the preliminary 2022 projection underwent a 266 percent increase by the time the comprehensive total investment package by Burlington Northern Santa Fe of $4 billion was given approval by the city on June 2, 2026.
A coalition of conservation and environmental justice groups within a month moved to file a lawsuit against the city of Barstow over its approval of the  BNSF’s Barstow International Gateway project, naming Burlington Northern Santa Fe as a real party in interest.
The groups claim the nearly 5,000-acre project, which will become the largest rail facility in the U.S., will devastate the Mojave Desert ecosystem, worsen air pollution, and pose serious health and environmental risks to nearby communities.
BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent said the legal opposition flies in the face of the overwhelming support of the project expressed by state, county and local officials.
The Barstow International Gateway project is the first project certified by Governor Gavin Newsom under Senate Bill 149, which was intended to facilitate red-tape reduction within the administrative and judicial processes relating to transportation-related infrastructure improvements.
A noteworthy element of the Barstow International Gateway project is that from an overarching perspective, it will streamline the transportation of freight and reduce pollution, in particular diesel exhaust, nitrogen oxide emissions, carbon monoxide emissions, greenhouse gasses, particulate matter, ozone precursors, low-lying ozone and smog in general, in that it is part of Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s more comprehensive goal of eliminating the need for containers on ships arriving at ports in Los Angeles County and Long Beach to be placed on trucks, which then separately remove the goods to hundreds of thousands of warehouses and factories where differing arrangements for their delivery elsewhere are effectuated. In this way, the Barstow International Gateway and its proposed function is linked to the San Pedro Bay Port Complex, which consists of the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach. Those ports are the two largest seaports in the United States and together handle approximately 40 percent of the nation’s waterborne cargo. Cargo arriving at the ports is presently transported throughout the region by rail and truck through an interconnected goods movement network.
Upon the completion of the Barstow International Gateway and the initiation of operations there, far fewer diesel-powered trucks will operate out of San Pedro and Long Beach, such that the vast majority of containers arriving by ship will be moved onto rail cars which are to convey them via the currently-underused Alameda Corridor to Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s proposed Barstow facility, which is to entail a 140-acre solar farm, multiple rooftop solar warehouses, solar rail yard canopies and other related infrastructure, powering non-polluting electric powered means of conveying the freight from the rail cars to trucks at that point. This will, according to Burlington Northern Santa Fe, result in 800,000 fewer diesel-powered truck trips between Long Beach/San Pedro and Barstow per year, reducing both freeway congestion and air pollution along that route.
Of note, nonetheless, is that despite the lessening of emissions into the air along the approximately 137 mile route between the Pacific Ocean and the Mojave Desert rail yard, there will be an immense concentration of trains and trucks at the Barstow International Gateway and a resulting increase of emissions at the project site, located generally north of Main Street, between Hinkley and Lenwood roads.
In California, development projects are subject to the California Environmental Quality Act, which calls for some order of an evaluation of the environmental impacts of any development to be carried out, which is supposed to outline what specific mitigation or mitigations of those impacts are going to be undertaken or, if the impacts cannot be offset or remedied, an acknowledgment that the impacts are unmitigable. The governing body with land use authority over the land where a project is to take place has the option, if it so chooses, to recognize that a project, despite involving environmental impacts and hazards which will go unredressed, nevertheless entails redeeming qualities and attributes which merit it being allowed to proceed. In the case of the Barstow International Gateway, the Barstow City Council, in deference to the pollution reduction elements of the plan to substantially reduce truck traffic and freeway congestion between the southwesternmost tip of Los Angeles County’s land mass and the High Desert, create substantial solutions to logistics and supply chain problems and serve to create approximately 20,000 new jobs in Barstow over the next ten to 20 years, made a declaration of overriding considerations relating to the environmental issues the project would entail and gave approval to the undertaking.
According to Earth Justice, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club, the East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and the Natural Resources Defense Council, the statement of overriding considerations and approval of the project are not only on a trajectory to do irreparable harm to individuals who live in proximity to the project and a multitude of species in the area but the evaluation of the hazards was incomplete, such that report upon which the council’s action was taken did not accurately assess the level of damage the project represents.
Yasmine Agelidis, representing Earthjustice; Tyler Szeto and Colleen Fitzgerrell, representing the Sierra Club, East YardCommunities for Environmental Justice and the Natural Resources Defense Council; Alison Hahm, representing the Natural Resources Defense Council; and Peter Broderick and Seth Alston, representing the Center for Biological Diversity, in the lawsuit assert “The freight and logistics industry is one of the biggest polluters in Southern California. The goods movement industry contributes a significant amount of emissions near portside communities, Inland Empire residents, and individuals across the region. While the city and Burlington Northern Santa Fe tout this Project as a greenhouse gas-reducer because it will move goods by train rather than by truck, this oversimplifies and masks the project’s significant contributions to local and regional environmental pollution. The City of Barstow’s environmental impact report for the project concludes that at the height of operations, the Barstow International Gateway will emit over 550 tons of health-harming nitrogen oxide per year and burn approximately 18 million gallons of diesel per year. These figures are jarring, but they severely underestimate the project’s environmental impacts on Barstow and the surrounding Southern California community. Instead of performing an honest assessment of the project’s impacts, the environmental impact report relies on faulty assumptions and makes promises outside of Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s control to claim the Barstow International Gateway will reduce tens of millions of gallons of diesel fuel consumption per year. The city’s environmental impact report analysis lacks substantial evidence and must be corrected. To make matters worse, the final environmental impact report alters some of the draft environmental impact report’s most critical conclusions without explanation, and without recirculating the document for full public review and comment.”
In illustration, Agelidis, Szeto, Fitzgerrell, Hahm, Broderick and Alston state that “Whereas the draft environmental impact report concluded the project will decrease fuel consumption by 5 million gallons of diesel per year compared to existing conditions, the final environmental impact report newly determined without justification that the project will increase diesel fuel usage by over 3 million gallons per year compared to existing conditions. This 8-million-gallon difference in annual diesel fuel consumption certainly amounts to significant new information that required environmental impact report recirculation.”
According to Agelidis, Szeto, Fitzgerrell, Hahm, Broderick and Alston, the project’s untoward effects are not confined to the people living in Barstow but extend to flora and fauna in the environs of Barstow.
“In addition to the region-wide and global harms posed by the project’s air pollution greenhouse gas impacts, the construction and operation of these facilities will transform the local landscape of Barstow and the Mojave Desert,” the lawsuit states. “The project will destroy or degrade thousands of acres of habitat relied upon by numerous special-status wildlife species and native plants, and will imperil the adjacent Mojave River, a critical water source for both people and wildlife in the arid region. The environmental impact report fails to adequately address or reduce these harms.”
Agelidis, Szeto, Fitzgerrell, Hahm, Broderick and Alston hold that the project will severely impact the quality of life of those living in proximity to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railyard facility that is to be created.
Further, beginning during construction and continuing throughout operations, railyard and warehouse facilities will impose huge burdens on nearby communities “due to constant light, noise, dust, and traffic; all of which are impacts the city refused to mitigate through feasible measures or alternative designs,” the lawsuit states. “On June 2, 2026, the city council approved the Barstow general plan update, which takes actions to accommodate the Barstow International Gateway Project and forecasts Barstow’s significant development over the next 25 years. The massive BIG [Barstow International Gateway] project will move shipping containers from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach 130 miles to the High Desert town of Barstow, where goods will be repackaged before they are shipped nationwide. Likewise, goods will travel from the rest of the nation to Barstow and then onwards to the Ports. The Barstow International Gateway will operate 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. BIG will use diesel locomotives, diesel trucks, and diesel railyard equipment, all of which contribute significant amounts of pollution to a region already plagued by the nation’s worst air quality. Specifically, the project proponent, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, intends to operate diesel switcher locomotives, which are locomotives that move trains within the railyard itself; a ‘captive fleet’ of diesel line-haul locomotives to travel back and forth from the ports to Barstow on a closed loop; diesel line-haul locomotives to travel to and from the project from the east; and diesel railyard equipment, such as rubber-tired gantry cranes and transport refrigeration units to manage goods at the project site. The Barstow International Gateway will also receive hundreds of trucks per day, all of which are expected to be fueled by diesel. The city, as the lead agency for the Project, must prepare a California Environmental Quality Act environmental review disclosing the project’s environmental impacts for public review and comment, and must adopt all feasible mitigation measures to reduce the project’s significant environmental impacts to the extent feasible.”
Agelidis, Szeto, Fitzgerrell, Hahm, Broderick and Alston said the city could and should have required, in giving go-ahead to the project, that Burlington Northern Santa Fe dispense with diesel-powered train engines in favor of ones running on electricity.
They maintain that “the project is ideally suited to operate entirely—or at least partially—with non polluting equipment, including switcher locomotives, ‘captive fleet’ locomotives, railyard equipment, and trucks. In fact, on June 5, 2026, the South Coast Air Quality Management District awarded $190 million for 31 battery-electric switcher locomotives and supporting charging infrastructure, the largest award of its kind. Electric freight locomotives are also widely used around the world, and there are more than 2,500 non-polluting heavy-duty trucks operating across the country today. The Barstow International Gateway project was proposed and paid for by Burlington Northern Santa Fe, one of the largest Class I railroads in the United States, which enjoyed net profits exceeding $5.475 billion last year. Despite repeated attempts for years by members of the public and the Sierra Club, the East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Center for Biological Diversity, collectively the ‘petitioners,’ requesting the city address the deficiencies in its California Environmental Quality Act environmental review for the project, the city failed to, among other issues, adequately disclose, analyze, and mitigate environmental impacts before approving the project. The city’s findings and statement of overriding considerations, adopted in connection with the project, are also invalid both because they unlawfully purport to override impacts that can and should have been analyzed and mitigated more fully and because they are not based on substantial evidence supporting either the purported benefits of the project or the environmental effects being outweighed, including the adverse economic consequences of such effects. For all these reasons, we ask this court to issue a writ of mandate directing the city to vacate and set aside its approval of the project, certification of the environmental impact report, adoption of related findings, statement of overriding considerations, and mitigation monitoring and reporting program.”
According to Agelidis, Szeto, Fitzgerrell, Hahm, Broderick and Alston, both Barstow officials and Burlington Northern Santa Fe took advantage of those who are to be most directly impacted by the project because those being hurt most are too impoverished and unsophisticated to fight back and are in large numbers what are defined as “protected racial and ethnic minorities.”
“Approximately 25,415 people reside in Barstow, including over 40 percent Hispanic or Latino residents and over 19 percent Black or African American residents,” according to the lawsuit. “Only 13.2 percent of Barstow residents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher coupled with a median household income of $53,380 compared to the $100,149 median household income in California. An estimated 23.1 percent of the population earn income below the federal poverty level. CalEnviroScreen, the California Environmental Protection Agency’s health screening tool, identifies census tracts in Barstow as having an overall pollution burden as high as in the 86th percentile, meaning these census tracts experience more pollution than 86 percent of all census tracts in the state. The area also has census tracts that are in the 99.9th percentile for asthma and cardiovascular disease. Residents in and near the project area are exposed to more diesel particulate matter than 97.8 percent of census tracts, more ozone than 87.8 percent of census tracts, and more traffic impacts than 73.5 percent of census tracts. The Mojave Desert exceeds federal public health standards for ozone and particulate matter.”
Barstow municipal officials shortchanged the community by failing to carry out an adequate assessment of the environmental impacts of the project, Agelidis, Szeto, Fitzgerrell, Hahm, Broderick and Alston maintain.
“On or about February 15, 2024, the city issued a notice of preparation of a draft environmental impact report and notice of public scoping meeting for the project,” the lawsuit states. “On or about March 13, 2024, the city held a public scoping meeting for the project. On or about November 9, 2025, the city issued a notice of availability of the draft environmental impact report. On or about November 10, 2025, the city released the draft environmental impact report and circulated the document for a 56-day public comment period for the project. On or about November 13, 2025, the city issued a notice of completion of the draft environmental impact report. On or about November 21, 2025, petitioners submitted a written request that the city extend the comment period by an additional 45 days to allow for adequate evaluation of the lengthy, complex, and highly technical draft environmental impact report, particularly in light of the federal government shutdown, attacks by the federal government on communities impacted by the project, the lack of Spanish translation of the draft environmental impact report, and the comment period falling largely over the holiday season. On or about December 30, 2025, 6 days before the original deadline and 39 days after petitioners submitted their request for an extension, the city extended the public comment period for the draft environmental impact report from January 5, 2026, to January 12, 2026. Numerous organizations, individuals, and agencies, including CARB [the California Air Resources Board] and and SCAQMD [the South Coast Air Quality Management District], submitted comments highlighting flaws in the draft environmental impact report.”
According to Agelidis, Szeto, Fitzgerrell, Hahm, Broderick and Alston, “The draft environmental impact report is internally inconsistent regarding the project’s truck trips. The draft environmental impact report estimated the Barstow International Gateway would process 108,405 trucks per year in 2028, 137,605 in 2033, and 169,725 in 2048, but also stated the project will move significantly higher numbers of containers by trucks—128,000 in 2028, 160,000 in 2033, and 200,000 in 2048. Reasonably assuming one container per truck, these figures cannot be reconciled, and the draft environmental impact report offers no explanation for this disparity. By presenting contradictory, unexplained, and misleading information regarding the number of the project’s train trips, the draft environmental impact report fails to provide an accurate, stable, and finite project description. For example, the draft environmental impact report is internally inconsistent, without explanation, regarding the number of trains that will pass through the Barstow International Gateway over the course of the project’s lifespan. At one point, the draft environmental impact report anticipated 24 daily freight train pass-bys in 2028 and 35 in 2048. At another point, the draft environmental impact report assumed 32 trains per day as a present-day baseline and anticipated 37 trains per day in 2028, amounting to a 5-train per day increase. At yet another point, the draft environmental impact report assumed the existing trains per day total 45.3, and that this will increase with the Barstow International Gateway to 134.9 trains per day in 2048, amounting to nearly 90 additional trains per day. The draft environmental impact report’s project description for the Barstow International Gateway is inaccurate and severely underestimates the project’s impacts by relying on faulty and inaccurate assumptions in the trucks analysis, which underpins the project’s entire environmental impact analysis. For example, the trucks analysis relied on nationwide ‘reduced on-road truck trips’ and ‘reduced diesel fuel usage’ figures without adequate justification, and this conceals the true, localized impacts on Barstow and the surrounding region. The trucks analysis also rests on unenforceable assumptions that Burlington Northern Santa Fe will not replace supposed truck trip reductions by increasing cargo volumes at Burlington Northern Santa Fe railyards in the region. Moreover, because the trucks analysis failed to disclose critical information, including where the project will generate additional truck trips, omitted sources, underlying data, and assumptions, and presented an incoherent, scattered document that is not accessible to the public, the draft environmental impact report’s project description is inaccurate, inconsistent, and unstable.”
Those seeking to prevent the project from proceeding are the ones shortchanging the Barstow community, Southern California and the entire nation, according to Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad spokeswoman Lena Kent. The $4 billion investment into the facility in Barstow will be a boon to the local economy, bringing in much-needed employment to the area, she insisted. Furthermore, Kent said, “The Barstow International Gateway will allow for fast, efficient and cost competitive rail service, moving goods on trains directly from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach through the underutilized Alameda Corridor to Barstow.”
Kent emphasized that what Burlington Northern Santa Fe is offering to Barstow and the Mojave Desert is “a state of the art master planned intermodal facility, with fully integrated rail and transload capability for a streamlined supply chain. This will include on-site warehouse development, access to the fastest intermodal route and the world’s largest hub network and a more sustainable supply chain solution.”