Monday’s trial could open up the latest chapter in a long history of industrial air pollution in West Oakland.
OAKLAND — The long “coal war,” as it has become known in Oakland, will come to a head at a trial Monday that pits a prominent East Bay land developer against city officials and a chorus of environmental activists trying toIt’s a fight that has stretched on for more than a decade since developer Phil Tagami first received approval from the city to build a large marine terminal for bulk goods at the former Army Base in West Oakland, just across from the Bay Area Toll Bridge on I-80.
At the heart of the dispute, though, is the question of whether Oakland’s port will participate in a pollutive coal industry, harboring bulk commodities that arrive by rail from Utah to be shipped overseas. The history of the project has been complicated by technicalities, flip-flops and accusations from both sides that the other was working in bad faith.
The city then sued in 2018 over a lack of timely construction–the trial that will begin Monday, with a county judge to decide on the project’s future after both sides agreed not to present the case to a jury. “My clients kept trying to give them what they asked for — a ‘no coal’ deal — and the city kept coming up with reasons not to do it,” McConnell said. “We said that it was a federal issue; it’s not up to us to change the law.”There’s a long history of environmental fights in West Oakland. Last year, state Attorney General Rob BontaEagle Rock Aggregates from building an open-air sand and gravel plant at the city’s port, citing the heavily polluted local air.
The “effects are borne disproportionately by the most vulnerable, including infants, children and the elderly, people of color, those with low incomes, and those with underlying health conditions,” reads the study by UC Davis researchers, commissioned by a California Air Resources Board.
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