Environmental Groups sue RivCo over 1.2M square-foot warehouse in Thousand Palms
THOUSAND PALMS, Calif. (KESQ) - Environmental groups filed a lawsuit against Riverside County today over the county's approval of a 1.2 million-square-foot warehouse that activists say would increase air pollution and interfere with local habitats.
Green-lit in Feburary, the proposed Majestic Thousand Palms warehouse project has the potential to attract more than 500 diesel truck trips on a daily basis, according to a statement from the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs. A CBD statement argued that the complex's construction and operation could both cause measurable harm.
The warehouse will be located north of Varner Road and Bob Hope Drive.
A number of smaller completed and planned warehouses already exist in the Coachella Valley, including a currently-in-construction Amazon-operated storage facility in Desert Hot Springs, slightly more than half the size of the newly approved facility.
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The American Lung Association's 2024 air quality reports found that six of the seven American cities with the most year-round particle pollution are in California, although none are in Riverside County.
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Co-filed by the Center and the Sierra Club, Thursday's lawsuit alleges that the county's environmental study for the project ran afoul of the California Environmental Quality Act and did not adequately account for factors including greenhouse gas emissions, housing scarcity and local endangered species -- such as desert tortoises, golden eagles, California red-legged frogs and burrowing owls.
Burrowing owls were named as a "candidate species" for protected status by the California Fish and Game Commission in October, meaning that they receive interim safeguards under the California Endangered Species Act until a final decision is made.
According to the Desert Sun, the building was proposed and approved "on spec,'' or without a certain purpose, although documents suggested the structure could be purposed as a distribution center.
Although the opposition from environmentalists was brought up at the February meeting that eventually resulted in the warehouse's approval, county planning staff remained in favor on the basis that they believed the concerns had been addressed, in addition to the county report's estimate of 1,200 new jobs.
As mentioned in the county's environmental impact report, the project would also set aside 2 1/2 acres to be "developed with a joint [Imperial Irrigation District] electric substation.''
"All we're asking is for county leaders to follow the law and take the environmental risks seriously,'' said CBD attorney Frances Tinney in a statement. "A project of this scale has the potential to devastate a
community, so it's especially important to hold the logistics industry accountable for their polluting operations."
